When she shows up, the classroom has a very nice and soft mat on the floor. The room smells of hay, and there are no desks, only pillows or stools. There aren't that many others in the classroom, maybe another ten or so. Today they have a very relaxed raccoon standing under the teacher. She begins talking, in a rythmic and artificially enunciated way.

She talks about what raccoons eat and what treats they like, and the pace they work at, waving her hands in an even rhythm. Then she tells the raccoon to get the red ball, from a pile of simple shapes, in a patient and friendly voice, and after getting it two times herself the raccoon grabs it whenever she puts it back.

"Raccoons need more instruction and display, explaining what to do is very difficult. It's possible, but they're not quite the right animal for that."

This's the closest Jenwy's ever been to a raccoon.  She's seen them from a distance lurking around shrubbery and parks, but nothing more - and not looking anywhere near that relaxed!  She's excited.

And, the animal training demonstration isn't totally new - she's seen a friend trying to train her dog - but she's never heard of anyone trying it with raccoons before!

Eventually, one of the others in class bends down to pick up and stroke the raccoon, being told to so by the teacher and giving Jenwy a bit of an eyeful of her shorts. The teacher continues.

"To keep the raccoon happy and obedient, it's important to give it rewards, especially after it's done with its current work. The best rhythm is exactly the slow, even and light touch that it's being stroked in right now. Maybe someone else wants to try?"

Jenwy shoots up her hand.

She's feeling a bit nervous, but also excited.

"Certainly you're free to try Jenwy. Now put it down..." the other girls leaves the raccoon on the floor again. "It's your turn now. And your touch tells you if the raccoon is pleased, so try focusing on that sensation of touch."

"It'll be relaxed if it's pleased?"

Jenwy squats down (not showing her shorts anywhere near as much as the other girl), and cautiously strokes the raccoon.  She wants to let it sniff her first, like a strange dog or cat or guinea pig, but the other girl didn't do that.

"Yes and it'll keep its muscles soft. It's tough to explain..." The raccoon doesn't really sniff her, but she can tell that it fees great in her hands.

Oh!  Then she scoots her hands under it something like a cat, and picks it up and continues stroking it.  She tries to focus on how it feels.

Again it's an experience thing that's tough to explain, but she knows she's doing it right. "Great job Jenwy! So the raccoon is probably the most common trained animal used in factories because it's so wonderfully low maintenance and it's not hard to train for the things it's good at..." The rest of the class is mostly theoretical, about which animals to choose for what work and why, and what their strengths and limitations are. There's also a mention of therapy and rescue dogs, and some of the other working animals in thomassia.

Working animals... feel right to that part of her that remembered how to dance last night, even though she's never heard of them in Ev for anything modern.

She's excited.

She's so excited about the concept she's not bothering to take in the details.  Somewhere most of the way through the class she gets the idea that she should really pay attention because if she ever does get home to Ev she'll want to tell everyone how to train them... but by then it's too late to really bother starting to take notes.

The Expeditions and Mobility class happens in a normal classroom; it's not too much of a walk (in this pretty huge building, she's starting to realize) and this class has more students, about 25. The wall is painted to work as a projector, so the slides can take up the entire wall. The class has info on basically as many different ways of moving around and getting places as possible: walking and hiking, motorcycling or cycling across multiple days, mountain climbing, skiing, swimming, scuba diving and even flying in airplanes and gliders. Eventually, you're meant to get specialized classes for the kind of Mobility that you actually intend to use yourself. Today is mostly focused on flying: both controlling drones and using planes, and what they get used for (firefighting, surveying, tourism, air rescue). Gyrocopters get talked about a lot because they can fly slow and land anywhere, while being far simpler and safer than helicopters.

This time, Jenwy makes sure to cross her legs as she sits.  Maybe it's the different classroom; maybe it's just that everything's not quite so new this time... but she feels more exposed.

She listens with fascination.

Cycling multiple days, mountain climbing... yeah, she's heard of those and talked with people who've done them.  (She's not seeing quite as many different sorts of bike here as in Ev?  Or maybe it's just these are the ones most adapted for Expeditions?)  Skiing and scuba diving... She's not sure they even exist in Ev?

And she wants to try them all.

The teacher lectures in an over-enunciated, rhythmic way that makes everything easy to remember. There are also a few mentions of impressive or important expeditions, like some really impressively long flights. There's also a strong emphasis on safety gear and protective equipment, which gets a lot of the other students excited. Emergency beacons, drysuits, motorcycle suits with airbags and similar.

Oh, but how long are those long flights?  She remembers a few from Ev that were impressively long...

... and she doesn't remember safety equipment anywhere near as good.  Maybe she just hadn't heard of it, but at least a lot of it wasn't common.

Also she realizes the rhythmic way is new.  And... she does have pen and paper for taking notes longhand, right?

She does not have pen and paper; here that's considered "messy". She can use her voice to very quickly dictate into her phone, there's in fact a special language designed to just let voice dictation work fast and she can be quite enough to not really disturb the other students while speaking into it. Although she has noted that this Jenwy only took a few notes...

Well, this Jenwy is taking even fewer.  She activates the voice recording system once, and by reflex says something that probably means "get padded suit before skiing; check that suit in my room" - but she doesn't trust it enough to use it again.

Hopefully she'll remember everything important.

And presumably fewer people here die on long flights?  There'll be no Rivards and Erics Memorial here...

It's a theory class, but Jenny gets a lot of information about traveling to new and remote places and safely. She can get many exciting jobs working with scuba diving or plane pilot or in forestry or even doing adventures!, the slides mention. But she gets the impression that this class is taken done for the fun of it rather than the career opportunities.

Oh, she's hardly thinking of career opportunities yet.  But she's happy they're there.

Does it sound like they'll actually be doing any of that traveling?

How do the other students in class seem to be reacting?

They seem excited and fascinated, clearly thinking about what would be cool and fun to do.

Oh good!

And then the class ends without much fanfare. Her next classes are all meant be done in sportswear; she can easily make her way back to her dorm to change into them there.

She joins in with the crowd of students, trying to listen to what they're talking about.

They're talking about their futures, actually! They want to start working in hospitals, or with kids, or in factories or with building things or making food.

None of those sound really interesting to Jenwy, except maybe the building things, so she stays more quiet.

Except... wait, the "working with kids" sounds a lot different from the sort of schoolteaching or babysitting or daycare or therapy she's used to in Ev?