American History Through Film, Monday, Period 3

[screwyoumarvel]

"The Great Depression of the 1930s came about due to a stock market crash--it's a domino effect," Steve explained at the beginning of today's class. "Those with lots of money lost everything, and couldn't afford to pay the people who worked for them, so they lost their jobs and couldn't find new ones because no one was hiring. It was a hard, hard time for a lot of people--and, yes, much of my childhood. There are a number of excellent films about the Great Depression, but we can only watch one of them, and that will be The Grapes of Wrath. The movie is based on a famous novel, and it differs from the novel in its optimism, which I've always liked about it, and in that it removes a lot of the politics, which I don't care for about it. I hope you'll enjoy it," Steve said, and started the movie.

Cultural Appreciation, Period Four

[toteshammered.livejournal.com]

"I am told that 'deep frying' is a customary food-preparation process in parts of these United States," Thor began. "But it is not neccessarily limited to American foods! In fact, some nations in Europe and Asia have their own deep-frying traditions."

"Of course, some people say that deep frying is unhealthy, given that it involves submerging foods in hot oils. I have been assured," by Wikipedia, but let's not be too picky about details here, "that if done correctly, the food is not in the oil long enough for it to penetrate beyond the outer surface."

On one side of the room were several deep fryers, with a selection of moddable foods for frying- from French Fries (of course), to calamari and even, yes, bananas. Thor made sure to thoroughly go over the safety tips and instructions for anyone who wanted to give deep frying a try.

There were also several plates of various deep fried foods that had been already prepared- fries, pizza, bananas, oreos, calamari, steak, chicken, ice cream... you name it, for those who'd rather just eat.

Practical Philosophy, Monday

[endsthegame]

Another nice day, another class outside. Ender had brought two pitchers of lemonade and some cups to go along with the sandwiches - he was thirsty, and he assumed the students might tend towards the same, even if it had cooled off a little bit in comparison to last week.

"I hope none of you were hurt during the shark attacks yesterday," he said, settling down on his end of the circle. "For all that it does to twist our minds and bodies, sometimes Fandom likes to settle for more old-fashioned terrors."

He pulled up his legs. "Some of us are used to this," he said. "I don't mean here, but out in our home dimensions. I'm not, but my boyfriend is. We react to these events accordingly. My first instinct is to stay indoors and minimize the risk I might be running by going outside. His is to fight and protect. Neither of these approaches is wrong, even if his is more dangerous than mine. They're determined by the way we've been conditioned to respond to danger."

"Most people have probably heard of fight or flight responses," he added. "When confronted with danger, the average human will choose to either stand his ground and fight, or run away so he can fight another day. Part of the choice are rational concerns: is this danger likely to come back and trouble me again if I leave? How high are the chances of me surviving this fight? Mostly, though, it's an instinctive choice."

"I was raised in a military school. While there were threats from my peers occasionally, most of our trouble was psychological. You had a reasonable expectation that you wouldn't be physically harmed, and you were not expected to have to physically harm anyone to get out of a dangerous situation." Except for Ender, at times, but they didn't need to know that. "What aggression we did have was channeled into competitive games. Ben, on the other hand, was raised in the full expectation that he would have to go out and fight, and his enemies would not care too greatly about his personal well-being. He was taken out into the world to find and confront those enemies. His instincts are active: he seeks out conflict so he can fight it head-on and rid himself of it. Mine are passive: I won't fight until I'm actively forced into a fight-or-flight situation."

His mouth quirked briefly. You had to know him pretty well to detect it wasn't a happy smile. "I would have fought, if I'd gone out into that shark rain," he said. "So it's not a perfect example. But my instincts told me to stay inside, to minimize the risk that I had to fight. At the same time, I learned at my school that you can't flee from your peers - that if a danger was actively posed, there was no way to out-flee it, so the best choice was to minimize the chance it popped up. What were your instincts? Why do you have them?"

Charming Your Way Into and Out of Things, Monday, Period 2

[cannotdenyher.livejournal.com]

When the class met today in a regular classroom, the Spirit's hat looked a bit like it had been chewed on. There had been sharks in his town. Of course he'd been out and about trying to outwit them.

And getting inspiration for this session. "I hope everyone survived the weekend without too much damage," he said by way of greeting once the students had arrived. "Today, we'll be devoting some time to a discussion again. As you should all well know, charm – while useful in smoothing your way through life and its obstacles – isn't always the way to deal with things. Such as when encountering sharks raining from the sky. You can't charm a shark that's falling from the sky."

Trust him, he'd tried.

"So today, I'd like for us to talk about the alternatives. Come up with some scenarios where charm won't get you far, and we'll bounce the discussion off of those."

Introduction to Meditation | Tuesday | Period 1

[justonecondition]

Because it was thunderstorming outside, Bruce had had to shelve his plans to have class meet outside today in favor of meeting in the Danger Shop, which was programmed to look a whole lot like the outside. And in the interest of being true to the source material, the scene of nature that the Danger Shop was simulating was indeed a stormy day on the school lawn, though without the actual lightning or rain.

"Today we're doing nature meditation, but the weather isn't ideal, so we're just 'outside,'" Bruce said, making awkward air-quotes with one hand. "It's another eyes-open technique, which should give some of you something to focus on. Just find a place to sit or stand wherever looks comfortable, take in your surroundings, and try to absorb the sensory details of your surroundings without processing the meaning of it." He paused. "That's, uh, harder than it sounds. What that means is basically to notice what things look like, sound like and smell like, but not actually think about what you know they actually are."

Sounded fun, right?

"We'll do forty minutes today, which should give you some time to find somewhere to sit," Bruce said. "So... let's begin."