Bluffing: Can't Read My... [Period 5, Wed]

[doubleohblonde]

Bond had his class meet him in the Danger Shop, which didn't look anything like a class room, what it did look like was a high end casino with a high end poker table and Bond in the dealers position. A stack of blank, white poker chips sat in front of each place at the table. Once everyone had arrived and taken a seat, he opened a deck of card and started shuffling.

( I wanna hold'em like they do in Texas plays )

[Class Roster]

Live Entertainment Appreciation, Thursday, Period 5

[furnaceface]

This afternoon's class was, according to a note that Jono had left on the board in the classroom, to meet him on the Causeway, where he was waiting for them in his usual long coat and army boots attire. He waited a few minutes there for everyone to arrive, since it wasn't exactly a long hike from the school on an island Fandom's size, and then he launched into what was going to more or less pass for a lecture today.

It was going to be shorter than usual, since his throat was still feeling a little on the raw side. He was pretty certain his students would cope, somehow.

"Welcome to Live Entertainment Appreciation," he greeted, giving a look around at the students assembled. "I'm Jonothon Starsmore, just Jono or Jon will suffice, and I'll be your glorified babysitter for the semester. If you're here, I'm going to assume that you either have some interest in the entertainment industry, or you really wanted to avoid taking classes that involve actual academic material. There's not a hell of a lot of rhyme or reason to the little field trips we'll be taking every Thursday. I suppose pretty much the only common thread tying them together is that they involve going to experience something live, generally as members of an audience."

Exciting? Jono would probably look more thrilled if he hadn't found out about this class on the weekend, leaving him with a handful of days to prepare a syllabus around trying to help win a war in another reality from afar.

"A few basic rules before we step into our portal. First, we stay together, as a group. I'm not coming back to the island without any of you, especially since these trips are going to take us to some places that are rather far from here and there's a chance you'll have to do battle with Portalocity alone otherwise. Second, you're all representatives of Fandom High while we're out there. Behave as such. If I have to step in to tell you to stop acting like idiots, I will put serious thought into keeping future classes in the Danger Shop, and that will be a shame. It's lifelike as hell in there, but not even a sim can properly replicate the atmosphere of a live event. Plus, I'll probably spend the rest of the semester picking on you. I'm a vindictive bastard like that."

Well. He was.

"I'm going to take a quick headcount before we take off. As you get in line, introductions. Name, class, and one form of entertainment you've always wanted to take in live."

When introductions were through, he waved the students through the portal. On the other side, they'd step into a quiet hallway, from which Jono ushered them into a much noisier section of arena seating.

"Welcome," he said, taking a seat himself, even as he bunched his shoulders slightly, obscuring the bottom half of his face from view under his upturned coat collar, "to the roller derby. If you've never heard of it, sit back and watch. It's fairly self-explanatory. And if anyone wants popcorn or drinks, they're on me when the vendor comes around."

Yes, students. This was Jonothon's idea of a brief class introduction lecture. Enjoy the Roller Derby, all.

[Open!]

Current Affairs [Thursday, September 5, 2013]

[professor-lyman.livejournal.com]

Josh looked up from his iPad as his students arrived in his non-Danger Shop classroom, but he went back to reading and drinking his coffee until they'd gotten themselves settled in.

"Sorry, I was just catching up on the latest out of Syria," he said with a light smile, putting his coffee down next to the cake that had inexplicably appeared on his chair when he'd arrived. "Welcome to Current Affairs, or as I guess should be made clear on this island, current affairs for the United States in September of 2013 where as far as I know, aliens, vampires and giant robots have not invaded. And I'd know: I worked in the White House for the last twelve years, so I've got a clearance so secret I can't even tell you the name of it and have the diplomatic rank equivalent to a four star general."

So there.

"Since you've signed up for this class, I'm gonna assume it's because you want become slightly more informed about the world around you than internet trolls on news sites who blame everything on Obama or Bush in poorly spelled all caps comments, and because of that, you're gonna have to do some reading. We had a team of interns at the White House who would go through all of the major newspapers and websites to put together daily clips for us to read. It looked something like this--" he pointed to a giant stack of papers on his desk, "--and we got it on our desks every morning. In addition, I read the Washington Post, the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Chicago Tribune, the LA Times, and a couple of politically-centered papers as well: Roll Call, The Hill, the National Journal...and a bunch of blogs, too. I'm also following a number of news sites on Twitter, which is a great resource to plug into non-American source of news."

He paused. "I realize now that makes me seen a little obsessive, but my job as a professional political operative was to know this stuff, and to understand how what we were doing was being spun by the media. You only have to pick one source of news--or Buzzfeed and another source of news because every story can't be summarized with cat gifs and start reading it before class each week."

Josh glanced at the iPad again. "The Washington Post has a really handy article called 'Ten Things to Know Today.' I'll read off the issues and then we'll just go from there--ask me any questions you have, start a discussion with your classmates...I want you to mix it up and I expect people to clash on their opinions." His expression turned stern for a moment. "But please stay polite...ish." This was from a man who'd told a Senator to cram his legislative agenda up his ass, so Josh's definition of polite wasn't everyone's. He scanned the news. "Okay, we'll talk about eight of these because I can't think of anything I care about less than who Scarlett Johansen is marrying and sports isn't really the focus of this class. Everything else is fair game."

With that, he read off the other eight news snippets that are linked above because Jesus, Josh talks forever.