Welcome to the saga of the working-class adventurer! Enjoy the complete story with new annotations daily!
Paint the Town Red
Windy, Winter Jay Kiakas
Winona runs a werewolf shelter with partner in crime, Odile in the Gothic city of Merlot. One day they take in an injured vampire, and soon unravels many of the dark secrets of Merlot.
All Known Alternatives
Karolina 'Kajotko' Jankiewicz
Akane has only one way to get back home: collect the 42 keys to parallel worlds. Eri and Ben are just trying to get through the summer before university. When a magical key turns up in an old spare set, all three are forced to change their plans and fast.
Hemlock
Josceline Fenton
A witch accidentally marries a monster, and now she and her familiar has to navigate life around her monstrous husband and her even more terrifying in-laws.
No End
Erli, Kromi
A queer romance about people attempting to build lives in a cold, post-apocalyptic world ravaged by hordes of undead.
Dumbing of Age
David M Willis
Joyce has been homeschooled her entire life until now, when she's suddenly a freshman in college! Things don't go well.
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I’d like to see Jason leave, and then Billie and Ruth come stumbling in, drunk (mistakenly thinking it is one of their rooms), and end up in a completely drunken 3way with Sal.
I would agree with you but in a number of places, a woman is legally assumed not to have agency to consent to sex when she is drunk enough but a man is in the same position.
I don’t really see why that matters. People shouldn’t be assumed to be able to consent while drunk no matter their sex or gender. If men are assumed to be able to consent while drunk, that’s not cool, but it probably has to do with the fact that they’re much less likely to find themselves being taken advantage of due to drunkenness. People shouldn’t be considered to have consented to sexual activity while too drunk to make decisions. I do think there can be an exception in some cases where established sexual relationships exist and there has bed previous communication, but otherwise it’s not cool.
Ideally the law on this subject should apply to either both or neither genders, but in a number of places, it’s not… the world is full of unfairness as you know.
I agree that taking advantage of someone who’s clearly impaired is both unethical and criminal, but what if both parties are intoxicated? I think this kind if situation might be what Plas is referring to.
While what I am able to say depend on where this happens, the odds are that even if both parties are intoxicated, the man will be the one held accountable while the women might be able to get off with a lesser charge if not get away with it on some grounds.
So by that way of thinking, when Ryan tried to drug Joyce and have his way with her it would have been no offense because she was 18 and still had her agency. ***BUZZZZ*** Incorrect, try again.
As a rule, if the subject unknowingly consumed alcohol and/or drugs then they cannot be said to have full agency, on the other hand, if they KNOWINGLY consume alcohol and/or drugs, then they are responsible for their actions eg: DUI offences.
Getting raped is something that happens to you, not something you cause. I know there’s a gray area when a drunk person initiates, but I think there is a valuable distinction here.
The issue is what can be expected of an impaired person, not how they became impaired.
This raises an important question. If an impaired person is considered to lack the agency to provide consent, why do we assume they have the agency to decide not to drive? The distinction here is that in the former case, the impaired person is unable to take an action (provide consent). Yet in the latter case, we can still assume that the impaired person is perfectly capable of not taking an action (getting behind the wheel).
Oh, and be careful. You’re dangerously close to implying that someone who knowingly becomes impaired is tacitly consenting to having sex with anyone who wants.
I suspect the logic behind DUIs is that you generally can’t DUI without malice aforethought – you’re responsible for taking the steps to prevent driving while drunk before you get drunk. That is, if you’re going drinking, don’t drive yourself to the bar, bring a designated driver. If you fail to take these steps and still avoid driving drunk (you notice you can’t walk straight and call a cab, or one is called for you) then good for you, but you dodged the bullet you fired at yourself.
In any case if you could show that you somebody else drugged you without your knowledge or consent, it would probably be a decent (but not perfect) defense against DUI charges.
“Taking advantage of someone being drunk” is exploiting their loss of agency. Morally, it’s evil. Legally, it a sex crime.
We already know that Sal’s judgment is totally destroyed — think about the story she was telling at the bar to strips ago. Sex with her wouldn’t be cute; it would be wrong.
Say what? Alcohol absolutely can take away agency, in the sense of capacity to make normal judgments. I don’t know why anyone would think this doesn’t apply to consent, because it does to everything else in life.
Get a drunk person to trade their house for another beer, and even if they chose to sign the contract – even if it was their idea – when it goes to court, you’re going to find yourself out a beer.
Sex after alcohol consumption is legally problematic. If your potential partner is not (a) clearly able to make an unimpaired decision and (b) clearly giving consent, then the best course is to just not go there. (There are grey areas, such as a case where both parties expected sex to happen after intoxication, but…well, it really is best not to depend on that.)
