Competitive Cooking - Wednesday, Period 3 [7/21]

[absolutesnark]

When Piper arrived, she placed a container on the table in front of the classroom. "Morning everyone. I brought brownies. Feel free to take one." She made them herself, of course.

"Today, the ingredient you're going to work with is cheese. That's a pretty easy one. You can make so much with it." She then went into a short lecture about what can be made with cheese, many of the recipes being Italian dishes. "Okay, so try to pair up with someone you haven't worked with, yet. As always, I'm here if you have any questions."

Beaching It [Week 3, Period 5, Wed. 7/21]

[missed-the-gate.livejournal.com]

Sure there were scattered thunderstorms in the weather report for the evening, but today, it didn't stop John from holding class on the beach. It was hot and humid and completely the type of day to take a dip in the lovely bay water.

Today John sat at their meeting spot, bathing-suited up as they all should be, with large blankets set up all around. On the blankets were covered platters. They'd see what was in them in a minute. "Hey guys, girls...Rose," John greeted them upon arrival. "Today we're gonna talk about the sun's effects on people. So we've got our swimwear, we've got our sunscreen, now we've gotta stop ourselves from getting too tired if we're spending the day out on the beach. Which means water." He picked up a bottle of water and shook it as a nice visual aid there. "You've gotta stay hydrated. Drink a lot. But be careful with the alcohol. Sure, you kids are underage and I won't be giving you the booze in class, but if you choose to drink alcohol and lay out in the sun, your hangover's destined to suck. It's the hydration thing. Drink more water."

"Now, who's wondering about the silver platters here? I know I'm curious as hell," John flashed a grin. "Kidding. Well, along with drinking more water, you should keep up your energy levels if you wanna be able to play longer...you can take that dirty or not, it still applies. So what's energy? Food! Under those nifty silver covers you'll find a variety of foods. Your job? Decide which are suitable for consumption on the beach and which should be avoided. Use your judgment and share your ideas with the group. Or just hang out and get a tan. I'm cool either way." And then he left them to investigate those silver trays.

Heroes v Villains | Period 1 | Wednesday | July 21

[flipped-god-off.livejournal.com]

Class was back in session and Loki had mostly recovered from his Bartleby visit this weekend. It actually made today's class topic a little more significant considering the circumstance. At least Bartleby wasn't around to smack him in the head.

( Traitors are... )

Carpe Diem: Making Your Lives Extraordinary, Period 4, Class 3

[carpe_demon]

Drake had commandeered the Danger Shop for class today and had had a fun time programming it that morning, if by "programming" you meant "poking at buttons and hoping for the best." It currently looked like an amusement park from hell, including a roller coaster, a drop tower, and...a pit of wriggling snakes (all non-poisonous) and a large glass box full of tarantulas.

There was also a blackboard upon which was written:

"You gain strength, courage and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You are able to say to yourself, 'I have lived through this horror. I can take the next thing that comes along.' You must do the thing you think you cannot do."

~ Eleanor Roosevelt

"Ella there knew her stuff," Drake said. "Sometimes people let their fear get in the way of living their lives to the fullest. Fear of failure, fear of rejection -- those are the big ones. And I could just stand up here and lecture to you about facing your fears and conquering them, blah blah blah, but instead I'm going to give you a challenge. Pick something here that scares you...and just do it. If you're afraid of heights, try the Tower of Terror. If you're afraid of snakes, jump into the snake pit. It's all a hologram, right? So you're not really going to get hurt. But it's a step in the right direction to conquering your fear, and if you can get over arachnophobia or acrophobia, you can get over any fear.

"Now, if you're not afraid of anything, then just have a good time. More power to ya."

Library [7-21]

[imonscholarship.livejournal.com]

Dan came into work a little late and with a giant cup of coffee in his hand. He was having a little trouble with the whole moving thing today.

Teevee For Beginners, Wednesday

[chosehumanity]

"Now we've talked about a lot of the more human parts of television. The watching, the shows, that kind of thing. But I can imagine that some of you have come into this class wondering just how we manage to stuff these images in a box in the first place."

Mitchell looked a bit more frazzled after the weekend - but he wasn't going to go into any of that. Not in front of his class. "Now we'd had film cameras for much longer at this point, of course. Using reflected light to burn images into a film strip very fast, so that if you played them back to back they'd look like something was moving."

He cracked a slight smile. "The history of television technology is a lot more muddled than that. A lot of different factors went into it: whether the people were ready for the idea of having film in the house, the willingness of companies to actually create and distribute TV sets, even though they might be sold at a loss or cut into their own profits, and the constant struggle for who got this patent or that."

"Depending on who you ask, people will answer the question of who invented television with any number of names, and I'm not going to go into them - it's confusing enough to us who've lived with the thing for the past few decades. The central problem of the TV was this: we do have these images on film, but how do they get to the people at home? You can't just send them in over the mail, that wouldn't work. At the same time, radio was very popular back then - which is a bit like TV but only sound, as you've probably found by now. TV had to become a middle ground between film and radio."

Mitchell held up a disk with a number of holes in it. "This is the Nipkow Disc," he said, "One of the first important inventions used for television. It could scan an image by essentially taking a bit of it at a time and casting it at another disc. It never really took off, but it was the start of invention - of what they called 'mechanical' TV. Analogue - you could see it working. The picture was small, and you could only ever achieve between thirty to hundred 'lines' - nowadays, a regular TV manages 525 lines on the screen at the very least. They were planning to use radio waves to project the images of one disc to another over a distance."

"But that technique had its flaws. At the same time, scientists had been working on something called the cathode ray tube since the late 19th century. A man named Boris Rosing first managed to produce an image with it back in 1907. The cathode ray tube is a little hard to explain, but the basic idea is that you've got three little guns that produce light in red, blue and green. You can how much each bit of your image has these colours, and then you communicate that information to TVs with their own three guns. It's... sinot that simple, but that's sort of the idea. If you can find a TV that's not digital, just look at it closely and you'll be able to see all the red green and blue dots of all the cathodes."

He rubbed at the back of his head. "But that's a bit complicated," he said, "Which is why I've brought this dummy." He nudged at the facsimile TV by his feet, which was half-broken-open so anyone could see the insides. "Have at, ask questions, whatever you'd like."

Contact Sports: Building Character (And Possibly...), The Preserve, 6th Period [7/21]

[weetinyreese.livejournal.com]

Kyle was in no way in charge of the class today. Calvin was. Why was really anyone's guess. If, after Calvin's in-depth (which in Calvin-speak meant half-assed) explanation about how Calvinball worked on this particular day in this particular room at this particular moment, anyone was completely confused then that was perfectly understandable.

It didn't mean everyone couldn't play though. There was the standard Calvinball equipment in a haphazard pile on the floor, listed as follows: a volleyball (the Calvinball), a soccer ball, a croquet set, a badminton set, assorted flags, bags, signs, a hobby horse, a bucket of ice-cold water, a water balloon and a book on poetry.

There were enough eye masks to go around for everyone and they were an expected part of the equipment.

Really, it was a simple game to play, or so Calvin claimed, since you had to make up the rules as you went.

[OOC: You heard the completely modded with permission kid. The rules, they are made up! More examples of Calvinbaaaaaaaaaaaall!]