The Art of Baking with Friends, Thursday

[justlurkinghere]

The classroom this week had mixers and flour and more than a few containers of live yeast for the students to look at. And, you know, actually use once the class started.

Just be glad glitter didn't go well with bread making, okay?

"Today we're stepping away from sweets to bake bread," Derek informed the class, looking serious even with a random bit of flour in his beard. Somehow that would have been Pinkie's fault. Let's be honest here. You could tell because -- well, Pinkie -- but also because she was completely coated in flour, herself.

"Bread making is super-duper loads of fun," Pinkie said, letting out little puffs of flour as she spoke. "There's loads of mixing and kneading and rising and pounding and rolling and sprinkling and. . . ." This just kept going. With appropriate hoof-gestures for each verb. It was possible she would continue quietly listing baking verbs in the background soundtrack for the rest of class.

Learn to live with it, class. Learn to live with it.

Derek had!

"We're going to make a very basic white bread," Derek said, ignoring Pinkie for the moment. "Most important about this recipe is making sure we don't get water that's too hot or too cold to activate the yeast. Test it with your thumb and it should basically be slightly warm for you. Higher than body temperature."

Unless you were an alien and that was different. In which case… sorry?

". . . and water-testing," Pinkie was saying. "And getting frustrated, and . . ."

Derek sighed like the mature adult he totally was in this situation. "Grab a mixer. It's not that frustrating, I promise."

Only a little. If the yeast ended up being too old. Goddamn yeast.

Library, Thursday (11/6)

[wildandbrave]

Every other book for reshelving this morning seemed to belong in the biographical fiction section, as Cosette noticed after her third trip into the stacks. While that was interesting, she didn’t really think too much of it; she was used to the library having certain themes on her work days.

They did make for something amusing to leaf through, at least; Cosette was content to entertain herself by flipping open the books to random pages just to see what they said, and wonder what the subjects of those books would think of what had been said about them.

The Art of Meditation and Kicking Ass [Thursday, November6, 2014]

[sith_happened]

Anakin was in soft pants and his tunic today as he stood in front of the class. "Today we are going to combine meditation and ass kickng," he said, "in a Chinese technique known as t'ai chi ch'uan. Now, if you've heard of t'ai chi before, you might have a mental imgae of little old Asian people performing it in a park, and it is a technique that has been shown to increase longevity and has moves that are supposed to be performed very slowly, but it's not just Zumba at three-quarters speed."

Yes, Anakin knew about Zumba. Shut up.

"The study of t'ai chi primarily involves three aspects," Anakin continued. "Health: An unhealthy or otherwise uncomfortable person may find it difficult to meditate to a state of calmness or to use t'ai chi as a martial art. T'ai chi's health training concentrates on relieving the physical effects of stress on the body and mind. For those focused on t'ai chi ch'uan's martial application, good physical fitness is an important step towards effective self-defense. Meditation: The focus and calmness cultivated by the meditative aspect of t'ai chi is seen as necessary in the stress release aspects of this art. Finally, as a martial art: The ability to use t'ai chi as a form of self-defense in combat is the test of a student's understanding of the art. T'ai chi is the study of appropriate change in response to outside forces, the study of yielding and "sticking" to an incoming attack rather than attempting to meet it with opposing force, which is very different from the other techniques we've studied so far."

He gestured to the students. "All right. Breathe in, focus, and follow along with the nice Chinese holoprojection."

Creative Writing--So Simple Even You Can Do It! (Probably)

[doesdoctorstuff.livejournal.com]

"So, cliches," Navaan said once class began. "They're pretty much language that's been beaten dead as a door nail. You want to avoid 'em like the plague and thick outside of the box when it comes to writing out your own prose. Sure, they explain everything you want them to, but it's pretty much going for the low-hanging fruit. Like fish in the sea, there are plenty of words out there to choose from. You can be a kid in the candy store when it comes to choosing words and descriptions. We've already talked about finding the best words to describe something, but that's just the tip of the iceberg! Find your own voice! Go to town with a thesaurus! You only live once, so isn't it better to experiment with words than to cling to overused phrases till the bitter end? When push comes to shove, you can do more with your own voice. Nip that cliched habit in the bud and soon your books will be selling like hotcakes!"