Not having sex with a drunk person when you aren’t sure if they are capable, in their current state, of consenting is not “taking away their agency”.
If Jason was even just 25% confident that Sal is deathly allergic to peanuts, he’s not gonna put peanut butter in her food. Because, as far as he knows, there’s a non-negligible chance that what he’s doing would be *murder*.
Similarly, you can grant that *some* drunk people have enough agency to consent while still saying “in this situation, you should definitely DEFINITELY not have sex with them!” because nobody should perform an action that has a non-negligible chance of being *rape*.
Yeah, I can’t see him playing a racing game voluntarily.
I suspect he’s more into HOG games (“Spot the __!”) or puzzle games like “The Seventh Guest” (he’s a bit behind the times). I can see him playing “Myst”, but I can’t really see him on the computer as a regular thing except for work; he’s more likely to be reading a good book, I think (I was going to say “curled up with a good book” but that doesn’t seem a Jason-esque posture).
Or Billie finding out about Sal/Jason then driving Sal completely nuts thinking she’s found someone she can clear her mind out to about their shared “Sleeping with someone who could be fired if we’re found out” thing.
Y’know, if he wanted to be good at his profession he would’ve actually tried to help Sal on her own terms instead of demonstrably just trying the same shit over and over again.
No, he just wants to be respected. Unfortunately for him that happens to involve being good at his job, or at least better at his job than whatever random student Sal roped into helping her.
How to rephrase instructions/information in a way someone else with a poorer grasp of the subject can understand isn’t always that easy. It requires the ability to think like the other person and to then decide what terms/explanation are likely to make sense; that can be surprisingly tricky; and the less someone has a grasp of the subject under discussion the trickier it is because then the metaphors have to be more general. I very occasionally at work (I do tech support) find myself saying, “Er… I’m just trying to figure out how to say this in plain English without lying to you…”
I think he does want to be good at his job, he’s just too proud to accept criticism. Sal just told him exactly what he failed to do and instead of listening he lashed out.
Nope! We’d all try our best to be last cause we may have been the ones shoved- sorry, helped in with a broom to get us in there, but at least we were first out when the door opened…
Danny’s passive enough to actually get behind the mind of anyone he really wants to. If he purposefully doesn’t want to know what’s going on, he won’t though.
Being passive isn’t always a negative quality. When it comes to teaching, you do need to be passive at times, lest you crowd out any chance for your student to show their thought process. It’s called listening, and it can be a challenge if you’re the one who’s supposed to have all the answers.
Passivity isn’t always a negative trait. In Danny’s case, being passive allowed him to understand what Sal needed to learn effectively, unlike what Jason *thought* she needed and insisted on teaching her in a way that wasn’t working.
Probably both. It’s not like Danny specifically is threatening him. But the fact that he’s having communication issues is pretty much a relationship doomer if he can’t surmount them.
Jason, I call this right here “helping Sal get back to her dorm.” At no point during this process have you actually tried to understand her at all. This is the first stab you’ve made at it all night. You don’t get credit for one question as you head out the door.
But he did care enough to make that effort — and then went a couple more steps further by getting her up to her room (and made sure the door stayed wide open to avoid any hint or suggestion of impropriety). How many other people would have passed the buck (put her in a taxi and send her on her way) or ignored it completely, figuring that someone else would take care of it?
Remember too — given the dynamics of Jason being the TA and Sal being one of ‘his’ students, he’s taking a hell of a risk himself should word of this ever get back to the administration. Granted, it would probably blow over in time, but there would still be a lot of embarrassing questions and answers in the meantime.
I would guess that Sal used her key. Guests are generally allowed into the residence hall at any time. I live on a coed floor, so I guess I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think there are any rules about gender.
I go to IU, if that wasn’t clear. In my dorm, we can have people visit whenever. The drunkenness thing may’ve been an issue IF there was anyone at the front desk. I don’t know how it works at Read–at Teter we don’t even have an Asma, we just have students at the desk–but after midnight at Teter there’s no one there.
Sal can’t get to her room on her own, so she does need Jason’s help in this case. I could easily see Asma escorting them in order to keep an eye on Jason, though.
Helping someone get home is a lot of effort, and does show you care, and Jason did do that. But, its still very different than trying to understand them.
Caring about someone and turning that care into effort, and trying to understand them are all different things.
If anything, his response to her answer shows that he’s not capable of trying to understand her, at least not at this time. :/ She gives him an honest answer, and rather than trying to understand her answer from her point of view, he tells her she’s wrong and shuts her down.
