The Living City: Change and the Urban Environment, Friday, Period 3

[stillamthenight.livejournal.com]

Hey, class! Have an e-mail!

Class is cancelled today. I had to return to my city to take care of some Wayne-Powers business. I'll return next week with a new lecture. In the meantime, write an essay about how your home city or town has prepared you for Fandom, and conversely how Fandom has prepared you to eventually return home as an adult.

BW

[OOC: Sorry for the blow-off class! Still, do IC work!]

Student Council [Friday, Lunchtime]

[bigdamnprincipal]

The lunch fare was a little lighter today than normal - sandwiches, a big salad for everyone to share, and a variety of drinks - and Zoe looked a little more concerned than normal too.

"Good afternoon. I'm glad you all could make it," she said, giving everyone a once-over as they took their seats. "Once again, we don't have much to discuss - prom is sort of vaguely on the horizon, but not so close that we need to start worrying about it too much. I was hoping more to check in with all of you and see how you're doing."

That would be your cue to reassure her that you were doing fine, kids.

Staff Meeting [Friday Afternoon]

[bigdamnprincipal]

Zoe had met with the teenagers, now it was time to meet with the grownups after handwavily messaging them all about the meeting. There were more sweets among the sandwiches and salad for the staff - donuts, cookies, etc. - but no alcohol among the drinks unless someone brought their own. With this group, she pretty much expected it.

"Hello folks, thank you all for coming. I know some of you are very busy," she said. "I wanted everyone to have a chance to get together in case any problems have come up in your classes, or with any of your students. Also, we're going to be getting ready for the summer sessions soon, so be thinking about what you might want to teach and who you might want to teach it with. That's all I've got in the way of speechifying, so if you need anything, just flag me down."

[Going OCD-free today!]

Business Sense [Friday]

[begmetwice.livejournal.com]

"Hello, darlings." Yes, their teacher today was a bit different from their usual -- for starters, she was not wearing any kind of a hat. For another, Hatter would absolutely not be able to pull off her shade of lipstick. (Though Irene would pay good money to see him try.) And for a third, this teacher was still a little wary of the Danger Shop after some things she had been told last week (be as reassuring as you want, Kitty, she was still scared) and thus class was meeting in a regular classroom today, replete with a whiteboard and just oodles and oodles of art supplies on a table at the front. "Don't worry, you're still in the right place -- Hatter was kind enough to lend me his class today."

Or they had swapped and she'd spent Tuesday lying on her couch and thinking about how much she wanted to buy her old cellie back from Mr. Gaunt. Either way.

"For those of you who I don't know already -- and hi, Ezra, he didn't say I'd get to keep you this week -- " if he was here omg not modding " -- my name's Irene Adler, and ordinarily, I teach the personal style class on Tuesdays. But I also own and manage Dite's Decadent Delights in town, and prior to that, I ran my own private business out of my home. And while Dite's is rather -- self-explanatory, and perhaps doesn't need any advertising, my former business did. And so I'm here to talk to you all about branding today."

"So, branding," Irene explained, taking a seat on an empty desk and demurely crossing her legs, "simply means to create a brand -- something recognizable that people will associate with your business. Many businesses have trademark colors, or wording, and often logos," she gestured to a handout she was circulating, "that people will naturally associate with the business without a word ever need be scrawled upon it or uttered. In my case, I had a website, an app, and a name I worked under that were all fairly synonymous -- my clients knew what they were getting when they stumbled across any of my products."

"So today, darling friends, your assignment is to create your brand. I understand that you've named your businesses, and delineated what sort of product you're selling -- create yourself a logo with what I've got here," she gestured grandly to the highly moddable art supplies, "and think about how people will recognize your brand. Will you create a website? An app? A call-in number? Or will you stick with print media -- flyers, adverts, the like? How will you make your presence known?"

Powers, Identity, and the World [Friday]

[pasunereveuse.livejournal.com]

...so neither of the teachers had turned up today. And while Celia was actually inclined to worry, she had more pressing concerns -- namely that she was third-in-charge, here, and thus had to be a TA in more than just name.

Thankfully, she'd always been good at thinking on her feet.

"Good morning," she said, offering a slightly nervous smile when it was evident that everyone who was going to be here was here. "Professors Starsmore and Heartilly weren't able to make it, but we'll soldier through all right, I think."

"So, I don't know about the rest of you," Celia offered, carefully arranging her skirts as she took a seat on the desk at the front of the room and demurely folded her hands in her lap, "but I'm fairly -- worried about the climate. I was here for spring last year, the island didn't do this then, and...and something's clearly wrong."

Fidgeting a little -- being the center of attention when she wasn't performing was awful -- Celia added, "And that's without tapping into my other senses -- I've been actively resisting dipping into how the atmosphere feels, magically, beyond my necessary day-to-day. But sometimes, that's unavoidable. Sometimes our powers come with an unfortunate sort of sensitivity to everyone or everything around us, and there's nothing to be done about it."

She made a face, rolling her eyes. "And sometimes one doesn't need to be gifted with an extra sense or two to tell that winter's going on forever, or that the island's not blooming the way it should. So how do you deal with external factors weighing in on you? Meditation? Sleeping? Hitting things?"

Celia shrugged a shoulder, and added, "I guess that's our topic of discussion today, unless you want to go out and try to figure out what's wrong with the island yourselves. I'm not really that kind of a magic user, so I'm useless, but if you can talk to trees, by all means feel free to go do so."