Fandom High School

Walter puttered at the front of the classroom humming something to himself that sounded suspociously like "Jingle Bells."

On his workbench and at five stations around the classroom were cubicals containing simple black boxes with a row of red and green bulbs along the front of the box.

"Good afternoon," Walter greeted the students cheerily. "And welcome on this Summer Solstice day. We are half a year away from a time for carolingt, but I am of a mind to approach today's class in a festive manner despite that.

"Today we will discuss hypnagogia before moving on to an interesting practical demonstration of hypnagogic suggestibility."

Walter launched into a lecture informed by anecdotes regarding zoning out on the highway, sleep paralysis, "night hags", and alien abduction.

As well as occasional tangents on sleepwalking, Las Vegas hypnotists, and several minutes spent scrawling on the white board the instructions for getting an optimally fluffy omelet.

Then on to the practical applications of the lecture.

"These boxes," Walter said, turning around the cubical on his desk to show the students the black box in question, "are programmed with both the proper visual wavelengths and frequency of light flashes to induce an hypnagogic state in an observer.

"I want you to choose one or two partners and take turns observing the lights to experience and record your observations on any time lapses you may experience. You will likely not realize that time has passed, so I suggest looking at the clock immediately before you begin to watch the lights, and immediately after the lights stop flashing for you. The boxes are on a timer and you should note that the clock's hand jumps three minutes ahead without your remembering experiencing those three minutes.

"Adventurous students may use my box." He tapped the cube on his workbench. "Only under my direct supervision. This one has been programmed with the proper frequencies to induce not just a time lapse, but hypnagogic suggestibility. I suggest you trust your partner for this one and I will permit no post-hypnotic suggestions. Only immediate suggestions such as 'rub your head and pat your tummy' will be allowed."

He gave them his best mad scientist grin. "Or I'll be the one giving the next post-hypnotic suggestion. Are we understood?"

[ooc: two minutes for OCD, please.]

Today Walter does not look at all well. He's certainly not going to tell the students why he looks as though a Dow Chemical truck hit his cerebral cortex at 80 MPH at 3:00 a.m., but he does, it may as well have, and he's lucky he remembers he's teaching, let alone what his lesson plan for the day was.

As such, the assignment written on the whiteboard goes thusly:

SILENCE!

Memorize the periodic table of the elements on the lawn.

[ooc: My apologies. Again. I'm in the last push of moving and my landlord called during my class-writing time and thus I have no class-writing time.]

Walter was feeling a bit testy. He had had a number of fascinating ideas for this week's class only to have them shot down on safety reason. Honestly, the parasite wasn't all that dangerous when Walter already had the treatment ready. It would have been educational for the students to see a very large example of why parasitism is so efficient that it evolves even in closed systems.

But no. No playing with parasites thanks to small-minded "safety" regulations.

Walter had decided to instead talk about one of his earlier role models. ( This week's lecture was about Nikola Tesla with a properly themed practicum. )

Walter fussed at the front of the classroom. On the one hand, it wasn't Harvard, but on the other hand, there were nice acid-resistant black tabletops. Those had been constants even from his own student days and as much as he loved new things, the old things were comforting.

Today's lecture? Microwaves! Fun times!

Okay, maybe not, but Walter has an ace up his sleeve, apparently involving.... fruit.

Once the class was settled, Walter surveyed the students, absently patted a papaya sitting in front of him that had been given a face through the clever use of a googly eyes, pipe cleaners, and a sharpie, and smiled absently.

"My name is Dr. Walter Bishop," he said and then frowned, trying to remember what he was going to say next. "And this is..." he referred to a paper on the table, "Unblinded Science. We will be exploring some of the things that make science interesting and which push the boundaries of what you will believe science is capable of. After all, an old friend of mine once wrote that sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic. Keep an open mind, and more importantly, a fertile imagination."

( But first, the lecture )

"But this is a survey course, and you young people get distracted easily, so let's have some fun instead. At each of the seven stations you'll find two pairs of safety glasses. Put them on, put on your lab coat, and examine the devices that I have assembled for your practical today.

"These devices will project microwaves at the glass dome in your workstation. I have provided" (Peter has provided) "a supply of papayas and papaya-decorating supplies. Place the papaya under the glass dome and press the button on the device. You may experiment with the settings on the dial to determine how high you must go to achieve gooification, and how high to reach explosion."

Some intelligent soul has ensured that the boxes cannot be turned in any direction other than the glass dome. It might have been Walter. It might have been someone not as intelligent but far wiser.

[ooc: Wait two minutes for OCD please. Class roster and syllabus are out of my reach at the moment. I'll add them when I get home from work this evening.]