Fandom High School

Due to the nature of today's lesson, the class was moving from the usual classroom into the danger shop, not because they were doing anything particularly dangerous (although there were always some who seemed to turn nearly every activity into something rife with danger), but just because it required a lot of little details not afforded to them by the classroom that could just be programmed up withthe danger shop.

In the form of your basic, average, more-than-likely suburbanite home.

"Today," Ignis explained, "we're going to be talking about some of the finer details of the general maintenence of a home to keep everything in working order and running smoothly and will help be preventative to avoid further, bigger problems down the road. Things that one might not naturally think of until it's an issue, from checking your smoke detectors to changing or cleaning various filters for furnaces, stoves, dishwaters, what have you. Some of this involves taking a day to dedicate yourself to deep cleaning some things, other involve checking how well something is functioning. I have, of course, an exhaustive list that I will be passing out to you all now so you each have a copy, we'll go through it together, and then we'll be using the rest of the class for you to pick and choose a few of them to pursue around our makeshift home here.

"Of course, feel free to ask any questions as we go along, but, without further ado, let's have a look at where we might get started. All at once, it might seem a little overwhelming and a lot, but if we break it down and spread it out, maintaining a home will hopefully seem a little less daunting, especially in cohesion with everything else we've covered in this class thus far."

While Home Economics certainly was also not that kind of health class (a-hem), Ignis Scientia was 100% That Teacher.

"Well, then," he started, with a sigh, "with the week that we've all be having, it is a shame if you've managed to make it this far without any of your other classes covering this particular topic, but, as one certain aspect of Home Ecomonics lies heavily in family management, now is....perhaps not as good a time as any to discuss this, surely that would have come much earlier in the week, but it's better late than never."

So buckle in, kids. It was time for the long-overdue Sex Education lesson, from the teacher that believed that Thoroughness was a Necessity and that no Data Point be left Unexplored.

Which was almost impressive, considering he'd had a considerably shorter amount of prep time than usual this week.

"Good morning, everyone," Ignis greeted the class with an ease that went along with clearly being quite in his element with today's lesson, which included everyone's station being already stocked with a variety of ingredients that were clearly about to be put to (hopefully) good use. "Last week, we covered some kitchen essentials and some good knife techniques and practice, and hopefully some of that will come in handy with what we will be learning today, and today we will actually be cooking, so those of you who enjoy the actual prepartion of food will be in for a treat, and those of you who might be a little more intimidated by the task should rest assured that the point of today's lesson is to walk you through the steps, and the recipe we will be working with is quite straight-forward.

"Today, we're going to be talking about mise en place, which is a term that means 'everything in its place,' and is often key to running an organized kitchen and making cooking a breeze. Essentially, then, it's the idea of preparing all of your ingredients to make the the preparation of your food a breeze. It allows you to manage your time to your best advantage and take some of the stress out of the entire process. When one is prepared, with the proper resources readily at hand, almost anything is guaranteed to run smoothly and the results all the better for it, and cooking is no exception.

"So we will be working with a simple chicken noodle soup recipe that lends itself well to properly utilized mise en place: we will be paying mind to chopping our vegetables and trimming our protein, among other things, for a nice organized preparation that I hope you'll find truly does make for an easier time in the kitchen.

"We will start, of course, by ensuring we have all the proper equipment for our preparation, and then we will turn our attention first to the vegetables..."

And now he was off, and merely trusting that the students would be following along.

Ignis, perhaps foolishly, thought he could be better than this. That, knowing what he knew about the current caffeine situation on the island, he could meet his withdrawal symptoms head on by taking care of himself, staying hyrdrated, resting, eating well, but...alas, it didn't seem to do much good at all, and he was feeling rather terrible that morning. Thankfully, not terrible enough that he couldn't think of an alternate lesson for his class today, because there was no way he was going to be able to pull through his original lesson on cooking in his current state.

Besides, he'd been looking forward to the cooking classes; he wanted to actually enjoy them.

So a message was sent out, and a note was placed on the classroom door, to not only inform the students that they would be meeting in town that day, but to apologize for the last minute notice on the change of plans, but letting them know that, clearly, it would be worth their while, because they would be convening at the animal shelter.

He gave them all a weak smile that seemed to wonder who turned the sun up so bright as they gathered inside Furnado. "Once again," he started, "I apologize for the unexpected relocation, but I'm afraid I'm feeling a bit under the weather at the moment. Still, I wouldn't want that to deprive you all of a good lesson, which is why today, with the help of Mr. Argentum and Prince Sidon here," and he gave a gesture to those two standing ready and way too eager to get started, all things considered, "we will be discussing a very important topic indeed for any household that plans to have any furry, scaly, or feathered companions, and that is pet care."

"Because when you take in a pet," Prompto chimed in brightly, "you take in the responsibility of a whole life, and so before you make a decision like that, you've got to make sure you're prepared to treat that new little buddy with all the love and atttention and care it deserves! Now, Sidon here, he actually runs this place, but both he and I worked here at Furnado when we were students like you guys, so we've got a lot of experience. Today, we're going to lead you guys through a lot of the important basics of pet care and what you need to keep in mind before you take on the responsiblity of letting a fuzzy new friend into your life."

"And what's more!" added Sidon, with a burst of energy and a laugh that made Ignis want to cringe and possibly crawl into a hole somewhere. "We'll be doing it with the animals themselves! So let us begin! And we'll start by asking ourselves, why do we want a pet in the first place, hmmm?"

