Newspaper Club, Journalism Room, Monday after classes

[iwishiwasbig.livejournal.com]

As he looked over this week's paper, Dave couldn't help but wonder if he should have dropped an editor's note about Annie's opinions being her own and not necessarily representative of the Fandom High Times. As he thought about it more, he realized that he probably should have.

As he sipped some coffee, he decided that if anyone threw anything at him, he'd probably assign Annie to investigate how to get people to stop throwing things at him for what she wrote.

Basic Strategy, Monday, Period 4

[halfman-lion.livejournal.com]

Class met in the Danger Shop today, which had been transformed to look like a sailing ship. It was only after a few moments spent exploring the vessel that most students might notice the crisis: A huge, jagged hole in the side of the boat was letting water into the lower decks, and smoke was creeping up from that area.

"Welcome," Tyrion said, once he was confident the situation had become apparent to most of the class, "to a sinking ship. As this got me into trouble last time, I must stress: The ship and the sea are feigned. None of you will drown on my watch."

That point made, he went into his main lecture. "Your situation is as follows. A group of four of you have chartered this boat for a weekend trip. None of you have much sailing experience -- if you do, pray put it out of your mind for the moment -- so the ship is being sailed by a hired captain and his mate. Overnight, a fire broke out on the boat. When the ship's crew went down to investigate, they were swept away and are presumed lost. Because it happened overnight and the boat has been adrift for several hours, you've only the faintest idea where you are. Your best guess is that you're about a thousand leagues southwest from the nearest land."

"The fire is out, but the ship won't float much longer. Most of the ship's supplies have already been damaged by the water and smoke. However, you have saved a wooden lifeboat, plus the following items" -- he gestured to a pile of things to his left -- "and whatever's in your pockets, with one exception: Due to our remote location, your telephones are useless. However, you may assume at least one person in your group has some means for starting a fire. Any powers you have are in play as well."

( List of rescued items back here )

"Your job for this class is to try to come to consensus with your group about the five things you'd want to save the most. After that, climb into the life boats and set off in hopes of rescue."

[OOC: OCD up, come play!]

Library, Monday

[faithandscience.livejournal.com]

Today was yet another day where William was dealing with penguins, it seemed. Although at least this time they weren't actually live ones.

Just gummi penguins.

Smallish piles of them, scattered randomly about the library's shelves. Around the third time he put a book away only to be dealt a cascade of the things to the head, William gave in to the urge and popped one in his mouth.

Huh.

Peach flavour. Not bad.

Defending Yourself [Monday, Period 1]

[furious-maximus.livejournal.com]

This week the Danger Shop was configured to be a nice tropical island, but rather than being on the beach, Max had everyone on a hiking trail running along a cliff that looked down on the ocean. For his part, Max was wearing his patented Reassuring Smile*.

"We've talked about fight or flight responses," Max began. "And if you remember back to the beginning of the semester, we talked about terrain, and how sometimes you want to run just far enough to get into a better position to defend yourself. But sometimes that's not what you want to do."

Max's grin became More Reassuring™. "But sometimes there isn't a better place to run to, and in cases like that, your best option, sometimes your only option, is to just keep running. If you and whatever you're trying to get away from move at roughly the same speed, or if you have enough of a head start on something faster than you, then you can get away if you have more endurance than whoever or whatever is chasing you. And endurance is an interesting thing because there aren't really a lot of techniques you can teach about it. It mostly just comes down to practice."

"If you've taken any of my other courses, you'll probably be familiar with how much value I put on running for endurance building." And running as a way to keep students occupied. "For those of you who haven't taken a class with me before: congratulations, you get to have some real fun today."

Max waved his hand, gesturing up the trail. "This trail runs along the edge of the cliff most of the way around the island. It's uphill for a bit, and then a nice, easy slope down toward the beach." There was that grin again. "When you get to the beach, you get to relax for the remainder of class time." And since the beach was three miles off, Max figured they'd really appreciate the break. For however long they had left after arriving.

"So I won't waste any more of your precious relaxation time by putting things off." He waved up the trail again. "Let's get to it, folks."


* the narrative makes no specific guarantees about this expression being even remotely reassuring.

Food Tour of Fandom [Mon, Period 2]

[doubleohblonde]

This morning, Bond was wearing what looked suspiciously, one might even say exactly, like an old Fandom High gym uniform. This likely had nothing whatsoever to do with the fact that the Danger Shop was set up like a movie theatre.

"So, yes, beer," Bond began. "I believe I touched briefly upon the ubiquity of beer last week, but merely saying beer, or other similar alcoholic beverages, are a staple of many culture's cuisine doesn't quite do it justice. Recorded evidence of beer dates back to some of the earliest remaining human writings, and there is some debate amongst archaeologists and historians as to whether the first beers were a by-product of bread-making or the other way around. Some even speculate that the beverage was instrumental in the formation of many early civilisations. While I'm unsure if I agree with this thesis or not, today we will be watching a documentary along these lines, exploring some of the impacts beer has made throughout history."

[ooc: wait for ocd up]

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