Math books are frikkin huge. Not quite ‘library dictionary’ or ‘church bible’ huge, but, IME, the largest books a normal person would have to carry on a daily (or near daily) basis.
or had to study translation… One dictionnary for the language you translate from, one for the language you translate to, and one for both – plus the book to translate. Glad there isn’t a book on how to on the top.
it’s not just one text book that gets you, it’s when every class makes you get either a text book or at least 3 “normal” books. considering that a full time student can have anywhere from 4-8 classes a day depending on how much of a scholar they are that’s a lot of weight to be carrying around all at once. it makes the lockers they offer at my community college a very practical solution.
Studying literature also makes for a heavy book bag, especially when you have to carry two 500 page novels (ofc available in hardcover only, not as pocket books), some papers to jot down notes on, a related book or two (usually really big) and a thick clump of papers with related texts…
If it’s a calculus text, oh yeah! The usual pattern is to have both the differential and integral calculus, and maybe some differential equations, in one book. that’s two quarters or semesters worth of stuff. Oh, and they’re usually hardcover. So yeah, a calc text can be a real tome.
Looks like you put a lot of thought into it Mike! (points the finger) Actually I remember one time I almost fainted afer giving blood at the uni and getting a load of shopping on the walk home but the real culprit was my course text book.
I think that’s just a myth. I mean, my roomate mysteriously died, had breeze blocks tied to his legs, and was tossed into a river shortly after I found out I was failing math and biology, and instead of As I got questioned by the cops.
So did you blame him for your failing math and bio so decided to off him? I don’t know about the rest of you guys but it seems like a poor motive for murder, let alone enough to get a warrent to bring in somebody for questioning just because your room mate was killed… Unless of course you were renting an aparment togeather that would be slightly more warrent worthy… but if you were staying in the dorm that doesn’t seem to be enough evidence to bring some one in for murder… Although I it probably depends on many many other things to…
No, it’s based on some colleges apparently having a rule that if your roommate dies, you get all A’s for the semester due to the mental trauma. Not sure whether it’s true or not.
My two roommates were also roommates in college, and they had a friend whose roommate died, and their friend then got all As for the semester. No sign of foul play, though.
What did all you people do?? I never carried more than one or two books to class, for that class. And rolling luggage has been around for at least as long as modern college… =|
Dragging your books around in “rolling luggage” will save you from other distractions as well… companions of the opposite sex. Goes well with a pocket protector.
Me either. Assuming they are full time students, how can they just carry everything around? It’s pretty standard to have atleast 3 textbooks and a notepad. Plus if you’re like me you like to carry water and maybe a snack. Plus you gotta carry homework assignments, and…Well, you get the picture.
If you’re a Music Major, you snag one of the lockers in the practice rooms if they exist and stash your instruments and books and whatnot in there.
If you’re lucky, you can rent a locker from the university if they exist on campus, for non-music majors.
Otherwise, you stash things in the dorms.
In my case, I commuted in from home, with three clarinets (and a sax for a while), stashed them in my music locker, and still had to haul a bag around. C’est la vie…
I’d totally get as many locks as I can, put them on as many lockers as I can find, then sell them to the poor souls wo didn’t get there before me. :O Money ftw!
i did something along the lines of that for my high school senior prank. me and a few friends bought a buttload of those cheap locks with the keys. stuck them on every locker in school and then left the keys in a huge-ass pile in front of the office doors.
When I was at school, (secondary) you couldn’t get a locker til your final year, and then you had to pay a £40 deposit for it. You got the deposit back when you left if it was in good condition.
Saying that, they only got the lockers in about two years before I left. Was a great help when you’re doing 2 highers and an advanced course. waaaay too many books :S
I could go to classes back in university without a bag if I wanted to. Generally I never had more than 2 classes a day, and with stuff being mostly online, I could get by with my PDA if I didn’t mind looking like a dork (iPaq with sleeve = GINORMOUS).
I thought gender issues had to do with cultural diversity between men and women… but since I never studied it in college I can’t say I really know for sure.
It’s still perfectly possible that Joyce will come up against something that will completely break her brain, even if they’re just talking in terms of the politics involved.
My “Debates in World Archaeology” module module has a section on gender in archaeology, which I think is supposed to be about how, from the antiquarian era up until around post-processualism, archaeologists allowed their cultures’ view of male-female relations to colour their assumptions about the male-female relations of the cultures they were studying.
