Shop Class; Tuesday, First Period [09/03].

[special_rabbit]

Despite the fact that it had not at all been an issue all the previous times she'd taught this class, Amaya still couldn't shake that slight feeling of 'is this really a good idea' of having shop class first thing in the morning, where a bunch of sleepy kids might be operating heavy machinery, but it gave her an excuse to have a huge samovar of coffee available to them, about half of which she was probably drinking herself. Not that she was barely early for her, she just really liked coffee.

"Morning, everyone," she greeted the class with a nod and taking note of familiar faces and new ones, "and welcome to Shop Class! I'm Amaya Blackstone, your instructor, and I've been teaching this class for way longer than I care to admit." Which wasn't even that long, but, to be fair, teaching was something she had once upon a time filed in the Never Gonna Happen, Bud cabinet, so this was all still a bit weird for her. "Please, help yourself to some coffee if you like. It's early and we're working with heavy, dangerous, and sharp things in this class a lot, which means you'll likely want to be good and awake unless you maybe were planning on losing one or two fingers. Speaking of which, that's our first order of business: safety. We have a wide range of personal protection materials that you will be required to wear for most of these projects, no ifs, ands, or buts! If there is an issue regarding any of them, we'll get it resolved, but I expect everyone to have at least their eye protection and a pair of work glovves in this class, sometimes an apron when we're working with hot metals and a hard hat on occasion. If you've got steel toed boots, that's not a bad idea, either. Today, it'll be just gloves and goggles, because we'll be working with a jigsaw, which is a tool we'll use quite a lot in the class.

"Now, the jigsaw can be pretty simple to use if you're used to working with machines like this, and pretty easy to pick up on if you're not as familiar." With that, she gestured them all to follow her over to one of the lathe work stations and started in on showing them how to use it, easily able to shout her instructions over the sound of the whirring blade as she demonstrated.

"We've got both hand jigsaws and table mounted ones; the first will give you a little more freedom, but the second is a bit more controled. Feel free to use whichever you're more comfortable with, and if you're a little squeemish about either, let me know, and I'll walk you through it. Now, since it's the first week, our project using these bad boys is going to be cutting out letters for a wood sign with your name on it, and, once you've finished, we're going to use those as a way to introduce ourselves. And here's the best way to do that."

So she went over the process, explaining that she'd be using her A as an example: start with a stencil for your name, writing it out as big as you like, either onto the wood directly or, if you like, on paper, and then you can glue it down so it sticks and you can use that as a guide as well. Then time to saw those letters out! She did the outside of the A with the table-mounted saw, and then demonstrated with the hand-held to get the little bit out of the middle of the A. "Once your letters are all cut out, we've got sandpaper to make the edges all nice and smooth, and you can hit them with a little varnish if you want them to look a little shinier, and, while that's drying a bit, you can cut out what you'd like to use for a base to mount the letters on. Sand up the board a little, then we'll get out the wood glue to attach our letters. Usually, wood glue'll take a bit to dry, but I've got you covered. See those clamps over there by the heat lamps? Should be able to fit these signs right under there, clamp it all at once, and the heat'll make it stick quicker so we're not waiting all day. And, if you find yourself waiting for the others to finish up theirs, there's some paint and things you can decorate them with, if you'd like.

"Any questions? If so, please ask, because a five second question is much easier than a five finger accident. But, if not, let's get started, shall we?"

[[ ocd is up! ]]

Library: Tuesday September 3

[following_my_fishie]

Delirium had been accepted as a Library Aide by that very nice teacher, John Constantine. She liked him. He called her 'pet'. She wasn't his pet, no, but it was a nice word when he said it.

She made her way to the library after cocoa-bombing only not really bombing because that would be mean, she meant just sneakily giving him a cocoa as a surprise kind of bombing, and saw that the books had embraced the spirit of the season of The Spice.

Because it was everywhere. Mountains of it sliding off the shelves, books sliding down small mountains of it like they were sledding or skiing and flipping into the air doing tricks. Delirium caught one before it could hit the floor. "This is not how it works," she said, not unkindly, "You can't do this. It's messy. I don't think we're supposed to be messy in here. That's not how the spice works either. Here; I'll show you how it works."

And that's how a truly epic amount of gritty ground mixed spices became tiny paper cups of coffee. Not real coffee, it was paper coffee too because they were books but all of it was pumpkin spice scented. The books milled about with their tiny coffee cups sitting atop the pages and seemed very excited, like they were having conversations with one another.

They were behaving. That was the important part.

Special Collections.. the rules said not to go in. That's what the rules said and that's what the big shiny wards on the door said and she spent a moment admiring Constantine's handwriting because it really was very nice penmanship and she wasn't sure a demonic alphabet was supposed to look nice but it did anyway. The wards couldn't hurt her and she couldn't hurt them and she really was very curious, and so.. she walked through the door with a pleased little hum that she'd see what was inside.

Only to find herself on the rooftop garden. "Hey!" Delirium stamped, "That's cheating!" She marched herself back to the library and shook a finger at the door and tried again.

Garden again. "Oooooh, no, that's a bad door!" Delirium scowled, marching back to the Library and sinking into a sulk behind the counter. Glaring at Special Collections. It wasn't a bad door. It was, at the moment, an incredibly smug door, if a door could be said to have emotions at all - and honestly where Delirium was concerned it really could - because it was Doing Its Job. "I will get in there, you know," Delirium muttered, "I'll just have to be sneaky about it."

[Open! And so begins Delirium's eternal quest to get into Special Collections.]
[OOC note: Infusion day, I will be very slow and email pinging.]