Criminal Justice, Friday, Period 1

[amthenight.livejournal.com]

The Danger Shop was a dark cityscape today. When the students walked in, they would find themselves in the middle of a nearly empty street while signs of activity were coming from other blocks.

The only thing on the street right here, though, was a very snazzy car. Oh, and Batman, standing in front of it. "As you're aware by now, I don't have any powers. And yet I patrol and defend one of the largest cities in the country in my world. Doing that takes planning, forethought, contacts, and vehicles."

"I can and do get around on the rooftops, both running and jumping across them and using a grapple to swing around them," Batman explained. "But there are limits to how fast I can run. When I need to cover several miles quickly, I generally resort to one of three vehicles."

( Very loosely based on an actual story from my week. )

Library, Friday

[selfhelphero]

Technically, Billy was in the library, ready to help anyone who needed help or check out any books that were just dying to go home with someone (metaphorically dying--literally dying books would probably be confiscated). But anyone who needed him would have to find him under the blanket pile on the chair at the front desk.

Seriously, what was the point in being a super awesome magic user if you couldn't magic a head cold away?

[The OCD is hiding and freezing its butt off.]

How To Steal A Princess, Friday

[icebabytoocold.livejournal.com]

"Next week is a holiday and I won't have to see any of your grubby little faces," the Ice King said rather than a polite hello. Because those were for chumps. "Which is good because I'm sick of you all."

Especially Sia and Emma for some reason. Weird, right?

"So today we're gonna make hand turkeys."

Wait, what? How did that factor into Princess stealing?

"Because a lady likes to know you have a sensitive artistic side. Even if you're lying about it." Ah, that sounded more like it. "Get to work so I can use them to attract ladies."

Yeah, they weren't even for your own use.

And he didn't seem like he was going to explain how to do it as he had Gunter pass out the construction paper and markers.

Cultural Exploration [Friday, 2nd Period]

[so_hawkward]

Anyone who was good at reading people might have noticed that Clint's smile was a little faked today as everyone made their way through the portal. "Hey guys, our original portal wasn't working this morning, so we've made a little detour instead to Budapest," he said. "This is the capital of Hungary, in Europe, and while the city's pretty old there's still a lot to see and do. It's also a pretty safe place to visit." Not that he knew anything about that personally, really. "Today, we're going to pretend like we're really cultured. If you're already cultured, congratulations, you've got a head start."

Space, Friday

[not_a_whiner]

"Today, we're going to dive into history and talk about humanity's first baby steps into space exploration," Kaidan said.

He paused. "Well... sort of. We're going to be talking about Mars. Now, in my time, it's been home to a large science compound for a long time. We found information there... archives, buried by a civilization that died long before we got there. But it took us a long time to find it."

"The first people who tried to land on Mars were the Russians. This was in the days of the Space Race, two giant Earth nations battling it out over who could get the furthest in space." He smiled briefly. "They sent a bunch of probes towards Mars in the 60s. None of them made it there. Some burned up in orbit, some they lost contact with halfway in. The Americans soon joined them in trying, but it was the Russians who successfully landed the Mars 2 probe on the planet. Well... crash landed. But the first soft landing wasn't far behind - Mars 3 touched rock a couple of days later, and managed to transmit data for all of fourteen seconds."

He whistled. "Kind of impressive," he said, "At the time."

He sort of even meant that. "It was the American Mariner 4 that managed to grab the first images of Mars in 1965. It was the first time anyone on Earth had seen the surface of another planet. Later photographs showed that there might've been water on Mars at least once in the past. They kept working at it, and in 1975 it was the American Viking landers that touched ground and managed to stay functioning. We got even more evidence that there used to be water on Mars. But there was only so much they could do. It wouldn't be until 1997 that we actually put something up there that could move around - the Sojourner rover."

He displayed a picture on the holographic screen.

"We kept looking. We kept gathering data. And last year - local time - NASA put another rover on that planet. This time, its mission was to check and make sure Mars had really been habitable at some point." Beat. "Just to save you the excitement - yeah, it was."

He called up holographic screens above everyone's desks. "I could tell you about that," he said, "But I'm not sure how much my future checks out for all of you. Besides... this might be an interesting moment to learn something about the history of space exploration. There's a sim that lets you drive the Curiosity rover. I want you to go through it today."