Oh, come on, dude. You get props for escorting Sal all the way to her room despite the inherent risks involved, but if you’re going to try to be introspective and ask a sensitive question, don’t get all huffy when she gives you a difficult answer. That just makes you look like a cheaply built tool shed. Quite while you’re slightly ahead.
I think the main difference with Danny is that Sal and him didn’t end pushing each other buttons the way Jason and her does. That way they could search the problem from the beginning.
Jason still has to deal with some of his pride though, because it can be way unhelpful in matters of teaching. Even if in the interaction on the bar and taking her to her room was not really at problem…
The thing with Dan is that once he figures out why Sal was having trouble with math, he adapted his tutoring in a way that works for her.
Sal’s parents and Jason have dealt with her in the same way – they tried to hammer in the details repeatedly, and when that didn’t work, they passed her off to someone else (Catholic school and another TA respectively).
I have to agree with most of whats been said.
Jason’s ego took a hit when Sal rubbed his nose in her decent grade as being due to her tutor: after he had told her that her lack of learning was her own fault.
So I agree that he’s jealous and it may well be for her bod or her grade or both.
Jason went up in my estimation for getting her home safely.
However, Jason truly just don’t get it. If he had tried a diff. way to actually teach her (she has proved she can be taught), he would’ve had the credit. I don’t think he is the teacher he thinks he is…and that he has no clue that it is his fault.
However, there is hope. He took the first step tonight to both restore himself in her eyes, and find out why she went to a tutor and how he taught her, when he himself couldn’t teach her. He may actually learn something.
yeaaah, there’s a big difference between imagining what teaching is and getting down to the nitty-gritty of explaining stuff and actually connecting with people to get to a place of understanding. i wonder why jason’s in this profession at all.
Not sure how it is in college, but at the university I attend, a professor isn’t a teacher at all. Oh, they might have a teacher’s education and they may even have decades of experience as a teacher at school, but a professor and a teacher isn’t the same thing and they don’t have the same responsibilities either.
For one, in a school, if the children aren’t learning, it’s the teacher’s fault (Though many bad teachers get keep their jobs sadly). In a university, if the students aren’t learning, it’s the students own fault. The professor is considered an expert in a certain subject and is contacted by the university to talk about her or his area of expertise. Beyond that, all responsibility lie with the students themselves.
Of course, ideally, the professor will actually try to reach through to their students and help them if they struggle to understand, and most of the professors I know do. But it’s not a requirement as part of their job.
‘This’ has almost nothing to do with your tutoring. It’s very nice that you’re helping Sal out cause she seems bummed, but that isn’t the problem.
Her other tutor didn’t go ‘these are the rules, follow them, if you can’t, you fail’. He said ‘well, these are the rules you have to know, but let’s see how you can use them in a way that makes sense to you, because that worked in Mario Kart.’
She can see Billie’s wishful thinking banner on the door where she tries desperately to recapture her glory days as a Dragon cheerleader. Or school pride. Either one.
Tutoring is hard to be good at when you have no special training for it and lack all aptitude. Being good at maths or sports does not make one a good tutor or coach. It more likely makes you impatient with someone clumsy with the basics.
And when the room is spinning, best to stay upright and not lay down. The spinning gets even worse. Fascinating phenomenon, due to the differential alcohol content of the blood stream and the fluid in the inner ear.
Jason’s stuck with the traditional method of teaching, so I don’t think he’ll be able to just transition himself into a dynamic method of teaching so easily. I’m actually really glad Danny was able to get through to her; it shows that he has some redeeming qualities.
I think Jason has redeeming qualities as well; we just haven’t seen them yet, hehe. I mean, I wouldn’t count getting Sal home safely as one, because that’s something literally everyone should do because it’s part of being a decent human being.
Well, “being a decent human being” is a redeeming quality. No really, that isn’t the minimum requirements for being a human, it’s a bonus. So him walking Sal home is a redeeming quality. He didn’t have to do anything at all, and yet he did. Doesn’t make him a saint, but then, no one is.
The requirement at some US universities that you must spend some or all of your undergrad years living in dorms, unless you have a very good reason, always seems a bit odd to me. The Canadian university I went to in the late ’80s, the University of Saskatchewan, didn’t even have dorm space for 10 percent of its students if I’m not mistaken. Until the last few years they hadn’t built anything since the ’70s, before adding several new buildings at the start of this decade. But it’s still the case that most students who need housing will end up living in non-university housing. That seems to be the case with other Canadian universities as well.
The university where I went to school 15 years ago, OSU, had a requirement that all first years whose legal guardians do not live within a reasonable commute to campus had to live on campus. Right now, they are currently building many more residence halls, as they are increasing that requirement to second years as well. This is part of their new focus on the “Sophomore Experience.”
