Comparative Culture, Tuesday, Period One

[doubleohblonde]

Bond was back in front of the class today. The desks where pulled together to form one long table, the contents of which were covered by drapes. This was not at all foreboding.

"Good morning, I trust you had a pleasant weekend," he greeted them with a smile. "Which actually brings us to today's topic. Because one of the many products that are affected by various cultural factors is confectionery. What's considered a snack rather than a dessert, flavours, types, ingredients, methods of production, even names, all these things can be culturally dependent, to the point that even items that are superficially the same, say a bar of milk chocolate, can be completely different when produced by different cultures." He most definitely wasn't saying anything about the differing qualities of British and American chocolate there, of course not.

"So today we'll be looking at a sample of offering from various countries and cultures." He removed the drapes covering the desks to reveal a vast array of bowls containing various kinds of sweets. "I'd like you to consider if there's any items or flavours here that you'd not have considered as confectionery before, and what kind of differences there are in items that you are familiar with. Also do enjoy yourselves."

Sometimes, Bond was a cruel, cruel man.

[Class Roster]

How To Get By In A Hostile World, Wednesday

[suitably_heroic]

"So if there's anything I found out in our first class, it's that a lot of you are really terrible liars," Atton said. "Well, not really terrible; if you were really terrible, I'd have figured out the exact truth without trying. But you're bad enough to make any sentient with half a brain go 'I'm pretty sure you're hiding something', which is about the deadliest sentence in the galaxy."

He sat down on his desk. It was kind of his thing.

"We've already talked about making your first impressions work for you - that's one kind of actually effective lying. Let people believe what they want to believe anyway, maybe feed the fire a little bit, and you'll slip under everyone's radar. Which, when you have a secret, is pretty much all you really need."

He shrugged. "Well, unless your thing is making up really weird lies and then people just stare at you." Not that he knew anyone like that. Sparkle. "But your best bet is to come up with something you can actually make yourself believe in."

"Anyway, this week, you're going to try and lie to your fellow students," he said. "We're taking a page from Ethics class and playing two truths and a lie. You tell the class two things about you that are true, while you lie about the one thing. If you're smart, you use the truths to hide the lie. Don't bring up anything you don't want everyone else to find out about as a lie, by the way, because that's just asking for trouble."

Atton crossed his arms, finally. "My name is Atton Rand, I was orphaned when I was about your age, and I was born on the most peaceful planet in the galaxy. There, that's mine. Now let's hear yours."

Heroic Tales, Wednesday, Period Two

[toteshammered.livejournal.com]

For the first time in a long time, class was not in the Danger Shop at all, but a regular classroom. Well, regular classroom sans desks and plus a whole bunch of oversized beanbag chairs arranged in a half-circle formation.

"It has been a while since we've done any actual reading in this class," Thor observed. "So I thought perhaps we could do some today," he produced a stack of Y-People comics and gestured for everyone to take one, or several. "The Y-People are a group of 'superheroes' who possess abilities beyond that of the average Midgardian. Because of this, the people of their world treat them with fear and uncertainty. Despite this, the Y-People use their abilities to protect those who fear them from other dangerous individuals or events. Now, it is easy to say that one would fight to protect one's loved ones, or friends... but would you take up arms to protect someone who hated you, or leave them to their fate?" He wasn't going to press for answers to this particular question, so if anyone didn't feel like chiming in... well, there were plenty of comics to read instead.