fandomhigh | Build Your Own Philosophy, Period 2, 3/1/10

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Build Your Own Philosophy, Period 2, 3/1/10

Can it be that a white horse is not a horse?

Tyler still looked like crap as the students filed in today. Red nose, wastebasket full of snotty tissues at his side, the whole bit.

"Hi," he said wanly. "Hope you aren't all still hung over from the Bahamas. Your midterm is due today, so I assume you're all ready to hand in your papers and talk about one of the philosophers discussed in class. If you aren't, make something up fast."

"If you want to grade grub, the extra credit question is to analyze when a white horse is not a white horse." He looked into the scrum of students. "You," he said. "Present your paper first."

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Like you feel like a truck hit you.

Finish your papers, contemplate extra credit, etc.

Hand in your papers or present them for class discussion. For extra credit, hand in the extra credit.

Once they have tagged in.

If you want his germs.

So I promised somebody ponies...

Effy Stonem

Calvin

Effy wasn't really in for presenting her paper to people, although she had actually done it. On Machiavelli since that was fresh in her mind. Honestly, it was a little difficult to tell if she actually agreed with him or not, but while she was vague on that point, she did go into a certain amount of not entirely relevant detail about his life and the period of time when he was tortured.

The things that fascinated her were not always the things that everyone else wanted her to focus on. Or wanted to focus on themselves, for that matter.

Extra credit was sadly about as much Effy's cup of tea as throwing herself into class discussion.

Hayley Fitzpatrick

Jak

Hayley had a paper. It wasn't a great paper, and it was obvious at times she'd gotten Plato's philosophy a bit wrong, but she had actually put a little bit of effort into it.

She was nervous as she presented, not wanting to sound dumb or get anything wrong.

She wasn't even going to touch the extra credit. That whole thing made her head hurt.

Raven

Raven handed in a well-written paper on Plato. Presenting it to the class, not so much. Shy empath was shy.

Raven feared no germs! Germs feared her.

"Professor Durden?" she said, approaching him after class. "I can see that you are ill. I can heal you if you wish."

Yes, Raven could cure the common cold.

" ... I have a cold," Tyler enunciated slowly. Well, actually he enunciated 'I hab a code,' but close enough.

"You cure colds?" He didn't sound like he didn't want to do it, more surprised anyone gave a crap.

"There is no illness or injury that I cannot cure," Raven said with a soft smile. "And I cannot bear to see another suffer, especially when there is something I can do to relieve it."

"It's a cold," Tyler repeated again. "It hardly counts as suffering, just a reason to lie around and bitch for a couple days."

He shrugged. "You can if you want to. But I've been through worse."

Joan Girardi

Joan was kind of dazed in class. It was hard shifting from vacation brain to school brain.

Joan was around, if anyone wanted to talk to her.

To Raven, a hangnail was unnecessary suffering. Girl needed to learn a little perspective.

"I mean no disrespect, but you do look miserable, Professor Durden," Raven said. "And it is certainly no bother for me to heal you."

It was mostly curiosity that lead Tyler to lean back in his chair. "Sure," he said, since he couldn't think of a coherent objection. "Anything in particular you need me to do so you can do the healy thing?"

Raven shook her head. "It is easier if I touch you," she said, "but I do not need to do that." She reached out her hand to lay it upon his arm if he didn't object.

He didn't object, but he did have one more question as he watched her hand move onto his arm. "You don't read minds while you're doing this, do you?"

he didn't need his students to pick up on his other self. (Give him a second, and he might be able to figure out what this student could do about that other self. Not that he'd let her.)

Priestly

Dinah Lance

"I am not a telepath," Raven said. "I am an empath. I sense emotions and pain and illness, but I cannot read your thoughts." If he was in the midst of a struggle between strongly conflicting emotions, that might be a different matter, but she wasn't sensing anything like that at the moment, of course.

Dinah took a breath, and presented her (short but pretty complete) paper on Socrates.

"Socrates gave his name to the learning method we call Socratic; basically, he kept asking questions until someone gave up and said they didn't know something. Before they got to that point, though, students could figure a lot out for themselves, by answering the questions he asked, most of them 'why' or 'how' or 'what if?' Encouraging people to think it through for themselves, you know?"

"He started professional life as sculptor, but got into education early, and had a reportedly very unhappy home life with his wife Xanthippe. He was in the army, and performed with courage, reportedly, and never got into seeking political office like a lot of prominent Greeks. He defied the reign of terror of the Thirty, a small group of dictators, in 404, by being the one citizen out of five who refused to help fetch an unjustly condemned prisoner for execution. He was supposed to have been really obnoxious about it, too."

"That kind of thing got him in trouble later, when he was accused of, 'firstly, of denying the gods recognized by the state, and introducing new divinities, and, secondly, of corrupting the young.' He was even more obnoxious at his trial, being unwilling to plea-bargain or offer to pay much of a fine, and saying the court should give *him* a public office, and because of that, the judges got fed up and condemned him to death."

Dinah took a breath. "He said that whether death was a dreamless sleep, or a new life in Hades, where he would have opportunities of testing the wisdom of the heroes and the sages of antiquity, 'in either case he esteemed it a gain to die.' Aaand he refused to escape from prison when a friend tried to arrange it. There was a delay of a month before he was executed, and he was reportedly pretty upbeat about it the whole time, then took hemlock as ordered, and died." She was quiet a minute, then confessed, "I always thought of philosophers as ivory-tower types, only thinking. But I kind of think Socrates's life gives a little more... weight, to his ideas. He lived by the ideas he tried to teach. That's worth something more."

"That's fine," Tyler said, relaxing (and sniffling). There was no conflict at the moment -- his condition was under control. "I get weird about telepaths. Bad experience when I was a lot younger."

"I am nervous about them as well," Raven said with the barest of twitches. Having Sebastian -- well, Damon, not that she knew that -- mess with her memories made her wary of anyone being in her mind. She forced that thought away to concentrate on healing, closing her eyes as she drew the sickness from Tyler and into herself. She had to turn her head to sneeze as the cold worked its way through her own body, and then a moment later it was all gone.

Tyler looked skeptical, then surprised as he went to snort back his mucus (so classy) and found ... nothing. "Wow. I can breathe," he said gratefully. "You okay? You could put Rite Aid out of business with that."

"I am fine," Raven said, assured him with a smile, pleased to have been able to use her gifts. "When I heal an illness or injury, it momentarily passes through me. But it is only a minor discomfort, and I am happy that I have helped you."

Marco

Marco turned in his paper. It was even neat and typed and actually a normal length rather than two paragraphs of ranting about evil homework.

"And I'm happy to have been helped," Tyler said, permitting himself a tiny smile of his own. "Thanks. Any way I can pay you back?"

Leto Atreides

Mulan

Mulan turned in a mostly well written paper on Socrates. She even presented it confidently without tripping over anything.

"There is no need," Raven said, shaking her head. "Using my gifts to help others is fulfilling enough on its own for me."

Yamanaka Ino

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Build Your Own Philosophy, Period 2, 3/1/10

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