Apparently the first and second years are statistically the time when most students struggle or need university assistance to not drop out. The theory is that is you live on campus, you are closer to the university’s services, and so the barrier to access those services is reduced. Presumably, requiring first years to live on campus had enough of a positive effect on drop out rates for it to be extended to the second year as well.
My university has been renting out rooms less spacey than Sal’s room as triples for a least 5 years now.
Although to be fair the current apparent roomyness of Sal’s dorm may be due to changing dimensions of the comic, regardless we were stacked on top of one another like cows and charging upwards of $700 a month.
You know you’ve been playing too much Five Nights at Freddy’s when Jason mentioning single occupancy vs. dual occupancy rooms immediately kickstarts your brain into imagining boarded up rooms and hidden passages with corpses or worse inside.
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I thought this was a booty call
“white noise” as a double entendre, too
He came to her room as fast as he could
maybe too fast :p
There is medication for that…
There’s medication for being so aroused by a room that you come to it too fast? Who MAKES this stuff?
… I don’t know sister but it comes in Fuchsia ….
It’s also a great book by Don DeLillo.
Nope, a boozy call.
I reeeeeeally hope this is not leading to a Slipshine….
Pretty sure Jason is too much of a gentleman to take advantage of a drunk girl.
I can’t wait for Sal to sober up.
Jason, your stock has just gone up at least ten points.
You will have to wait until next morning then.
But that’s AT LEAST 2 years away in real time.
I’d like to see Jason leave, and then Billie and Ruth come stumbling in, drunk (mistakenly thinking it is one of their rooms), and end up in a completely drunken 3way with Sal.
Of course, I only want to see that FOR SCIENCE!
Billie wouldn’t be mistaken—it is her room!
I’m pretty sure Willis is too much of a decent human being to use drunk-sex (generally considered rape*) to use as titillation.
(*Unless there’s a mutual and acknowledged understanding prior to inebriation that drunk sex may happen, then it gets fuzzy.)
Yeah, I can confirm that myself. Few days ago, I made some predictions, & last few days I’ve noticed #1 is becoming more & more possible. However When I mentioned that & gave a basic run down, Mr Willis misunderstood part of it cause I’d used the wrong wording, my bad. I have reworded it, should be good now…
Mind you, since they went to HER room for her to crash in, #1 is looking a little shakey, I’ll admit that…
I think Jason’s too proper to take advantage of someone who is drunk. Unless Sal takes charge just to shut him up.
I think that Jason is probably not a rapist. At this point, having sex with Sal wouldn’t be “taking advantage of,” it would be “sexually assaulting.”
That’s pretty insulting towards drunk people, don’t take away a persons agency just because they are intoxicated.
You realize that alcohol can take away people’s agency right? Sales is basically passed out here. She can’t even stand.
I would agree with you but in a number of places, a woman is legally assumed not to have agency to consent to sex when she is drunk enough but a man is in the same position.
I don’t really see why that matters. People shouldn’t be assumed to be able to consent while drunk no matter their sex or gender. If men are assumed to be able to consent while drunk, that’s not cool, but it probably has to do with the fact that they’re much less likely to find themselves being taken advantage of due to drunkenness. People shouldn’t be considered to have consented to sexual activity while too drunk to make decisions. I do think there can be an exception in some cases where established sexual relationships exist and there has bed previous communication, but otherwise it’s not cool.
Ideally the law on this subject should apply to either both or neither genders, but in a number of places, it’s not… the world is full of unfairness as you know.
I agree that taking advantage of someone who’s clearly impaired is both unethical and criminal, but what if both parties are intoxicated? I think this kind if situation might be what Plas is referring to.
While what I am able to say depend on where this happens, the odds are that even if both parties are intoxicated, the man will be the one held accountable while the women might be able to get off with a lesser charge if not get away with it on some grounds.
So by that way of thinking, when Ryan tried to drug Joyce and have his way with her it would have been no offense because she was 18 and still had her agency.
***BUZZZZ*** Incorrect, try again.
As a rule, if the subject unknowingly consumed alcohol and/or drugs then they cannot be said to have full agency, on the other hand, if they KNOWINGLY consume alcohol and/or drugs, then they are responsible for their actions eg: DUI offences.
Getting raped is something that happens to you, not something you cause. I know there’s a gray area when a drunk person initiates, but I think there is a valuable distinction here.
The issue is what can be expected of an impaired person, not how they became impaired.
This raises an important question. If an impaired person is considered to lack the agency to provide consent, why do we assume they have the agency to decide not to drive? The distinction here is that in the former case, the impaired person is unable to take an action (provide consent). Yet in the latter case, we can still assume that the impaired person is perfectly capable of not taking an action (getting behind the wheel).