I say “I think” because my lecturer got flustered and started speaking at length about how when she was young in the 80s’, she was confused about whether Boy George was a man or a woman.
Their children would be even more disturbing… Then again maybe if Anti-Joyce and Mike had kids the kids would turn out normal because when they grow up they don’t want to be like mom and dad O.o But we will never know… cause Anti-Joyce is dead.
I’ve been suspecting this for a while, but each new strip seems to reinforce it. Mike has trouble expressing his assholery directly in this continuity. His Twitter and his class notes are rife with derisive comments about Your Mom, but his actual dialogue? He’s either silent or says something that could be passive-aggressive at best. Perhaps like original Amber, he’s only able to open up (and be truly menacing) when it doesn’t have to be face-to-face.
Also, I think this is the youngest we see Mike. So he could be working on it. Also, he seems to not constaintly scowl all the time so he is either working on that too or he is faking kinder facial expressions to throw people off guard.
Mostly because of his I’m-totally-not-putting-my-book-in-your-bag-so-I-don’t-have-to-carry-it in the first panel there.
You know, since he only just met him the previous day, putting his book in Walky’s bag isn’t exactly a smart thing to do. If it were me, I’d be bumming the book off once I found it.
I feel for the uphill both ways thing. I literally have to walk uphill both ways on my way to the train to get to school, with a ten pound bag, no less.
If you bummed his book Mike would sell your mom to pay for it. Repeatedly. Probably in a way that would devalue your mom’s secondary market value and cause a collapse of your home town’s economy.
That’s not much of a threat, he’d do that anyways. Quite frankly, I could get a lot of good animation paper if I sold a textbook without the cost of having had bought it.
Plus, seems like I’d got on Mike’s nerves with that. Win/Win.
Well, I think the theory is that as his roommate, Walky will be a little easier to keep track of than, say, Joyce would be. And easier to completely ruin the life of if he does anything with Mike’s stuff.
I’m not sure how that meshes with Mike being perfectly willing to walk off and let Walky get eaten by jaguars, though. You’d think a jaguar attack would stand a good chance of damaging the book.
I think Mike’s figured out that Walky at least tries to be a decent person (something that unless someone is actively trying to deceive you is easy to determine through observation), and being as such, Mike could just say “Hey, did you accidentally grab my book?” and Walky would find Mike’s book in his backpack and return it to him no problem as that’s how most decent people would operate.
Now if Mike were to try that on someone who didn’t value being a good person, yeah, it might be a problem.
And it’s been a few years since I’ve been on IU’s campus, but I remember walking it with my oldest brother, and damn, I was out of breath a lot even without a heavy book bag.
Backpacks full of books there were way overpriced that were hardly ever used and sold back for a third of what you paid in the first place, just for them to resell them at double or triple of what they gave you back.
And all that lugging around was made so much better at UNC-W while slogging through 10 inches of standing water since the campus had NO drainage to speak of so by the time you got to class you were waterlogged from the knees down.
The hills are alive with the sound of stalking jaguars…which isn’t much sound, unless generations of stalking unobservant college students has made them soft. Perhaps Amazi-Girl can save Walky from them.
My grad school campus was on a fairly tall hill. The walk from the computer lab to the dining hall was known as “Cardiac Hill.”
But the best things about Clarion U were that no matter where you were walking on campus, the wind was always in your face, and no matter what the weather weas like in the rest of PA, Clarion’s sky was always, ALWAYS, gray.
I think your all missing what I see here. I think Mike put the book in Walky’s bag so he can catch some alone time with Joyce. Whether its to humiliate her, or to hit on her… Or both… I’m not sure yet.
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Is one math book really that heavy??
Mike’s book + Walky = WUSS
Depending on the book, yes. Very yes.
Math books are frikkin huge. Not quite ‘library dictionary’ or ‘church bible’ huge, but, IME, the largest books a normal person would have to carry on a daily (or near daily) basis.
You’ve never lugged around a college chem or biology book have you?
No…no I haven’t. I’ll bow to superior knowledge, then.
Math texts are still top ten contenders. >_>
or had to study translation… One dictionnary for the language you translate from, one for the language you translate to, and one for both – plus the book to translate. Glad there isn’t a book on how to on the top.
it’s not just one text book that gets you, it’s when every class makes you get either a text book or at least 3 “normal” books. considering that a full time student can have anywhere from 4-8 classes a day depending on how much of a scholar they are that’s a lot of weight to be carrying around all at once. it makes the lockers they offer at my community college a very practical solution.
