Getting to Know Your Own Backyard Two, Monday, Period 1

[uncertain_dume]

"Hi, everybody." Hera was grinning today, visibly a bit excited. "Hope everyone's doing okay." She waved them all into the ship, hurrying just a little. "Today we're going to explore this system's main asteroid belt."

"We flew through it a few times on our way past Mars last term," Kanan offered. It's located more or less between it and Jupiter, and it is karking huge."

Just take a moment to once again appreciate that you hadn't been flattened by giant space rocks in classes past, kids.

( We're going to spend a bit more time in it today! )

Library, Monday

[intotheout]

Thanks to the weekend's festivities, Tip had a bunch of books about sexuality spread across the desk, which she was flipping through and reading bits off when she had downtime on her shift. She hadn't been super particular when she grabbed the books, though, so there were occasional raised eyebrows and urges to throw things.

"People are terrible," she told Bill. "You're lucky you're not one."

And now her robot was pouting in the corner.

Great.

[open!]

Understanding American Holidays, Monday - 3rd Period

[imafuturist]

"Alright, welcome back to class. I hope your weekend was fun," Tony said. "Today we'll be moving onto the next major holiday of the season: Labor Day."

He made a bit of a face.

"Okay, so 'major' might be pushing it, but it's still a holiday people spend money on. It generally marks the last gasp of summer vacation and a three day weekend of sales. We celebrate in style like that," he said dryly.

America was great like that, kids. It just was.

"That's... honestly about it. It's sort of a throw away holiday. So, today will be a movie day for you all. Enjoy."

Sciencing Things Sciencily: Sciencing Harder, Monday

[whatisclocks]

"So what about that rainbow, like," Philomena began her class.

The little black chicken sitting on her shoulder took that moment to hop off, landing on the floor in a flurry of furry feathers and noise. It began to wander across the floor, looking for a besandaled foot to maim.

Philomena hardly seemed to notice. "Nobody is certain why rainbows happen," she said. "Though apparently one appears in the sky every time a gay person gets born, like. So maybe a rainbow comes from a uterus, after a man and a woman like each other very much and then get tipsy on martinis and watching that one show where men don't wear any shirts and go 'round biting people."

A beat.

"So nobody knows if rainbows have been 'round since before the telly happened either," she said. "Maybe in the stone age gay people had to make their own rainbows by throwing loads of colors at the sky, like beetles and stuff. It's sort of a chicken and the egg thing when you think about it, which I haven't very much until today."

She glanced out the window. "Or maybe I have it all wrong," she said meditatively. "Maybe it's just space aliens who get really happy and stuff. Or someone flew up there and painted it on and we can only see them sometimes 'cos they did such a rubbish job of it. Like when they paint a house and they say it's cream, but it's really just white that turns a funny shade if you squint at it."

She shook her head. "They say Noah said a rainbow, but I don't think that's right, 'cos he would have had to throw beetles at the sky to make the reds, and he only had two beetles on board. And we've got plenty of beetles now, so he couldn't have murdered them," she added. "...Unless he built his own beetles afterwards. He did know how to build stuff. Also Norse people thought it was sort of a bridge, I'll bet they were really surprised when they fell right to it and landed splat all over the pavement."

Did they have pavement then? She wasn't sure. "Anyhow, that's about it for rainbows," she said. "I want you all to go on the telescope and see if you can find 'em painted on up there."

There was no telescope. But there were binoculars. Close enough, no?