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I don’t even think it affected my grades. If it was an early morning class I probably wasn’t going to soak up much knowledge anyway. To quote Lewis Black “There’s nothing you can learn through one bloodshot eye”.
Besides, the notes were all online, and the syllabus listed which textbook sections we were covering.
I actually did have one university class that took attendance. It was compulsory for all engineering students, and was teaching us useful skills like how to use Word and Excel.
There were enough people skipping lectures that it became noticeable, so they started taking attendance. That resulted in people ticking their name off at the start and then leaving. Then they switched to taking attendance at the end, and then at a random times during the lecture. That resulted in people getting others to tick off their name.
My animation teacher said “being punctual is important in the workforce” and literally would fail you for the day if you were even a minute late. No matter what was due that day. Also if your project wasn’t 100% finished by the time class started, it was considered late and you got an F. Even if you were just renaming it in the correct MLA format at the last second you were counted late. It was brutal.
Ugh, I remember the basic “what is computer” classes. You’d think they’d start networking majors on the OSI model, not “the W is called Microsoft Word”. Eventually we got to the good stuff, but we had to slog through a lot of stuff like Visual Basic, ISDN, and T1s (in 2007!) to get there.
One of the very first classes taught us about physical PC hardware at a very high level, think “gaming PC build tutorial” stretched out to a semester. (Luckily by that point, they had wised up and let you take that class for free after hours while you were still in high school. Somebody still managed to screw up the “remove and replace a stick of RAM” exercise though. I still don’t understand how. You’re just taking out one thing and putting it back exactly the way you found it! Somehow they managed to cram DDR2 into its slot backwards and crooked, and they fried the whitebox tutorial PC.)
Computer science night school had a staggering attrition rate, too. The first classes were standing room only, and by the end of the program there was maybe a dozen of us left. So many high schoolers and folks who were only in it for the money got suckered in on the TV commercials’ promises of easy, high-paying jobs. I think about half of the class was gone by the end of the first semester.
That basic computing skills part wasn’t even the worst part of that course. For one assignment we needed to prepare a report for acquiring/building a portable hazard lights trailer as you’d find at road works, complete with costings.
There were maybe two companies who supplied that kind of equipment in the city, neither of which published prices online. They weren’t warned that they’d have an entire class of students wasting their time on calls for that would never result in sales. They definitely weren’t happy when I called them.
We had to build out (on paper) the entire IT infrastructure for a fictional multinational corporation, from scratch, as a group project. Dell and HP reps love it when you string them along to get volume pricing, only to find out the “consultancy firm” is just some kids in a classroom working on an assignment. (You’d think they would have been tipped off by the name “Howard Fine and Associates”…) Cisco wouldn’t even give us the time of day once the jig was up.
At least our group priced out more than one copy of Office. (Seriously, another group quoted one copy that they would “just install on all the PCs”. And the professors asked us why our “bid” was so much higher than theirs…)
In one of my later semesters, I attended the first two classes of a phonology course, determined that it was going to be Absolutely Useless because the lecturer was head over heels with Optimality Theory and wasn’t going to teach about any other approaches to the subject, and stopped showing up. It was a 9:30am course, so that meant a whole extra hour of sleep on those days! I did the readings and turned in the homework on time via e-mail, and never further had to darken the door of the classroom.
Late in the semester I shared an elevator ride with the lecturer going somewhere on campus; she cheerfully greeted me and I smiled and did the smalltalk thing and although she clearly knew who I was and that I was theoretically a student of hers, zero mention of my lack of attendance was made.
(I aced the final exam, a take-home essay question, whereupon she asked if we agreed that OT was a good approach to phonology and why/why not. My answer was along the lines of ‘it explains this one very particular thing okay but for everything else it’s pretty much trash, sorry your faves are garbage’.)
Ok, so I first read this as a phrenology course, thought “WTF?”, shrugged, then kept reading. Then I cottoned on but still, it seems like what you got was the linguistics equivalent, so I’m still shrugging. Sorry you got dragged through that mate. Though I’m glad you had the opportunity to provide solid feedback.