Oh, and be careful. You’re dangerously close to implying that someone who knowingly becomes impaired is tacitly consenting to having sex with anyone who wants.
I suspect the logic behind DUIs is that you generally can’t DUI without malice aforethought – you’re responsible for taking the steps to prevent driving while drunk before you get drunk. That is, if you’re going drinking, don’t drive yourself to the bar, bring a designated driver. If you fail to take these steps and still avoid driving drunk (you notice you can’t walk straight and call a cab, or one is called for you) then good for you, but you dodged the bullet you fired at yourself.
In any case if you could show that you somebody else drugged you without your knowledge or consent, it would probably be a decent (but not perfect) defense against DUI charges.
“Taking advantage of someone being drunk” is exploiting their loss of agency. Morally, it’s evil. Legally, it a sex crime.
We already know that Sal’s judgment is totally destroyed — think about the story she was telling at the bar to strips ago. Sex with her wouldn’t be cute; it would be wrong.
http://www.ndaa.org/pdf/pub_prosecuting_alcohol_facilitated_sexual_assault.pdf
The kinks in the laws are still being ironed out, but it’s preeeeetty clear that the law intends to consider “drunk people” as incapable of giving consent and therefore fucking one is actual rape.
Say what? Alcohol absolutely can take away agency, in the sense of capacity to make normal judgments. I don’t know why anyone would think this doesn’t apply to consent, because it does to everything else in life.
Get a drunk person to trade their house for another beer, and even if they chose to sign the contract – even if it was their idea – when it goes to court, you’re going to find yourself out a beer.
It is legally considered rape to have sex with a drunk or high individual. Is drunk sex common? Yes. Is it advisable? Absolutely not.
Is there a grading system, as with DUIs? Is there a certain level at which a person is considered too drunk to give consent?
‘Cause if there isn’t, shouldn’t that make sex after any date/pickup where alcohol was consumed very legally problematic?
Sex after alcohol consumption is legally problematic. If your potential partner is not (a) clearly able to make an unimpaired decision and (b) clearly giving consent, then the best course is to just not go there. (There are grey areas, such as a case where both parties expected sex to happen after intoxication, but…well, it really is best not to depend on that.)
Yet, it’s in place to protect people who, like Sal here, are too drunk to resist.
Not having sex with a drunk person when you aren’t sure if they are capable, in their current state, of consenting is not “taking away their agency”.
If Jason was even just 25% confident that Sal is deathly allergic to peanuts, he’s not gonna put peanut butter in her food. Because, as far as he knows, there’s a non-negligible chance that what he’s doing would be *murder*.
Similarly, you can grant that *some* drunk people have enough agency to consent while still saying “in this situation, you should definitely DEFINITELY not have sex with them!” because nobody should perform an action that has a non-negligible chance of being *rape*.
I assume it’s a red herring. All this drunken buildup, then… BOOM… suddenly cut to Daisy finally getting relief from her dry spell.
With Becky?
With herself?
With Other-Jacob’s brother or cousin at least…
Only if we get a flashback of how it happened.
Well since they met at the bar, neither really seemed to have that on their mind, to begin with, so…
Is that last comment a double entendre?
He’s trying that deserves credit but he’s still kind of a c minus.
But a D+ …
This guy right here http://img.pandawhale.com/51928-Troy-and-Abed-gif-aM4I.gif
Jason plays Sonic Allstar Racing, he wouldn’t understand
Jason strikes me more as an F1 2014 type
Naw. He rocks Diddy Kong Racing! Old school or go home!
Sex is the opposite of racing games in that you probably don’t want to come first
He hasn’t played a racing game since OutRun.
Yeah, I can’t see him playing a racing game voluntarily.
I suspect he’s more into HOG games (“Spot the __!”) or puzzle games like “The Seventh Guest” (he’s a bit behind the times). I can see him playing “Myst”, but I can’t really see him on the computer as a regular thing except for work; he’s more likely to be reading a good book, I think (I was going to say “curled up with a good book” but that doesn’t seem a Jason-esque posture).
“sitting stiffly with a good book”
No one for Crash Team Racing? Because I think it would rather suit him. Am I the only PlayStation user here?
For some reason I feel this could be leading to Sal/Jason finding out about Billy/Ruth in some way? I mean, it would make sense.
Almost too much sense, so not likely to happen…
Or Billie finding out about Sal/Jason then driving Sal completely nuts thinking she’s found someone she can clear her mind out to about their shared “Sleeping with someone who could be fired if we’re found out” thing.
I feel bad for Jason. He wants to be good at a profession which everyone thinks isnt worth giving a damn.
