The Art of Haiku; Monday, Second Period [07/11].

[sake_shinigami]

Shunsui had considered calling off the class for the day, in light of an invitation from Rangiku-chan and Shūhei to see how many other Shinigami they could rouse up and drag out for drinks to celebrate his birthday properly, but that was for later, and still holding the lesson could be a nice, easy thing to gesture to should anyone (Nanao-chan) suggest any slacking off on his part. In fact, he could even make the argument that he'd held his class even though it was his birthday! Clearly, he deserved to let loose a little.

After thousands of years, Shunsui honestly didn't even care that it was his birthday, but he most certainly did care if it meant going out and drinking with some of his favorite fellow captains and lieutenants. And it certainly gave him a little something to look forward to. But, for now, with a clear sky and a pleasant morning in front of them, they'd be gathered again under the tree by the duck pond, ready to talk more about poetry.

Especially since today's lesson didn't exactly require...much.

(Most of them didn't, really).

"Ohayōgozaimasu, ducklings ♥!" Greeting them, of course, with his usual lazy, half-asleep sort of smile. "And welcome back ♥. If you'll recall, last week I tasked you all with an assignment,, to find a haiku to share with the rest of the class, so let us not waste any further time and get right to the reason we are here today ♥. Please, share your poem and why you picked it and we'll discuss its merits and faults a little before spending the rest of the time hoping the Muse graces us with her presence once more with a little more writing of our own ♥.

"Who would like to go first ♥?"

Coping with the Non-Modern World, Monday Period 5

[tellmehowstuffworks]

Once her students had assembled this week, Yennefer told them, "Once you have identified what you absolutely cannot live without, or what is going to make you enough money to make your life at least tolerable in your home reality, you need to consider the steps necessary to recreate it. For example, Belle mentioned Pop-Tarts last week, which at first I brushed off as merely a hand pie, simple to recreate."

Yennefer set a box of Pop-Tarts on her desk and opened it, then opened one of the packets inside it and extracted a single pastry. "For those of you who don't know, this is a Pop-Tart," she said. "Strawberry flavor, although I must admit I was astonished when I read the ingredients to learn that there are, in fact, real strawberries in it. As you can see, it is currently quite pale; you need to warm it in a toaster to finish cooking it, although many people do eat them in this state for convenience. So. How do you make these? You need flour, fruit, sugar, some kind of fat," she said ticking these things off on her fingers. "If your world doesn't have electricity, you can toast it over a fire; perhaps crafting some sort of basket on a stick for the purpose. Seems simple enough. But sugar has been, in some places and times, a luxury item, and isn't the real point of the Pop-Tart its convenience? These little shiny packets, how are you going to recreate those? What can you use instead to preserve your approximation of a Pop-Tart for later use? And that is leaving aside, of course, how unfair it is that now you have to do all of this yourself rather than popping down to the store to pick up a box.

"This week I want you to think through the steps necessary to recreate the thing you'd miss most about this world if you had to go home, and what you might need to work around or do further research on in order to be prepared. Some things, of course, are going to be rather more complicated than Pop-Tarts; some might be less. Where do you find surprising stumbling blocks such as, 'Wait, what is this stuff,'" Yennefer held up a Pop-Tart packet, "'anyway?' Let's discuss."

2Paint2Ball, Monday, July 11, 2022

[heroic_jawline]

Steve was back from his husband-assisted birthday off and was looking rested and relaxed. And slightly devious. "We're keeping the pockets of anti-gravity," he said. "You're advanced enough to work around it."

"He's upset he missed out on it last week," Tony whispered helpfully.

"Only a little bit," Steve admitted, laughing. "It sounded swell."

"We're also adding paint 'grenades' for you to try out along with the anti-gravity fields," Tony added.

Steve was doing an amazing impression of an excited golden retriever right now. "No powers, please. Have fun!"

British History, Monday

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

Jon fiddled for quite a while with the projector, trying to get it to show his screen. Look, he was an avatar of dread knowledge, not of tech support. Eventually, it showed a picture.

"John Blanke. Or possible 'Blak', there's some dispute. One of the earliest well-attested Black people in England after the Romans left. Well, 'left', but anyway. Probably came as one of Catherine of Aragon's attendants in the early years of the sixteenth century. Just to be clear, when I say 'earliest well-attested', what I mean is not a lot was written about average people in a way that's come down to us, not that he was the first ever Black man there. We know there were others living there, we simply don't know much about them. Still, anybody trying to complain that only whites are 'historically accurate' can get stuffed, preferably with pages of history texts." Ahem.

"Anyway, he was a trumpeter, as you can see." He waved at the picture. "This is from the Westminster Tournament Roll, a set of documents depicting a joust called by Henry VIII to celebrate the birth of his first son. He played at Henry's coronation and at his father's funeral.

"We also know he successfully petitioned the king to take the position of a dead trumpeter, then successfully petitioned to have his wages doubled, and when he was married, the king gave him wedding gifts including a purple gown. He was there, he was known, and he was valued."

Jon nodded decisively. "So, let me know if there are any questions, and I'll try to answer anything I can about life at that time or what we know of that John."

Treasure! [Monday, Period One]

[jedigrammarians]

Today class was meeting on the beach, where there was a roped off area.

"So last week we talked about different kinds of treasure, and you were all pretty big fans of friendship," Aphra started off. "Today we're all about the most common place to find that treasure, buried deep underground!"

Normally this wouldn't apply to friendship as well, but this was Aphra talking.

"Now, in fine piratical tradition, we've buried treasure somewhere on this shore," Isabela told them, hint, hint, the roped off area was a clue. "And it's your job to find the booty. You can work together or on your own."

"Now due to our different professional backgrounds we had a slight disagreement over suitable tools." Aphra may have been a rogue archeologist, but she was still an archeologist who at least pretended to follow dig protocols. "But we came to a suitable compromise."

You were welcome guys.