So You're In the Middle of a War, Monday, Period 4

[cataclysmicluck.livejournal.com]

This was probably unexpected coming from Zayne, but class today was taking place at the school's shooting range.

( Bang. Bang. Vwoom. Vwooooooom. Pew pew pew. )

Poetry 101, Monday, 8/06

[withoutverona]

"There is a game," Romeo began, once the circle of students was assembled, "much loved by surrealists, called exquisite corpse."

"None die in it; none have died in it, unless by laughing. In it, each person writes down a word or two on a piece of paper and passes it along without looking, until the results are deemed complete and read aloud. The name comes from the first sentence generated this was -- 'Le cadavre exquis boira le vin nouveau.' The exquisit corpse will drink the new wine."

"This is not precisely poetry," he allowed. "But it holds the potential for it. But today, you will generate poetry in much the same way. The laptops on your desks are open to a random text website. Your assignment is to take the chaos it spews out and cut and shape it into a poem. I'll read my own first effort."

picture- cards, Jacks --
which I thought it to it, Pip, their lameness;
and going on the leg of her learning to bed,
may be truly say quarterly or months,
instead of people know how she put me down.
`Now,'
he was a design for the dark man,
and her right by the way behind the sound.
To top of the appearance of the head
and sit me down.
`Now,'

He finished there, and somehow it had almost sounded like poetry when he read it in that tone -- except for not making any sense.

Library, Monday

[faithandscience.livejournal.com]

The library today was... filled with paper airplanes. Well, perhaps not quite filled, there was still room to move, but they covered every available desk surface, and could be found in between the stacks.

William swept a few of the airplanes off the circulation desk only to find a book entitled "SECRETS OF HOW TO MAKE A PAPER AIRPLANE."

The library was open and airplane filled!

[ooc: OCD-free cause that's how I roll today.]

Practical Philosophy, Monday

[endsthegame]

Ender was still holding a cup of coffee from the Starbucks branch at the Baltimore Portalocity terminal in his hands when he arrived; he'd ordered the largest size, and still sipped it from time to time even though it had gone cold.

He had another portal back to Coruscant in only three hours-- a day would have passed back there, and he would probably spend some time sleeping to make up for lost time earlier this morning.

Now, though, he was outside again, sitting down on the lawn, putting the coffee between his legs. "Sorry about the lack of food," he said. "But I'm currently in the process of hurrying back and forth between here and my partner's galaxy on account of a minor crisis. Nothing for you to worry about, though."

He scraped his throat. "I didn't want to go into this last week because for some of you, the issues at hand might have still been too fresh," he said. God knew he'd been reeling himself, and the nightmares still hadn't gone away-- but he was ignoring that now. "But I'd like for us to talk about identity, and what this island does to it."

"I'm sure at least some of you have been asking yourselves the question, 'how much of that was me? Whatever it was I did, was it my fault?' It's a question for which there are no easy answers. In fact, it's an ancient argument in many fields: is it nature that defines us, or nurture?" He glanced over the faces of his students. "Because in the case of this particular week, our nurture was decidedly different. Or rather, to use a word less tied up with child-rearing, our circumstances."

"There are people who'll say that you won't know who you are until you're pushed to your extreme, and that's a valid point," he said, "Though I'd nuance it by saying that who you are at your extreme is just another part of you. It predicts what you would do in certain situations, but it isn't a worthwhile indicator of a full bonafide human being. Would you do the things you'd do to an enemy in an extreme situation if the situation was not extreme? If you could talk to them, reason with them? Would you do it if it was someone you loved?"

"Or would you balk? Would you sacrifice yourself in one situation but not in another? Of course you would. You're human." He took another sip of his cold coffee. "This is one of the reasons why debates about ethics always become complicated, and even our resident class with Professor Skywalker won't prepare you for the realities of it. There are people who say they won't kill who will become murderers, and people who say they would who never do. Some of it is circumstance and some of it is who they are-- we aren't simple creatures, except for when we are."

He put his coffee down. "But I could lecture on this topic for a very long time," he said. "I'm more interested in letting all of you squawk for a while. What did you do that week, and was it something you thought you would do? Is it something you think you might do here, if the circumstances are right? What if they're different? I'm not looking for ethics here-- I'm absolutely the last person who has any right to pass moral judgement on anything. I just want to know who you think you were and who you think you are, and whether you think the two have any connection whatsoever."

Art Games, Monday, P2 [Week 6]

[flashesforinfo.livejournal.com]

After last week’s movie time, and the week before that (which Angela was still avoiding thinking too much about thank you very much). It was about time they had everyone let loose. That was what this class was going to be all about.

The message had gone out telling everyone to make their way to the Danger Shop for class today -- and to wear old clothes or clothes that they didn’t mind getting very, very messy; and when they arrived, they would find a very un-class-like setup to the room.

There were two long yellow lengths of plastic that were lined up side by side and not only were they covered with different paint trails, the fountain at the end of the strips were spraying paint and the very end of the slippery slide was a small, indentation of a pool that was attached to the slide. That was also filled with paint.

Surrounding each slide pool were very large pieces of white butcher paper.

“Today, you’re going to get completely messy and there is no way around it,” Savannah said with a little more of her usual cheerfulness. “After all, sometimes you can’t remain clean when you get lost in your art -- or you’re trying to do Expressionist works.”

They might’ve been looking forward to this particular class for a while... Angela spread her hands. “This activity might just be aiming for a two in one.” Or, it might just be an excuse to throw paint around. With these two, you could never quite tell.

No, you never could and that was why they were an awesome teaching team.

“The idea is for you to run and throw yourself down the slippery plastic. You’ll go all the way down it, through the paint fountain and into the pool. From there, you’ll roll or crawl onto the white paper -- thus making your own unique painting.”

Angela kicked a bucket of balloons near their feet. “If we don’t think you’re getting messy enough, we might just help out.”