Resolving Conflict Without Violence, Wednesday First Period [Week 5]

[retired_hero]

"Welcome back." Anne offered the class a smile.

"Humans, and from what I've gathered, many other sentients, possess a survival mechanism sometimes called the 'fight-or-flight response'." Anne turned to write on the board, underlining 'fight' and 'flight'. "At its most basic level, the concept refers to ways that we respond to situations that we recognize as dangerous. The common wisdom is that we can face the danger, and fight it, or that we can try to escape the situation entirely, and take flight."

"Of course, not every situation lends itself to both solutions. It's awfully hard to fight an earthquake, for instance, though you might be able to develop technology that lets you control such things, for most people, flight will be the only option there. Still, the instinct remains, and I suspect most of you will know what I refer to when I say that in many situations there's only a split second to make a decision regarding which option to take, and once you've taken it, you're often committed to it."

"However, when interacting with other people, there is an additional option that becomes available to us." Anne turned, writing again. "Negotiate," she said, underlining the word. "Some people will add a fourth, but we'll skip that for now." Especially since Anne considered 'surrender' to just be an extension of negotiation.

"If the cost of both fight and flight are too high, or the chances of succeeding at either of them are too low, then negotiation often becomes your best choice for navigating a tricky situation. However, in most fight-or-flight situations, where you've decided that you're in danger, you'll be negotiating from a position of weakness. If you were operating from a position of strength, there wouldn't be a need to fight or flee, after all."

"And when you negotiate from a position of weakness, you will most often find yourself working hard to figure out how to give up as little as possible, but knowing that you're going to lose at least something in the exchange. In a high stress situation, where these sorts of things have to be decided quickly, it is important to recognize what it is that you value, and why."

Anne turned back to the board, erasing her earlier work and writing a new set of words.

Happiness of friends and family
Personal health
Acting morally
Material possessions

"There are a nearly infinite number of things that we, as people, value, but let's start with these four. Break up into groups and pick any pair of these. Discuss which you value over the other, and why. As always, probe one another, get into the details. Because the details are the important part of these sorts of discussions. And if you finish one pair, pick another two to compare against each other."

Iron Fandom, Wednesday

[spin_kick_snap]

This week's classroom set was all dark wood and chrome. A blackboard on one side had the "Iron Fandom" logo on it, along with some fancy chalk drawings of knives and cabbages.

The two hosts were joined at the judges' table this week by a cantakerous looking older gentleman who was shooting Raven dark looks.

"Really," he said. "If you'd simply mentioned there was food, I'd've been happy to come along without being dragged bodily."

Someone had handwavily missed being able to show his disapproval via emphasis yesterday, yes.

"I'll remember that for next time," Raven assured him, not looking even remotely chagrined.

"Well," said Jenkins. ". . . Good."

"It's just an hour-long imposition," Kathy said apologetically. "And then you'll be free to go, I promise. Think of it as being kidnapped to do radio, but with more food?"

Again, she wasn't doing anything crazy, like telling him he could go or anything like that. They had students to judge. But at least he knew it wasn't going to be permanent?

"Hi class, welcome to Iron Fandom--" Kathy paused for the musical sting they were still doing, five weeks later, "--and this is our special guest judge, er..." Oops. She hadn't gotten his name.

"Jenkins," said Jenkins, and wiggled his fingers at the students with a smirk. "Charmed."

"I hope you all —" she glanced over at Jenkins. "— all of you — like spice, because this week's secret ingredient is hot!" A pause. "Um. I think?" She grimaced and looked over at Kathy. She probably should have practiced this part. "Probably?" She was pretty sure when she ate it it had been spicy, but what if that had just happened to be a spicy recipe for it?

Er.

Kathy was not going to snicker. She wasn't. Even if Raven was kind of adorably clueless. "Kimchi," she said, taking over explanation duties, "is a staple in more Korean meals and has been for centuries. It's so ubiquitous, in fact, that many homes have a kimchi refrigerator in them, to keep kimchi fresh for longer. Like Raven said, many of them are kind of spicy, but there are about two hundred varieties available, made with different seasonings and ingredients. Most kimchi is made from pickled or fermented napa cabbage or Korean radishes, but the base ingredients can really be any kind of vegetable."

It was about then that Kathy realized she was probably going into waaay too much detail and subsided with a blush before she could start explaining which kimchi was appropriate for what season.

Well. At least Jenkins looked interested?

"That's right," Raven said. "We're going to make you guys make an appetizer, a main course, and a dessert out of pickled vegetables." She grinned. "Aren't you so glad you're in this class?"

Archaeology for Fun and Profit! [Tues, 1st Period]

[jedigrammarians]

Aphra had managed to dig up the movie theatre sim from the depths of the Danger Shop's memory banks, and was stilling sprawled in a seat with a bucket of popcorn. "So I thought about having a discussion of xenoanthropology, ethics, and how deciding people who consider strapping themselves to the top of several tons of explosives a necessary part of scientific development are just cute primitives is probably going to end badly for you today, but that'd be kind of boring unless actual explosives were involved, so we're going to watch a holo about archaeology instead."

Library, Wednesday

[era_two_triangle]

The books themselves seemed to be fairly well-behaved today in the library. It was the Gem who was acting a bit oddly. One minute she'd be following something around curiously, and then, at the drop of a hat, she'd turn on it and start terrorising it with her teeth.

The books were hiding from her, honestly. Which was an interesting feat in a room that was more book than anything else. But the way she was just hunkering behind the desk come early afternoon, ominously bathed in shadows, was just too much for any one library to deal with today. So the books were noping out on this one and not a single person could blame them.

Give her ten minutes and she'd be up on the desk and singing or something.

[OOC: This event is the event that I have always needed in my heart of hearts. Open, OCD-free, and spamming that random icon button for all it's worth today!]

Arts & Crafts, Wednesday - 2nd Period

[captainskullpoopl]

You know what happened this week, class? Your teacher actually showed up. Try to contain your shock over this.

Seriously. Contain that shit.

"Oh right, this is still a thing I'm doing," he said after sauntering on into class with a daiquiri. "So, we've still got a shit load of glitter and I got some beads--"

Did he need to chuck them at the class? Not really.

"Show me some Mardi Gras realness because apparently I was a few months late to it last week. Which is bullshit. I wanted some straight up debauchery, but noooo. Just humidity and day drinking. Such a rip off."

And that seemed to be it for the 'lesson' today as Deadpool hunkered down to finish his drink.