An Alaskan cruise? I am jealous in ways that didn't exist until I read your post! 
Have fun. I know when I go on vacation in September I won't be thinking of anything except what I'm eating next!
I'm back from the cruise (it was great) and am currently in the process of excavating my desk at work. I may be a bit slow in the next day or two as I work to catch up.
Welcome back!
Did your captain dodge the icebergs really well? 
You know, I'm working on my teacher idea, and creating a character out of thin air with the better part of a century of life lived is an amazing amount of work. There's just SO much in the way of "travel > need to check local history at this point in time > how does this work with the established OoH history" going on. Ugh!
Mind, it's enjoyable - just very time-consuming.
Well, waiting for your character and Severus's characters is part of another reason for the pause. And I'm not in a hurry.
Yet another reason for the pause is I'm relatively slammed at work, and busy with some home improvement projects.
Wait - what? In which thread are you waiting on me? I've read through them all, and I don't see anything that I need to respond to?
Building your teacher character. I'm not waiting on it so much as taking advantage of a pause in the action caused by my work situation and people's summer vacations...
Oh god, I forgot all about this.
I'll see if I can come up with a concept. Am I absolutely required to create a teacher character?
No, not at all, but it will give you more to do, with an older character.
I have problems creating apprentices; I don't know if I'd get an older character correct.
Any chance I could take an existing/canon character from somewhere in Mythic Europe and import them into the game as a teacher?
We (the troupe) can coach you towards correct, the important consideration is to build a concept you'd like. And the teachers are rather good for creating things that are suboptimal for play. For example, at some point I'm going to bring in a Bonisagus who has Unstructured Caster and Rigid Magic (which means he can only cast spontaneous spells).
Ok, I've got a concept. But I'd like to run this by you first before diving in.
I'm looking at TMRe, and I'm intrigued by the possibility of Hermetic Arithmetic. Numerology, Geometry, Architecture - all of these are potential areas that I do not yet see as listed in the chart of the teachers and what they teach. So I'm thinking about a Hermetic Architect, who teaches all 3 areas. Numerology leads into Geometry, and the 2 combined lead into Architecture. At least, that's the way the book reads, anyhow. I'm not sure if I would be touching on Divination, although Numerology does lead into that as well.
Not sure on Virtues/Flaws other than the 3 mentioned above. And this is probably coming a bit close to yet another lab rat (I'm getting stuck in a rut here with my characters), and I might take Short-Ranged Magic to show he cannot really do much if he isn't holding/touching an object.
Is this a viable subject to be taught?
As a rule, most of the Mysteries wouldn't be taught at the school, certainly not to anyone below a 6th year. I think focusing on Mysteries before one is old enough is a good way to slow down the development of a character. This usually happens about 15 years post gauntlet (PG). That being said, some Mystery paths make better sense than others for being taught in a school, and all of the Arithmetic Magic ones are good candidates for being taught at a school. Hermetic Alchemy and Lesser Philosophic Alchemy are also probably decent ones to be represented at the school.
So I can't say it's exactly viable, but such a character might develop something of a name for himself, and in his two free seasons a year when he isn't teaching, he could initiate some of the older students along a path. Initiations, like Opening the Arts of a student with Supernatural virtues requires one on one instruction, just mainly to keep the idea of mysteries mysterious. I'd already considered that any mystery house would have their initiations into their outer mystery happen during an appropriately timed extracurricular season, or perhaps the summertime, this could work for some of the Mystery Cults, too.
So, it's not quite a yes, and not quite a no, it's more like, let's figure this out as we go along.
Everything you said is about what I figured. The Mystery Cults are odd at best, and not all of their teachings belong in an educational setting. But I thought that the Arithmetic ones might make sense, even if they wouldn't be formally taught for a few years. However, the foundations of mathematics can be taught, with some theory regarding their Hermetic usage maybe?
Sure! Artes Liberales (and Philosophiae) have their users in Hermetic Magic.
We did see a pretty big iceberg in the Tracy Arm Fjord. (And the captain dodged it quite nicely.) But most were relatively small. We were also lucky enough to go farther up the fjord toward the glacier than any cruise has this season. Weather conditions were perfect.
I must have lost it, how much initial Hermetic Instruction xp did we get? In other words what did we all start with once we got instructed?
15 xp. As much as Clement can give
Slight problem with creating the concept I've got: Initiation. I'm assuming that, being older than a normal starting character, this guy would be Initiated. In fact, he almost has to be in order to take the Virtues I want to take. How are we going to deal with this?