Y’know, if he wanted to be good at his profession he would’ve actually tried to help Sal on her own terms instead of demonstrably just trying the same shit over and over again.
No, he just wants to be respected. Unfortunately for him that happens to involve being good at his job, or at least better at his job than whatever random student Sal roped into helping her.
Danny. She got Danny to help her, IIRC.
I was thinking from Jason’s perspective here! He doesn’t know who Danny is!
Danny: now demoted to nameless extra. None of us are surprised.
He wants to. He just doesn’t know how.
What Jason needs to do is learn how to teach someone who’s having difficulty understanding. Perhaps he will learn, if his pride will allow it.
How to rephrase instructions/information in a way someone else with a poorer grasp of the subject can understand isn’t always that easy. It requires the ability to think like the other person and to then decide what terms/explanation are likely to make sense; that can be surprisingly tricky; and the less someone has a grasp of the subject under discussion the trickier it is because then the metaphors have to be more general. I very occasionally at work (I do tech support) find myself saying, “Er… I’m just trying to figure out how to say this in plain English without lying to you…”
I think he does actually want to good at his profession. He just doesn’t know how to, necessarily.
I think he does want to be good at his job, he’s just too proud to accept criticism. Sal just told him exactly what he failed to do and instead of listening he lashed out.
All the pieces are slowly coming together! If only we could remember how to move the horsey…
White Noise
Congratulations, i am now creeped out.
Gotta love the 60s when it comes to freaky music.
That’ll probably explain why it sound like it was thought up, written & performed like someone stoned out of their mind. Fair enough…
Jason assumes Sal’s other tutor’s a dude?
I’d have to check, but I’m pretty sure Sal referred to her tutor as “him”.
Just as long was it wasn’t Him.
Having Him as a tutor could be awesome
She didn’t. http://www.dumbingofage.com/2015/comic/book-5/02-threes-a-crowd/nothanks/
Is Jason catching feelings for Sal?
That or VD.
Is she catching feelings for Danny?
Oh my gods, I just noticed Ruth sucking on Billie’s ear in the Comicon banner! So cute! ^^
I know, right?!
“When I was your age, I lived in a closet under the stairs with 15 other students!”
More like “I can’t believe you only have one bedroom! Where do you put the dozens of gifts you receive from your well-to-do parents on every holiday?”
And Harry Potter thought he had it bad…
It was a really big staircase.
Nope! We’d all try our best to be last cause we may have been the ones shoved- sorry, helped in with a broom to get us in there, but at least we were first out when the door opened…
Danny’s passive enough to actually get behind the mind of anyone he really wants to. If he purposefully doesn’t want to know what’s going on, he won’t though.
So even when Danny’s good at something, it’s because of s negative quality of his?
Wouldn’t that mean that being passive isn’t entirely negative?
Being passive isn’t always a negative quality. When it comes to teaching, you do need to be passive at times, lest you crowd out any chance for your student to show their thought process. It’s called listening, and it can be a challenge if you’re the one who’s supposed to have all the answers.
Passivity isn’t always a negative trait. In Danny’s case, being passive allowed him to understand what Sal needed to learn effectively, unlike what Jason *thought* she needed and insisted on teaching her in a way that wasn’t working.
I can’t tell if this is Jason wanting to mean something more to Sal if this is Jason wanting to be good at his job.
Probably a little of both. Sal finding a better tutor was a real blow to his ego and I’m sure it being Sal made it hurt more.
Didn’t help that she went out of her way to rub salt in his wounds.
i know right? he’s jealous, but is it because he feels threatened as an educator or as a potential partner?
Probably both. It’s not like Danny specifically is threatening him. But the fact that he’s having communication issues is pretty much a relationship doomer if he can’t surmount them.
Penny agrees.
Probably both.
I’m with that.
Jason, I call this right here “helping Sal get back to her dorm.” At no point during this process have you actually tried to understand her at all. This is the first stab you’ve made at it all night. You don’t get credit for one question as you head out the door.
But he did care enough to make that effort — and then went a couple more steps further by getting her up to her room (and made sure the door stayed wide open to avoid any hint or suggestion of impropriety). How many other people would have passed the buck (put her in a taxi and send her on her way) or ignored it completely, figuring that someone else would take care of it?
Remember too — given the dynamics of Jason being the TA and Sal being one of ‘his’ students, he’s taking a hell of a risk himself should word of this ever get back to the administration. Granted, it would probably blow over in time, but there would still be a lot of embarrassing questions and answers in the meantime.
I do wonder how he got in the dorm and past Asma, though….
I would guess that Sal used her key. Guests are generally allowed into the residence hall at any time. I live on a coed floor, so I guess I don’t know for sure, but I don’t think there are any rules about gender.
