Mad Kings and Queens: Raving Royals and How to Survive Them. -- Wednesday, May 14th, 2nd Period

[atreideslioness]

As people entered today, they might notice the desk were missing.  Instead, it was outfitted with a wide variety of Roman couches and pillows strewn about the room.  There were also a number of wine jugs and goblets filled with various moddable non-alcoholic beverages.  Ghanima was perched on a lectus, a goblet of spiced coffee in her hand as she browsed her notes. 

Once everyone had found a spot, she looked up and smiled.  "Good morning, class.  As a fine example of a mad royal, I lied to you last week.  The syllabus is not ready today due to RL moving smacking the mun upside the head.  However, since we have just left the waters of Italy, I felt today would be an excellent time to discuss Nero, a Roman emperor who is famous for reputedly laughing and singing as his city burned."

( Burn it all down... )

Ghanima turned back to the class, tapping her marker against the board.  "Many of the surviving sources paint Nero as insane. It is not known whether they are speaking figuratively or literally, given the political climate.  It was not uncommon for 'madness' or 'depravity' to be used as political weapons, even then.  Recent scholars are divided in attempting to ascribe a medical reason for Nero's behavior, citing as possibilities encephalitis, epilepsy or meningitis, especially considering his family history of madness, and the fact that his brutality and erratic behaviour increased as he aged.  The question of whether or not Nero was truly insane, however, remains unanswered." 

"Now, I'd like us to discuss a few different things; do you believe that Nero was mad, or merely slandered by unhappy rivals?  If he was insane, what do we think caused it?"

"Miss Liddell, Miss Levine, and Reno, may I see all of you when class is done?"

[OOC:  Please wait for the OCD done.  Enjoy!  Availability for the teacher will vary today, but hit me on aim if you need me to tag in somewhere.  See store for details.]

Paranoia & First Aid, Period 5, 21 May '08

[offthelisthero.livejournal.com]

The Danger Shop looked blue-lit, the room stretching off pale into the distance, a few stools and covered trolleys near Mohinder. Looking up at the group of students from his position - sitting, balanced on his ankles, with a plastic, dressed, human-sized figure in front of him, and said, "Today, resuscitation of an unconscious, non-breathing adult."

"First make sure the airway," he tilted the figure's head back, "is clear. Check for breathing, and circulation." Mohinder held two fingers to the pulse of his throat. "If you find either of these on the dummy's, let me know."

"Else you need to perform CPR." Mohinder quickly went through the basics, lacing his hands together to force the compressions and exhaling into the dummy's mouth.

He stood, picking up a defibrilator paddle from the trolley, "You're unlikely to find these outside a hospital setting, but once you've tried manual resuscitation, anyone who wants to practice with one of these is welcome to."

[OCD is up!]

Galactic Vacationing - Wednesday

[veryarthurdent.livejournal.com]

The Danger Shop was set up like a park with trees and a pond and ducks. Well, they were blue ducks. Blue ducks with teeth. The sky was an odd colour too, pink to satisfy the galactic portion of the workshop even though they weren't really doing all that much today. "Okay," the Doctor said when a significant group of people had gathered. "Last week didn't exactly lend itself to introductions. You all know who I am. When vacationing on your own, it's a good idea to get to know the people around you. Pick up a friend in the lobby of a hotel or in a park," he gestured around, "and get to know them while you're running around madly. Go on then. Get to know each other today, since you'll be running around with each other over the next few weeks. Show some manners. Name, when and where you're from and somewhere you want to visit."

Functional Fashion, Thursday, Period 1

[mistressofblack.livejournal.com]

"I'm going to start off today," Lulu said, once the class had arrived, "by discussing a completely non-physical function of clothing. Ms. Waldorf touched briefly, in fact, on this very subject last class: one function of clothing can be to affect the opinions of those who see us. Chad has kindly agreed to be my TA for the class, which means that he will be modelling outfits for me. Chad, if you would come out, please?"

