fandomhigh | Communication - Period 5

Mohinder perched on a desk at the front of the classroom, until he felt sure the last of the students had arrived.

"Good afternoon," Mohinder stood up. "I am Dr Mohinder Suresh and, for the remainder of the semester, your replacement communication teacher."

"A red light at a junction. The uniform of a police officer. Even the words I am speaking now. All deliberate human communication depends on a common frame of reference, a convention agreed to by all those involved - however many or few," he paused, smiling. "There is little satisfaction in insulting someone or confessing your heartfelt secrets while the other party remains unknowing."

"But if we want to limit communications we can change our conventions - speaking in code, or another language." Mohinder glanced around, "How else might we limit communication?"

Mohinder picked up a mini-whiteboard and held it up, showing 'V'. He flipped it to show four vertical lines crossed by a fifth. Again, to show five dots as on the face of a die. And finally, he held up the board showing the number '5'. "Humans can express themselves using a variety of symbols. A variety of contexts, all with the same meaning. Yet these signs can be completely arbitrary; I could call this," he tapped the desk, "a hippopotamus; the name of something is only true while we believe it."

"I'd like you to ask each other, or myself, questions - verbally." He gestured to the stack of mini-whiteboards on the desk. "But use one of these to give your answers. Symbols only, no words. With a limited scope, how do you represent yourself so someone else can understand you?"

~~Please wait for~~ OCD is up.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

He'd been arrested? Well.

Inara blushed. She certainly wasn't drawing that on her whiteboard, no matter what the rules were for the discussion. Instead, she drew a candle and a teacup and a book. "What did you do to wind up in jail?"

John thought for a minute before drawing a can of spray paint and fireworks exploding. "Have you been taking advantage of your quiet room?"

More blushing, which probably told John more than anything she could draw. Which...involved a smiley face. "Are you in a lot of trouble?"

John drew a stick figure with a huge frown and a mullet.

He smirked, "I'm glad someone's having a good time this week. How was your holiday?"

Unfortunately, Inara didn't know about mullets, though the frown looked a little bit familiar. She drew a bunch of balloons on a television, then three stick figures in front of it, looking very confused. "Did you go home for yours?"

Ahh, parades. Very confusing. John didn't erase his angry mulletted stick figure. Instead, he added a TV, a dog-like thing, and a female stick figure.

"Did you get to eat any turkey and stuffing?" It was the important part, after all.

Inara forgot and shook her head. "What's stuffing?"

John tsked at her and drew some semblance of a turkey body with stuffing coming out of it. "How have you never heard of stuffing?"

The picture of stuffing was pretty darn disturbing, and Inara turned a little greenish. For lack of any other ideas, she drew a little alien, with a big head and small, skinny body. "Did you have a nice time?"

Stuffing in general was kind of disturbing. Not as disturbing as the thought that if Inara counted as an alien, so did his girlfriend. That was just creepy. He drew another smiley face in response.

"What's your favorite food?" He figured this was a safer question than more holiday talk.

She grinned, then drew a very rough approximation of a pineapple. "Yours?"

He smiled, drawing a sandwich on his board. "How do you like our new professor?"

Communication - Period 5 - Thursday Nov 29

Re: Ask each other questions

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