Also, uh, Asma is probably asleep.
They weren’t when I was student housed, if it was found out that you had people over at x time of night, it could get you kicked out.
I imagine they have more than one person running the front desk. If Asma does the day shifts presumably someone else does nights (or they rotate).
I go to IU, if that wasn’t clear. In my dorm, we can have people visit whenever. The drunkenness thing may’ve been an issue IF there was anyone at the front desk. I don’t know how it works at Read–at Teter we don’t even have an Asma, we just have students at the desk–but after midnight at Teter there’s no one there.
Sal can’t get to her room on her own, so she does need Jason’s help in this case. I could easily see Asma escorting them in order to keep an eye on Jason, though.
Helping someone get home is a lot of effort, and does show you care, and Jason did do that. But, its still very different than trying to understand them.
Caring about someone and turning that care into effort, and trying to understand them are all different things.
If anything, his response to her answer shows that he’s not capable of trying to understand her, at least not at this time. :/ She gives him an honest answer, and rather than trying to understand her answer from her point of view, he tells her she’s wrong and shuts her down.
Oh, come on, dude. You get props for escorting Sal all the way to her room despite the inherent risks involved, but if you’re going to try to be introspective and ask a sensitive question, don’t get all huffy when she gives you a difficult answer. That just makes you look like a cheaply built tool shed. Quite while you’re slightly ahead.
Jason is built of the best Maths education and bow tie money you can buy, he’ll have you know. Not cheaply built at all!
Meh. Take away the bow tie and he falls apart into his composite equations and algorithms.
I think the main difference with Danny is that Sal and him didn’t end pushing each other buttons the way Jason and her does. That way they could search the problem from the beginning.
Jason still has to deal with some of his pride though, because it can be way unhelpful in matters of teaching. Even if in the interaction on the bar and taking her to her room was not really at problem…
The thing with Dan is that once he figures out why Sal was having trouble with math, he adapted his tutoring in a way that works for her.
Sal’s parents and Jason have dealt with her in the same way – they tried to hammer in the details repeatedly, and when that didn’t work, they passed her off to someone else (Catholic school and another TA respectively).
But Jason didn’t “pass her of to another TA”. He passed of grading her work, but he still is her teacher.
(Him no longer tutoring her is Sal’s decision).
NO DONT FUCKING BOND!
Fucking James is A-OK though.
Shaken and not stirred, wink wink nudge nudge?
I have to agree with most of whats been said.
Jason’s ego took a hit when Sal rubbed his nose in her decent grade as being due to her tutor: after he had told her that her lack of learning was her own fault.
So I agree that he’s jealous and it may well be for her bod or her grade or both.
Jason went up in my estimation for getting her home safely.
However, Jason truly just don’t get it. If he had tried a diff. way to actually teach her (she has proved she can be taught), he would’ve had the credit. I don’t think he is the teacher he thinks he is…and that he has no clue that it is his fault.
However, there is hope. He took the first step tonight to both restore himself in her eyes, and find out why she went to a tutor and how he taught her, when he himself couldn’t teach her. He may actually learn something.
He did ask Penny if she thought he was a bad teacher, so he might have some idea that he’s not so good.
yeaaah, there’s a big difference between imagining what teaching is and getting down to the nitty-gritty of explaining stuff and actually connecting with people to get to a place of understanding. i wonder why jason’s in this profession at all.
He’s not, exactly. He’s a mathematics graduate student. He’s not a teacher except by circumstance.
i’d kinda weird seeing the same avatar answering to herself
Bouts of insanity happen with all the characters here from time to time.
And given what we’ve seen of any other non-Leslie teacher, pedagogical skill is not highly encouraged
Not sure how it is in college, but at the university I attend, a professor isn’t a teacher at all. Oh, they might have a teacher’s education and they may even have decades of experience as a teacher at school, but a professor and a teacher isn’t the same thing and they don’t have the same responsibilities either.
For one, in a school, if the children aren’t learning, it’s the teacher’s fault (Though many bad teachers get keep their jobs sadly). In a university, if the students aren’t learning, it’s the students own fault. The professor is considered an expert in a certain subject and is contacted by the university to talk about her or his area of expertise. Beyond that, all responsibility lie with the students themselves.
Of course, ideally, the professor will actually try to reach through to their students and help them if they struggle to understand, and most of the professors I know do. But it’s not a requirement as part of their job.
Well, ‘white noise’ isn’t exactly wrong…
Jason certainly does happen to be white and also noisy
Turn down for what?!!!!!
for hwat*
‘This’ has almost nothing to do with your tutoring. It’s very nice that you’re helping Sal out cause she seems bummed, but that isn’t the problem.