The outfit that Chad was wearing [in center, on AJ] was perhaps best described as 'grunge'. "This is more typical of the late 1990s, but is still the kind of casual, everyday outfit that would be chosen by a certain niche market of disaffected youth," Lulu continued. "Typically referred to as 'grunge'. It is almost explicitly designed to be casual and functional, in that it keeps you warm and isn't something you need to work terribly hard to keep clean. At the same time," she said, nodding to Chad to indicate that he could go and change into the next outfit, "it doesn't give off a terribly professional, or in any way interested, attitude. It shows more that you don't care about your appearance, and while that is perfectly fine in some groups, most especially among friends, in many social situations that kind of attitude would be counter-productive. Unless you wanted people not to like you.

( Which brings us to the next outfit. )

"Do not," and here her words seemed almost underlined, "do not wear grunge or a leisure suit to a formal event."

[OCD coming is up! And no, I couldn't resist having Chad in AJ's clothes. I'm around for a little longer tonight, and then I should be around daytime tomorrow, as well, until about 2PM Eastern, after which I've got a meeting at work followed by a date.]

The History of Sex: Workshop 2, Period 3 (Thursday, May 22)

[tinkerbitch.livejournal.com]

( Romance Novels: Where the Women are Desperate and the Sex is Vague )

Flight and Flying; Thursday 5/22

[crazypilotman.livejournal.com]

Murdock had the Danger Shop all set up, and was standing just under the fuselage of the only aircraft around. Though it was fairly large in size, it had a rather old-style appearance.

“Afternoon class,” Murdock greeted cheerily. “Today’s session is going to be just a bit different. We’ll be working as a crew instead of with individual aircraft. Flying one of the most famous bombers in history. Well, Earth history, at least.”

“The Boeing B-17, nicknamed the Flying Fortress.” ( A brief history lesson for ya. )

“During the course of our run, everyone will take a turn at the controls. While the B-17 doesn’t have autopilot, it does have dual controls, one for the lead pilot and one for the co-pilot. So we’ll switch off in mid-flight by rotating people through. As someone will have to man the controls at all times.” He smiled brightly. “Or else we all go down. Ready?”

(ocd is up! a'comin. plz wait. same routine as last time; up for awhile, sp tomorrow, blah,blah. and *no* I did not plan it this way, it just happened. Fandom landing outside of Normandy just has good timing. weird)

How to Be the Best at What You Do - Thursday, Period 2

[gimmemoreteams.livejournal.com]

In the Danger Shop again this week, Logan had gotten in just early enough to write "CREATIVE THINKING" on a blackboard. That's right, a blackboard. None of this dry erase stuff. There was also a fountain off to the side. There was a reason for that.

"When it comes right down to it, if you wanna be the best at something, you're gonna have to get creative about it," Logan said. "If you're fighting, you need to give your partner something he's not expecting. If you're growing flowers, you've got to figure out how to breed something to set you apart. If you're just plain fast, you're gonna want to figure out how you can use that besides just running around, up, and over stuff."

"So thinking creatively is one of the first building blocks you're going to want to put down if you actually wanna be the best. If you can work on that, you've got a head start to being better than you already are."

"So to check out how creative you kids are, we're gonna do some creative problem solving. Nothing that's likely to bruise you this time. Maybe next week on that. You've got two choices. If you want to do group work, you can play a little game called Roshambo. You probably know it better as Rock-Paper-Scissors or something like that. Only thing is, you can't use rocks, paper, or scissors in this game. You have to figure out what you can use to beat your partner and give a good reason why it beats what they came up with. No nukes, no natural disasters. But if you want to choose a bow and arrow, you better have a good reason for how it can take out a rhino."

"If you want to go solo, I set up a logic puzzle. You probably saw it in a movie sometime. Here you have a running fountain," Logan said, pointing at a fountain off to the side. "Here you have an empty water bottle that can hold five gallons and another one that can hold three. You need to end up with exactly four gallons of water in the five gallon bottle. Only problem is, somebody cut a hole in the bottom of the three gallon bottle. But you have a garbage can over there with all sorts of crap you might be able to use to help you out. Figure it out."

[OOC: And now we get into the meat of what this workshop's going to be like. Enjoy the next few weeks, kids! Heading to sleep shortly, but I'm home early on Thursday, so Logan will actually be around a bit.]