Studying literature also makes for a heavy book bag, especially when you have to carry two 500 page novels (ofc available in hardcover only, not as pocket books), some papers to jot down notes on, a related book or two (usually really big) and a thick clump of papers with related texts…
Must be one big Bible, unless they’re study Bibles, but math book are definitely GINORMOUS!
We don’t know if he’s only carrying one book. And paper and notebooks get really heavy really quick.
If it’s a calculus text, oh yeah! The usual pattern is to have both the differential and integral calculus, and maybe some differential equations, in one book. that’s two quarters or semesters worth of stuff. Oh, and they’re usually hardcover. So yeah, a calc text can be a real tome.
Looks like you put a lot of thought into it Mike! (points the finger) Actually I remember one time I almost fainted afer giving blood at the uni and getting a load of shopping on the walk home but the real culprit was my course text book.
I like that Mike is being subtle now.
mike’s always been subtle. now he’s just being sneaky about his asshole-ishness. dont worry, he’ll go back to being painfully blunt soon enough.
Who’s to say Mike didn’t slip bricks in to Walky’s bag?
Ah, heavy bags, the one thing I don’t miss about school.
Also, I love how Mike’s all “Bye” for jaguars. Then again, he’d get the room to himself if Walky’s dead.
Plus, it’s an easy A for the semester!
I think that’s just a myth. I mean, my roomate mysteriously died, had breeze blocks tied to his legs, and was tossed into a river shortly after I found out I was failing math and biology, and instead of As I got questioned by the cops.
So did you blame him for your failing math and bio so decided to off him? I don’t know about the rest of you guys but it seems like a poor motive for murder, let alone enough to get a warrent to bring in somebody for questioning just because your room mate was killed… Unless of course you were renting an aparment togeather that would be slightly more warrent worthy… but if you were staying in the dorm that doesn’t seem to be enough evidence to bring some one in for murder… Although I it probably depends on many many other things to…
No, it’s based on some colleges apparently having a rule that if your roommate dies, you get all A’s for the semester due to the mental trauma. Not sure whether it’s true or not.
I hate it when that happens!
My two roommates were also roommates in college, and they had a friend whose roommate died, and their friend then got all As for the semester. No sign of foul play, though.
What did all you people do?? I never carried more than one or two books to class, for that class. And rolling luggage has been around for at least as long as modern college… =|
Dragging your books around in “rolling luggage” will save you from other distractions as well… companions of the opposite sex. Goes well with a pocket protector.
Weird that Mike and Joyce don’t have bags. I don’t think I ever could survive college without mine.
I feel the same way, but there are many who do not share my sentiments.
Our sentiments, I should say.
Me either. Assuming they are full time students, how can they just carry everything around? It’s pretty standard to have atleast 3 textbooks and a notepad. Plus if you’re like me you like to carry water and maybe a snack. Plus you gotta carry homework assignments, and…Well, you get the picture.
If you’re a Music Major, you snag one of the lockers in the practice rooms if they exist and stash your instruments and books and whatnot in there.
If you’re lucky, you can rent a locker from the university if they exist on campus, for non-music majors.
Otherwise, you stash things in the dorms.
In my case, I commuted in from home, with three clarinets (and a sax for a while), stashed them in my music locker, and still had to haul a bag around. C’est la vie…
You have you rent your lockers? Thats dumb. At my school its a free for all. Whoever puts a lock on the locker first wins.
I’d totally get as many locks as I can, put them on as many lockers as I can find, then sell them to the poor souls wo didn’t get there before me. :O Money ftw!
i did something along the lines of that for my high school senior prank. me and a few friends bought a buttload of those cheap locks with the keys. stuck them on every locker in school and then left the keys in a huge-ass pile in front of the office doors.
When I was at school, (secondary) you couldn’t get a locker til your final year, and then you had to pay a £40 deposit for it. You got the deposit back when you left if it was in good condition.
Saying that, they only got the lockers in about two years before I left. Was a great help when you’re doing 2 highers and an advanced course. waaaay too many books :S
Mike doesn’t need a bag. Notice that he put his math book in Walky’s bag. It’s why Walky’s bag felt heavier. *lol*
I didn’t even notice that the first time. Awesome.
