It's Actually Not That Complicated; Tuesday, Second Period [11/29].

[died8yearsago]

"At this point," said Rosa, at the start of class, without any preamble or introduction or acknowledgement of the lack of class last week, "we've made it through the notable highlights of Nancy Meyers' film career. We skipped over a few of the less substantial ones of her earlier years, and the one watched last was actually the last major work she's put out. There was a 2017 Reese Witherspoon vehicle that she had a hand in producing, but since she neither directed or wrote it, we're not going to bother discussing it, and there was a meta for Father of the Bride short film released in 2020 that's also really not worth diving too deeply into.

"Which then leaves us at a point where we've got a good overview of her work in general and as a whole. So no movie today, just some application of what we've learned so far. I'll let you guys decide how you want to do this: we can either have a discussion about things like themes, ideas, concepts, what you felt worked in the movie and what you felt didn't, or you can write an essay about which of the films we've reviewed is your favorite and why."

Like a nerd.

"So. What do you guys think?"

American Inventors, Tuesday, November 29, 2022

[heroic_jawline]

"Welcome back!" Tony said. "Hopefully everyone had a nice break from classes this past week. And we have another holiday fast approaching, but before that... let's move onto another inventor who changed the world... Jack Parsons. Who was a pioneer in rocket technology."

Steve gave Tony a fond little grin. "Tony loves rocket science. But he's smart enough not to die by blowing himself up with an experiment, right, Tony?"

Right, Tony?

"It certainly helps to have work to piggy-back off of for safety measures," Tony added. "Jack Parsons was mostly self-taught scientist who pushed rockets--which were considered mostly science fiction at the time--into reality. He developed a much safer fuel source for the propulsion that would later be adapted for space flight rather than simply rockets for wartime."

"He worked with scientists whose names are on buildings now," Steve said, "like Goddard and Werner von Braun. His genius was, frankly, as volatile as the compounds he was working with."

"And his personal life was--well, very interesting in conjunction with what he accomplished in his short life," Tony said slowly. "Because he did, indeed, die from one of his rocket experiments. But his impact is without question. So! Let us know if you think the burn bright and fast is better than a steady level of contributions to the world."

"Having done the other," Steve said a little cryptically, "I vote for the slow and steady option."

Libraries and Books: Highlights and Dangers, Tuesday

[intheeyeofthebeholding]

"It, um. Rather belatedly occurred to me," Jon said, fidgeting, "that while I had you write annotated bibliographies a few weeks ago, we never actually covered bibliographies. Or how to read them and the information in them. It can vary, of course, according to the style - different organizations have different orders they put things in, and sometimes different information they require - but I thought we could go over the basics."

He brought up a web page and projected it. "The first thing is that books, articles, and so forth each have their own requirements. And this page doesn't even touch on web citations, which honestly, it's a web page itself, you would think it would recognise that was a thing. Erm. Anyway. APA style and MLA style are two of the more commonly used ones, so it's worth it to know them. Once you get the hang of it, you should be able to figure out others you come across. So let's, um. Read through these, and I've got some example bibliographies, and see if you have any questions."