fandomhigh | Practical Philosophy, Wednesday

Ender preferred to keep his classes outside when the weather allowed for it at all. As the temperatures were decent and it didn't look like it was going to rain just yet, he took the class outside to the dorm lawn where he sat down on the ground. "Sit down in a circle, please."

He had a bag of sandwiches and a bag of bottles of water with him, which he put in the middle of the circle.

"Welcome," he said. "My name is Andrew Wiggin. I'm an alumnus of this school; I graduated several years ago." That was all they needed to know, as far as he was concerned. "And you might be wondering what you signed on for."

"While 'philosophy' is in my class's title, we're not here primarily to talk about the philosophers of old or the specifics of particular lines of thought in philosophy. In this class, we try to put our own experiences into a greater perspective through conversation and debate. That means I expect some level of participation from all of you."

This was the part where he smiled, at least a little. "That doesn't mean you always need to speak up about yourself," he said. "No topics are everything to everyone. If that week's subject veers too close to something you want to keep private, be my guest - just try and pitch in when someone else speaks. Ask questions."

"Because that's the point of this class: to ask questions of ourselves and of the people around us. You can even ask questions of me, if you feel the need. And maybe together we can get to the core of our joint and individual experiences." His mouth quirked a bit more. "That doesn't mean we're always going to be lingering on the existential questions - or staring at our belly buttons. It just means we're going to try and dig and come to some understanding about each other, ourselves, and the world."

He picked up a bottle of water. "As for today, let's open a dialogue," he said. "For some of you, this is all new. How is it working for you? Are you elated? Annoyed? Don't want to be here? Achingly happy to be here? And for those of you who aren't - how has the past year treated you? Has there been anything that made you cry or made you think or made you wonder?"

"We can talk about that. Or you can bring up something else you feel is worth questioning. I consider most topics fair game, as long as they're brought up with regard for your fellow students. I can't claim knowledge on most, but I can claim an ability to annoy you with questions about just about anything."

He paused, then nodded at the surly tattooed youth also sitting in the circle. "That's your TA, by the way. His name is Cade."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Kathy had taken this last summer, when she'd been brand new. She liked the idea of taking it again--she felt sometimes like a completely different person than she'd been before.

And this time, she had friends in class, too. Another change.

All of which she figured that Mr. Wiggin (unlike Sam, who didn't seem like he could be a Mr. LaCroix to save his life, she didn't think she could call Mr. Wiggin 'Andrew' without a lot of effort) wanted to hear about. "Well, I'm still here," Kathy said when it was her turn, giving him a little shrug. "And a lot more confident in my ability to stay here than the last time I was in this class. I feel that I haven't changed that much from the girl I was a year ago, but then I look at certain parts of my life and it's so far from who I was that it's just insane or incredible and I'm not sure which."

[Sorry for the late ping. Remicaid!]

"Fandom has a habit of doing that to you," Ender said wryly. "Welcome back, Kathy. Of course, now I have to ask: what did change, to make you more confident?"

"Well, surviving a year without losing my mind helps," Kathy said with a small huff of a laugh. "I proved I could do it, which is pretty cool. And I've made some friends, kinda, and..." She licked her lips, a little nervous. "Uhh, and picked up some new abilities? And a kind of crazy new hobby. So the smaller stuff all kinda looks, well, smaller."

"And there we have the boon of experience," Ender said lightly. "Do you want to talk about the new abilities, or would you rather we skip over that the coming weeks?"

Hmm. How to say, 'I'm afraid that it will sound like I'm bragging,' without that coming across as some kind of humblebrag on its own?

"I don't mind," she said, after a long moment's thought. "It's not something I'm hiding or anything. I just try not to make it seem like I'm, well, putting myself forward or anything."

"Honesty is usually the best policy," Ender advised. "It's not putting yourself forward to mention something that seems to be a new part of your life."

Kathy shrugged at that. "I just generally don't talk about myself much," she said, a little awkwardly. "My mom always said that when you talk about yourself, you're bringing up the one topic no one else wants to hear about, you know?"

Which was still much nicer than the way her dad put it.

"If there's anything important to be said about you, someone else will say it. So, umm, I guess I never really got good at it. So when I say anything, it always sounds to me like I'm trying to brag about stuff."

Or boring the audience.

Ender gave that a little shrug.

"Through whom do we relate to the world?" he said. "I'm not advocating straight-up narcissism, because that has problems of its own. But if nobody knows what's going on in your head, then they don't understand what prism you're looking through, and that always causes problems somewhere down the line."

"Does anyone advocate straight-up narcissism?" Kathy deflected slightly while mulling over the rest of his comment. It made sense, but fifteen years of 'be seen little and heard less' was hard to go up against.

"Yes," Ender said, "But we're talking about you right now, not Ayn Rand."

"Well, I'm glad about that, because Ayn Rand was kind of a terrible person."

What Kathy meant was that she thought Ayn Rand was utterly reprehensible. But that was too strong to say, carried too much authority and weight. So she mitigated it with 'kind of.'

Which probably said plenty right there.

"Oh, only kind of," Ender said, "What a relief."

Don't mind his snark, Kathy.

Kathy blushed. "Okay, she was really terrible," she amended. "And I don't understand how people can read her books and think that she's completely right in all of her points."

But, you know, just coming out and saying that seemed unnecessarily brash.

"I guess now you know some of my prism?"

"I do," Ender said easily. "So my homework for you, if you'll accept it, is to try and make yourself a little bigger every class, if you can."

"If I choose to accept it?" Kathy asked, eyes wide. "You're a teacher! I can't just say no, I'm not going to do homework!"

"Can't you?" Ender asked. "As far as I know, summer workshops don't deal out grades of any importance. What's to stop you from refusing to do it?"

"You're a teacher!" Kathy repeated. Maybe he'd get it if she stressed the teacher part?

"I am your teacher," Ender agreed. "And you can most certainly tell me no."

"Well, yeah, if you tell me to do something that I feel is, like, creepy or wrong, sure! But not a completely reasonable assignment!"

One that made her both nervous and kind of excited at the same time.

"Then say yes," Ender said lightly, showing none of his faint amusement on his face. "That's an option, too."

"Umm, okay...Yes?" Kathy looked like she was trying to find that spark of confidence she'd had. "Yes. I'll--I'll try."

"All right," Ender said, giving her a nod. "Then I'll see you next week."

Practical Philosophy, Wednesday

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.

Re: Talk.