Hitting Things Makes You Feel Better, Thursday, 3rd Period

[wrongkindofsith]

Cara's class were once more in the Danger Shop, which looked an awful lot like the salle today.

"Teamwork. Even if you don't normally expect to be fighting with allies, knowing how to, and how to adapt your fighting style accordingly is important as being effectively able to combine strengths and cover for weaknesses will enable you to take on opponents you might otherwise lose against. If you can't, you might as well be fighting your supposed allies and doing your enemies work for them."

"So today we're going to be working on working together. Find a partner, stand other there with them, then we'll get started."

Defending Yourself Against Magic | Friday, period 2

[nuclear_snide]

The Danger Shop this week was simulating a forest glade in decidedly non-winter weather, bright sunlight streaming down on a perfectly smooth stone porch.

"Right." Bob clapped his hands. "So far we've been dealing with confronting magicians actively working magic. We'll come back to that later, but it's not the only sort of magic you may encounter. There are many different sorts out there, some active and some simply...there. The first step to dealing with any sort is realising it's in front of you. You can't deal with what you don't know's there. Some of you will probably find it easier than others, and you'll all likely find different types of magic easier or harder to detect. We're going to do ( two things )

Library, Friday

[crimson_sister]

Lucille had begun to look forward to spending Fridays in the library. It wasn't too busy for her to explore the shelves at random, picking up a book here and there, reading a paragraph or two before putting it back. There was also reshelving to be done, which offered similar opportunities.

There was an odd mumbling from a shelf in the corner, and she thought it best to stay away from that one.

[open!]

Advanced Driver's Ed: Driving Other Stuff, Friday, First Period

[10secondcar]

"We were supposed to start learning about boats today, but the Danger Shop isn't cooperating with me, so instead we're going to watch a movie about a boat," Brian declared. "Enjoy."

20th Century American History, Friday, January 29, 2016

[heroic_jawline]

Steve held up his Starkphone. "Of all the things currently used in this time period, the phone is particularly ubiquitous," he began. "Especially today, where it doesn't seem to want to shut up."

No one told Steve about Phone Day.

"Alexander Graham Bell patented the phone in 1876. The first telephone line was constructed a year later, and three years after that, almost 49,000 telephones were in use," Steve said. "Now I wouldn't be surprised if 49,000 devices were currently being used just on this island right this second."

Half of them Tony Stark's.

"There were 2.2 million phones in the U.S. by 1905, and 5.8 million by 1910. In 1915 the transcontinental telephone line began operating, which came in handy when we got involved in World War I and needed to make some calls. The phones were nationalized under the post office during the war, then turned back over to AT&T afterwards. But 1934, they were considered a 'regulated monopoly' and under the jurisdiction of the Federal Communications Commission. Public utility commissions in state and local jurisdictions were appointed regulators of AT&T and the nation's independent phone companies, while the FCC regulated long-distance services conducted across state lines. They set the rates the phone companies could charge and determined what services and equipment each could offer. This stayed in effect until AT&T's forced break-up in 1984. The all-powerful company had become popularly known and disparaged as 'Ma Bell.' AT&T's local operations were divided into seven independent Regional Bell Operating Companies, known as the 'Baby Bells.' AT&T became a long-distance-services company. And then everyone switched to cellular service plans, where you can carry around the entirety of human knowledge in your pocket and use it to find videos of cats playing the piano."

Steve put his phone down on the desk. "Now I didn't have a phone growing up. If you wanted to tell your neighbor something, you either hollered it out the window or sent your kid over to tell her. If you sent someone's else's kid over, it would cost a nickel. We still wrote letters if we had friends or relatives that were further away than the neighborhood, but that wasn't terribly common unless you were writing back to the Old Country or to friends or sweethearts in the war."

He pursed his lips a bit, lost in thought. "Anyway. Everyone here has a phone? Do you all know how to make the buzzing stop? Because I don't know about the rest of you, but I've been getting a lot of weird messages today..."