Learnin' with Mr. Peanutbutter, Thursday, period 1

[hollywoostar]

"Welcome back, students!" Mr. Peanutbutter greeted at the start of the class. "I hope you all had just really terrific Thanksgivings. I know I did! What a great break from everything that was, huh? But now, it's time to get back to work. The work . . . of Learnin'."

In case anyone had forgotten the central conceit around which this sham of a class spun.

"This week, I thought we would go back to that grand ol' topic of Home Economics. Sure, we covered some sewing before, but there's apparently way more to running a home than being able to make your own witch's hat! Who knew?! I know I didn't. Still, while I've been told repeatedly by numerous people that I am not great with the 'economics' side of things, if there's one thing I do know, it's how to make a house a home." Tennis balls. The secret was tennis balls. Also, photos of dog butts. "So today, I thought it'd be fun to take a look at some different styles of homes and what might go into making them as homey as possible." He passed out a sheath of floorplans that might look a bit familiar to some of you. Take a good long look, folks, because homes this size would not be affordable to the majority of you any time soon. "I'd like each of you to pick two homes and point out some of the challenges that you might face living in each. For instance, if I lived in . . . Shelman and Leopard's apartment, I might have some trouble with picking out what to do with that extra bedroom. Or even choosing which bedroom should be the extra. Neither of them even have a master bath. How crazy is that?" He shook his head and laughed. "If you manage to finish that early, I have some little cutouts of furniture you can play with and rearrange around the apartments. Try to create a 'conversation nook' in some of these open floorplans. It's not as easy as it looks!"

Ethics, Thursday, December 1, 2016

[sith_happened]

Anakin came in looking slightly rumpled. The Coke bears had insisted on hugging him on his way to class. "As you might have noticed by the weird bears on campus today, it's December in Fandom," he began, "which means there will be weird things happening every day. Be glad today isn't the one where only eggnog comes out of the water pipes. That makes for a horrible shower."

"But, considering the spirit of this planet's holiday season," Obi-Wan took over smoothly, "We felt it was important to focus on something else. Namely, the notion of giving - charity. Often considered something of an ethical virtue."

Anakin nodded. "Either to your friends and family, too people in less advantageous economic circumstances than you, or just to complete strangers, people are encouraged to give either or their time or their money, especially this time of year. Now, is this something you agree with or would this be considered something uselessly soft in your world?"

"This world also knows the concept of 'paying it forward'," Obi-Wan said, "The idea that you do a kindness for someone, and they will do a kindness for someone in return, and so on. Do you consider that realistic?"

"The idea with that being that eventually some sort of karmic balance will make you the beneficiary of something nice, too, I believe," Anakin said, nodding.

"So please, do discuss," Obi-Wan said, "And if you believe in it, perhaps think of a way to... pay it forward."