Ohhhhhh. I didn’t notice that. That’s so clever. No wonder Mike was looking around all suspiciously like that last time we saw him.
Well, it’s still the first day. I don’t think I brought anything my first day since it was all syllabi.
Although that kinda contradicts this since they actually had to take notes and had homework right away. 0.0 Inteeense
I could go to classes back in university without a bag if I wanted to. Generally I never had more than 2 classes a day, and with stuff being mostly online, I could get by with my PDA if I didn’t mind looking like a dork (iPaq with sleeve = GINORMOUS).
Gender studies. Am I the only one imagining Joyce freaking out from learning about premarital hanky-panky?
…or is gender studies something completely different?
I thought gender issues had to do with cultural diversity between men and women… but since I never studied it in college I can’t say I really know for sure.
The Gender Studies class that I took was essentially a survey of feminism.
More or less…sex only came up in terms of the politics involved.
It’s still perfectly possible that Joyce will come up against something that will completely break her brain, even if they’re just talking in terms of the politics involved.
My “Debates in World Archaeology” module module has a section on gender in archaeology, which I think is supposed to be about how, from the antiquarian era up until around post-processualism, archaeologists allowed their cultures’ view of male-female relations to colour their assumptions about the male-female relations of the cultures they were studying.
I say “I think” because my lecturer got flustered and started speaking at length about how when she was young in the 80s’, she was confused about whether Boy George was a man or a woman.
Walky’s a wimp XD
I’m guessing Mike doesn’t need a bag since he got a mule.
I think any fear we had that Mike’s not an asshole in this universe can finally be put to rest.
Okay, now I’m gonna go with this being the start of their whirlwind romance.
Well, he has an hour to make it up the hill. He might just make it.
Not if the Jaguars get him first…
Jaguars are all white and say “HAY GUYZ!!1!”.
“I can has you for munchies?”
I hope Leslie is the teacher for the course.
From the guest strip, it would seem to fit.
I wonder when/if Robin’s going to appear.
Wow, I really am permanently Joyce
She’s a lesbian. It’s gender studies. I have zero doubt that you are right about this.
Aw! Lol. Mike. <3 He's not, like, gonna have a thing for Joyce, is he? That kind of seems unnatural just to even think about it.
Their children would be cheerfully distructive…
“I had your MOM for a nickle… It helped I asked nicely too…”
Weeell, he did sleep with Anti-Joyce in It’s Walky!…
Their children would be even more disturbing… Then again maybe if Anti-Joyce and Mike had kids the kids would turn out normal because when they grow up they don’t want to be like mom and dad O.o But we will never know… cause Anti-Joyce is dead.
I’ve been suspecting this for a while, but each new strip seems to reinforce it. Mike has trouble expressing his assholery directly in this continuity. His Twitter and his class notes are rife with derisive comments about Your Mom, but his actual dialogue? He’s either silent or says something that could be passive-aggressive at best. Perhaps like original Amber, he’s only able to open up (and be truly menacing) when it doesn’t have to be face-to-face.
Oh. It took me a second glance to notice Mike sneaking his book into Walky’s bag. Still, not exactly direct, so my theory holds.
He was kind of like that in Its Walky though.
Also, I think this is the youngest we see Mike. So he could be working on it. Also, he seems to not constaintly scowl all the time so he is either working on that too or he is faking kinder facial expressions to throw people off guard.
Mostly because of his I’m-totally-not-putting-my-book-in-your-bag-so-I-don’t-have-to-carry-it in the first panel there.
You know, since he only just met him the previous day, putting his book in Walky’s bag isn’t exactly a smart thing to do. If it were me, I’d be bumming the book off once I found it.
I feel for the uphill both ways thing. I literally have to walk uphill both ways on my way to the train to get to school, with a ten pound bag, no less.
If you bummed his book Mike would sell your mom to pay for it. Repeatedly. Probably in a way that would devalue your mom’s secondary market value and cause a collapse of your home town’s economy.
That’s after he devalued your mom’s secondary ‘market’. I’ll let you decide that one.
It takes a LOT of nickles to pay for a college math book. I’m not sure Mike could sell your mom that many times.
Mike could do it
That’s not much of a threat, he’d do that anyways. Quite frankly, I could get a lot of good animation paper if I sold a textbook without the cost of having had bought it.
Plus, seems like I’d got on Mike’s nerves with that. Win/Win.