With that, the lecture between two people who were seriously very unfairly unaffected by all this commensed, while Ignis hung back, still clinging desperately to a can of Ebony in the vague hopes that maybe, just maybe, this can would be the one to finally have caffeine again...

Ignis had, very briefly, considered playing along with the theme of the current holiday and arranging his lesson that week accordingly, but, really, there'd been a bit too much theme influencing the direction of the class lately, and so he figured it was best to just get back on track with the important things. Last week had been a nice respite, he felt, from all that and it seemed the students had enjoyed plotting with each other, but now it was time to start moving into something he was particularly excited for.

The cooking unit.

"There are some people who say," he started, once it was time to begin class, "that the kitchen is the heart of a home. It is through food that we not only nourish our bodies but also our spirits. It can be a place of gathering, a place of comfort, and a place of learning. For the next few classes, we'll be turning our focus specifically to matters of food. Preparing it, serving it, cultivating a healthy and balanced diet with it, and, today, handling it safely. I know some of you may already know your way around a kitchen fairly well, while some of you have likely never even touched a pot before coming here, but surely we can all benefit by review and learning certain principles and practices that ensures that the food we are putting into our bodies is healthy, clean, and providing as much nourishment as it does comfort.

"In general," he continued, "there are four basic principles of food safety to keep in mind whenever you are preparing a meal or sometimes even just a snack: Clean, Separate, Cook, and Chill. Allow me to elaborate."

And elaborate he most certainly did, breaking down the principles into finer details, as well as including a plethora of other details and information to lead to better food safety practices, with a fun little detailed exploration of some of the consequences of poor food hygene.

"We will put these practices into action with our next class," Ignis said, "where we will embark on preparing an actual recipe, but, for now, I'd like you all to consider these factors and remember them well, and to help you out, we will go over a brief quiz of the information we've just covered. Are there any questions or anything you'd like me to go over again before beginning the test? Please note, the scores will not work for or against you. They are merely to be considered gauges for what you already know and what you'll want to remember more going forward."

"One of the key skills in home maintenence," said Ignis, getting the class started right out the gate, without any preamble today, "is a certain sense of flexibility. Case in point, I was thinking we might head into our cooking units, which seemed like a logical next step coming out of budgeting and meal planning, but recent events," there was almost a warm smile there, if you knew how to look for it, "made me realize that perhaps a detour may be in order, especially since cooking, particularly for those who are unfamiliar or are just starting out, can lead to quite the mess, and there are a great many things out there that can lead to troublesome stains or perisistant soiling of clothing, surfaces, and egos.

"Now," the grin on his face was a bit more obvious now, "I may not be qualitied to offer much advice on that last one, but I do have solutions for the others, which we will get into in more detail next week. This week, I would like us to go over cleanliness of the home in broader terms. Please note, I know some of you will likely find a good deal of this stuff to be almost second nature or common sense, but what may be old and familiar to some may be entirely new and different to others, especially in a classroom where we are lucky to experience such a wide variety of origins and backgrounds.

"That said, today, we will go over a variety of different cleaning methods, both manual and mechanical, that should cover most areas of a household from top to bottom and all around. Those of you already quite familiar with these techniques, bear with me, and those of you for whom this might be unfamiliar, pay attention. Afterwards, I have the classroom set up into various stations to practice. With that said, let us begin, starting with...where else...sweeping..."

"With a subject as diverse and varied as Home Economics," Ignis started, wasting no time getting right into thing when once the period had begun, "and especially with a group as diverse in skills and experiences as this one, it can often be difficult to know just where to begin. But, with a little inspiratation from my colleague and fellow teacher," here, he spared a nod toward where Goose had joined them that morning assuming he actually did show up, "I thought we would start at what is essentially the foundation for many aspects of this subject, with a firm focus on the economics part, and that is the act of supplying food and materials for the household, or, as I suppose it more colloquially called, grocery shopping.

"Which may," he continued, "at first, seem like a simple process. One must simply go to the store, collect what they need, pay for the purchases, and be on their way. But a successfull home manager will understand that there is often a bit more nuance to it, and that certain tips and tricks can be executed to get the most out of your budget, to shop smarter, not harder, and to reduce an excess of waste for a more efficiently run household overall."

And with that introduction out of the way, it was time for Ignis to go into great detail about his thoughts and advice on how to enhance one's grocery shopping experience, putting an emphasis specifially on keeping in mind's one budget, always making a list and considering your weekly dinner plans, keeping in mind the limited shelf-life on perishable foods, always keeping an eye out for sales and coupons and planning accordingly, and to do one's best to 'shop the perimeter,' that is because most of the freshest, healthiest food tended to be situatied on the outside aisles and areas of your typical grocery store, while the less healthy junk food is found within, though there was a lot to be said for having a few canned goods with longer shelf-life on stock, such as beans and rice.

And with that all said and after asking if there were any questions or anything any of them would like him to extrapolate on, he turned his attention to their assignment for the day.

"Today," he said, "I'd like you to try and compose a grocery list while working within a budget of handwavey amount. We will likely get into things like meal planning and budgeting in more detail later on in the semester, but for now, we'll say you'll be doing your shopping for the next three days, so keep in mind those three days when you make your list. Feel free to work with each other if you'd like, and, for next week, I'd like you to visit our local grocery retailer and 'mock-shop' your list. I've emailed Miss Smith to let her know about the assignment so she can alert her staff, and they'll send you off with a mock-reciept of your trip that we'll go over next week to see how you did. Do keep in mind the advice discussed in class today, and, if there are no more question, I'll let you get to work."