Her other tutor didn’t go ‘these are the rules, follow them, if you can’t, you fail’. He said ‘well, these are the rules you have to know, but let’s see how you can use them in a way that makes sense to you, because that worked in Mario Kart.’
Yup. In fact ‘this ‘ has so little to do with tutoring that I start to believe Jason use it as a metaphor for their sex life
ah, i hoped he’d ask. probalby not the best moment tho.
Now run, Jason, before Ruth catches you !
Jason this is obvs not a conversation for right now HAVE YOU NO PROPRIETY.
Sal’s sass factors are off the charts.
Is she really sure this is the right room? I mean, she probably doesn’t even recognize her door.
She can see Billie’s wishful thinking banner on the door where she tries desperately to recapture her glory days as a Dragon cheerleader. Or school pride. Either one.
That would be hilarious if she were wrong. Especially if Jason failed to notice the RA placard on the door…
I know, it’s probably not the case for a variety of reasons, but it would still be funny.
As maxyai already has pointed out: The Dragons banner makes it clear that this is Billies and Sal’s room!
If it was the wrong room how did he get the door open?
With the force of his personality.
Sal drunk-corcheted it.
I can’t read the last frame without hearing Nigel Crane’s voice.. Or was that the intent?
I meant NILES!! NILES CRANE. gah.. I am going to bed.
Nigel is Frasier and Niles’ cousin. However he was born in Texas, so he sounds like JR Ewing.
I can’t un-hear it now.
Through beer earphones, Jason must sound like a modem.
White Noise is a great name for Jason.
Tutoring is hard to be good at when you have no special training for it and lack all aptitude. Being good at maths or sports does not make one a good tutor or coach. It more likely makes you impatient with someone clumsy with the basics.
And when the room is spinning, best to stay upright and not lay down. The spinning gets even worse. Fascinating phenomenon, due to the differential alcohol content of the blood stream and the fluid in the inner ear.
Or a.good name for a white rap group
Time and place Jason, time and place.
And I’d you ask for critique, don’t start arguing the first thing you do. Just listen to what she’s telling you
And just get her a glass of water already. Jeez, you had your time for evolving relationships. Now it’s drunk handling. Those two things don’t mix.
Jason’s stuck with the traditional method of teaching, so I don’t think he’ll be able to just transition himself into a dynamic method of teaching so easily. I’m actually really glad Danny was able to get through to her; it shows that he has some redeeming qualities.
I think Jason has redeeming qualities as well; we just haven’t seen them yet, hehe. I mean, I wouldn’t count getting Sal home safely as one, because that’s something literally everyone should do because it’s part of being a decent human being.
Well, “being a decent human being” is a redeeming quality. No really, that isn’t the minimum requirements for being a human, it’s a bonus. So him walking Sal home is a redeeming quality. He didn’t have to do anything at all, and yet he did. Doesn’t make him a saint, but then, no one is.
Yeah, as a Brit I don’t understand how you could tolerate shared bedrooms. Even sharing a bathroom is the minority for housing.
The requirement at some US universities that you must spend some or all of your undergrad years living in dorms, unless you have a very good reason, always seems a bit odd to me. The Canadian university I went to in the late ’80s, the University of Saskatchewan, didn’t even have dorm space for 10 percent of its students if I’m not mistaken. Until the last few years they hadn’t built anything since the ’70s, before adding several new buildings at the start of this decade. But it’s still the case that most students who need housing will end up living in non-university housing. That seems to be the case with other Canadian universities as well.
The university where I went to school 15 years ago, OSU, had a requirement that all first years whose legal guardians do not live within a reasonable commute to campus had to live on campus. Right now, they are currently building many more residence halls, as they are increasing that requirement to second years as well. This is part of their new focus on the “Sophomore Experience.”
Apparently the first and second years are statistically the time when most students struggle or need university assistance to not drop out. The theory is that is you live on campus, you are closer to the university’s services, and so the barrier to access those services is reduced. Presumably, requiring first years to live on campus had enough of a positive effect on drop out rates for it to be extended to the second year as well.
I feel its cause they wanna make money.
My university has been renting out rooms less spacey than Sal’s room as triples for a least 5 years now.
Although to be fair the current apparent roomyness of Sal’s dorm may be due to changing dimensions of the comic, regardless we were stacked on top of one another like cows and charging upwards of $700 a month.
He showed her the way.
The way of the Kart.
You know you’ve been playing too much Five Nights at Freddy’s when Jason mentioning single occupancy vs. dual occupancy rooms immediately kickstarts your brain into imagining boarded up rooms and hidden passages with corpses or worse inside.
LOL
He just never gets a break for being a good person.