Walky is Mike’s roommate.
And this is the second day, so unless they met before they moved in he’s only known him for little over a day.
Well, I think the theory is that as his roommate, Walky will be a little easier to keep track of than, say, Joyce would be. And easier to completely ruin the life of if he does anything with Mike’s stuff.
I’m not sure how that meshes with Mike being perfectly willing to walk off and let Walky get eaten by jaguars, though. You’d think a jaguar attack would stand a good chance of damaging the book.
I think Mike’s figured out that Walky at least tries to be a decent person (something that unless someone is actively trying to deceive you is easy to determine through observation), and being as such, Mike could just say “Hey, did you accidentally grab my book?” and Walky would find Mike’s book in his backpack and return it to him no problem as that’s how most decent people would operate.
Now if Mike were to try that on someone who didn’t value being a good person, yeah, it might be a problem.
This assumes, of course, that Mike cares about the book/money involved more than he cares about being an asshole.
And Walky will get eaten by Jaguars. (Mike will help)
OR
And Walky will get hit by a Jaguar car. (Mike will drive)
So jaguars of either variety are fairly common in Iowa, are they?
I don’t know about Iowa, but Indiana has a few, and Bloomington is near forest.
Ah, I’m sorry. I really shouldn’t screw up the location like that…
I still love Mike more than any other character. I’m sorry. He’s just too damn awesome.
Now there’s the Mike we know and love.
Also, colleges should totally have live jaguars on campus. That’d be rad.
Well, LSU has a live Tiger on Campus, does that sort of count?
Not jaguary enough.
My college roommate did encounter someone walking their young jaguar across our campus once. Apparently its purr sounded like a chainsaw.
Ah, Mike, how I love you.
And it’s been a few years since I’ve been on IU’s campus, but I remember walking it with my oldest brother, and damn, I was out of breath a lot even without a heavy book bag.
I love how mike is just like Ok bye, have fun with the Jaguars and my text book.
I came to IU from Pennsylvania. My home sat on top of a hill that was ridiculously steep even by PA standards.
So I always laugh at those who complain about the steepness of IU’s streets.
I grew up in a very hilly area of southeastern Indiana, and steep hills, no matter where they are, still SUCK.
1) Walky’s comment about Billie confirms my theory that Walky has a thing for Billie in this continuity
2) Nice title drop!
Ah college.
Backpacks full of books there were way overpriced that were hardly ever used and sold back for a third of what you paid in the first place, just for them to resell them at double or triple of what they gave you back.
And all that lugging around was made so much better at UNC-W while slogging through 10 inches of standing water since the campus had NO drainage to speak of so by the time you got to class you were waterlogged from the knees down.
‘Best time of your life’ my ass.
They have an hour before class! Do what I do and go back to your room and drop you crap off. Jeez Walky, think here.
Unless his dorm is on the hill after that hill. Only ever gone to school in flat lands, so I just assume IU has magic shifting hills.
The hills are alive with the sound of stalking jaguars…which isn’t much sound, unless generations of stalking unobservant college students has made them soft. Perhaps Amazi-Girl can save Walky from them.
How do I submit some fanart? I worked all morning on some fanart of Billie and Walky, and I totes want to show it off.
Host it somewhere and then post it on the forum.
I like what you did with the shade from the tree.
My grad school campus was on a fairly tall hill. The walk from the computer lab to the dining hall was known as “Cardiac Hill.”
But the best things about Clarion U were that no matter where you were walking on campus, the wind was always in your face, and no matter what the weather weas like in the rest of PA, Clarion’s sky was always, ALWAYS, gray.
I think your all missing what I see here. I think Mike put the book in Walky’s bag so he can catch some alone time with Joyce. Whether its to humiliate her, or to hit on her… Or both… I’m not sure yet.
This (in my head at least) enforces the Mike x Joyce possibility, seeing as Amber x Danny that could be going down at some point.
I’m not going to lie; I like this idea.
What the hell is “Gender Studies?”
You may know it better under its alternate title: “Men Are Teh Ebil.”
That’d be the curriculum taught at Lifetime University, yes?
I remember those kinds of classes as “General Education are Teh Stoopid.”
I didn’t even realize when I first read this comic that Mike has put his book in Walky’s bag. XD
“I don’t want to hold this.” *stuff in Walky’s bag*
I guess that explains the multiplying math books in the bag later, too. XD