Public Speaking, Tuesday, January 8, 2013

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

"Hey there," Josh said, standing behind a rostrum at the front of the room. "I'm Josh Lyman. You may all be suitably impressed now."

Yeah, it never worked in Fandom, but a guy's gotta try, right?

"Before I returned in glory to Fandom High School to teach you fine students, I was the Chief of Staff to President Matt Santos," he continued, "and before that I was the deputy chief of Staff for President Josiah Bartlet, and before that, I worked for various House and Senate members on the Hill. And before that, I got degrees from Harvard and Yale."

Be impressed, dammit!

"And in all of those places the ability to be articulate in front of large groups was absolutely crucial," Josh added. "If you can't make your point in a way people'll remember, there's no point in you even being in the room. This class will teach you how to be remembered."

He reached onto the shelf on the rostrum and pulled out a bullhorn, then tossed it to the nearest student. "And the first part of being remembered is making a good first impression. You each have fifteen seconds to get me to remember your name. Go."

Industrial Arts, Tuesday

[not_a_whiner]

"Good morning," Kaidan greeted the students as they piled into the Danger Shop. It had been set up much like a regular shop class, with working benches for everyone to sit at, tools hanging off the walls and several machines of varying types sitting in the open spaces. "Welcome to Industrial Arts. For those of you who haven't met me, I am Lieutenant Commander Kaidan Alenko. You can call me by my rank, or you can call me Professor - whatever you're comfortable with."

But he was enough of a stickler for authority that he wasn't going to immediately offer up Kaidan. Not that he'd call anyone out for using it, but... no.

"We won't be using any of these machines today," he added, "First I'd like to get an impression of who you all are and how much experience you've got. That way, none of you are going to have to sit around bored by me plowing through basics you already know. It also means I can get a feeling for how much you know about safety regulations."

He pointed at a sheet of paper hanging on the wall. "I know this is the Danger Shop, but that doesn't mean safety isn't important. In the future, you might work with the real stuff, and then there's nothing that'll keep you from losing a finger. So: no shoving or horseplay during class. Don't wear long or loose clothing or jewelry while you're in class - that's an easy path to an accident. And always pay attention to the instructions before you use anything. I don't care if you think you've got it all figured out - do."

He patted a stack of laminates next to him. "I'll be handing these out in a minute. Safety regs for all the machines," he said. "I don't have any TAs yet, so if any of you are interested, come talk to me." ...The segue made sense in his head. "Okay. That's the, uh, stick in the mud stuff. Here's what we're going to be doing."

"I'm going to divide the time we have up into blocks of three weeks. Every three weeks, we spend time on something else, be it woodworking or auto repair. While all this is going on... you work on your own project." He smiled briefly. "See, at the end of the road, there's not going to be a final - you're going to be facing off against each other. I want each of you to find a partner and spend the next thirteen weeks working on a battle robot of your own design. The last week... well, we see who survives. We're an uneven class, so one of you can do it on their own - or with my help. Your choice."

He cleared his throat. "Okay, so much for class plans," he said, "Now I'd like each of you to let me know your name, how much experience you've got with engineering, and... something you'd like to build before you die."