It’s college, they assume you’re an adult, and don’t obsess over daily attendance. If you skip every class, but still get an A on exams, they’re satisfied you know the material.
I skipped one day of economics in community college one summer, and the professor called me into his office to chew me out about it. I was really surprised at the time. Thinking back, though, I was a high schooler (the class counted both for high school and for my future university degree) and spoke up in class relatively frequently, so maybe it shouldn’t be surprising. Still, he definitely cared.
(No, I don’t remember what excuse I gave. I wasn’t about to say “well, I think your lectures are useless and I get everything I need from the textbook” to his face.)
Yeah, if its a dual highschool/college credit class, its highly likely that attendance is mandatory (for the highschoolers) I think it’s a funding thing
My nursing classes had a participation point component built into the grades, and it made up enough of a portion that missing more than one class had a noticeable impact. Considering anything less than 78% was a failing grade, it was best to not chance losing out on those easy points and to just show up.
There was the intro chem class I showed up to for the first week to watch the professor read from the book to the giant lecture hall. Didn’t waste my time with that anymore. Did go to the lab sections of course. Think I got a B+?
I had a photography class that was only once a week. I had to miss the first class. I was dropped. He explained that I missed everything about using the darkroom and all of that. Not cool.
Attendance is mandatory in college classes ATM.
As are seating charts. And assigned seating.
… so we can tell the nice medical people who was sitting next to who if someone has to quarentine.
In my college experience you really only had to go to class once a week. The teacher gave you an assignment and essentially until it was due the rest of the glasses were just designated work time with maybe a lecture at the start. Each class was different of course, but most of the time you went to class if you needed the teachers assistance or advice.
Yeah, at least in my experience, most of the real WORK of college happens outside of class.
I don’t know about how it was for the rest of you, but where I went it was recommended to spend at least three hours studying for every hour of lecture.
In college, I had a theater class as what I thought was the easiest of the required arts credits. I went regularly for a while, before I realized that all the tests were not only multiple choice, but the kind of multiple choice where you could rule out three of the four answers via common sense. I stopped going regularly and started playing Morrowind more often.
Then one week I came in after a long break, and the prof said “I’ll have your grades from the test last class up on the website by the end of the week.” I wasn’t there to take said test.
I did what immature college students do: came up to the prof after class was over and lied my ass off. I spun some horrid yarn about how I was in contact with some woman in an abusive marriage who was staying at my apartment for a while, and I was too busy dealing with that situation to think about tests. It was awful, I still feel bad about it, but the theater prof ate it up. She said she would take my grade on the next test as my grade on this one too, no big deal.
Anyway, I missed that test too. Too busy currying favor with the Telvanni. Only class I ever failed. Whoops.
Never had a class like that. They gave plenty of work, but that was for your own time. Lots of lectures, class discussion, chances to question what you didn’t understand. Don’t remember any designated work time.
Man your guy’s college experience was way different than mine. Like don’t get me wrong some classes you could totally skip consequence free but I also had classes where skipping was a death sentence that cast you your whole grade.
I was granted a time turner for one class. Or at least given formal permission to schedule a clash.
I started off attending one half of each lecture, but quickly established the lecturer for the module I needed to complete as a course requirement somehow spent 2 hours reading through slides I could read in 10 minutes without adding anything at all, and the one on machine vision which was one of the advanced modules I was taking instead of doing a dissertation was worth attending.
same.
I also had this horrid lecturer who was reading from the 101 book he wrote, which was a mandatory purchase bc he did not read all of it (even if it was short) and tested on things that were only in the book. Also you couldn’t come with any good reason to miss, he wouldn’t allow it, even with a broken leg or a dead relative.
And this american latin teacher who was reading latin with his accent (he was in France since at least 20 years and knew no one here pronounce it this ways, from what I happened to know later), resulting in people who weren’t speaking english to make spelling errors. He also made grammatical errors. Mind you, what you wrote in the test wasn’t really important anyway cause he mainly checked if you were there every class (monday morning class aka the lethal hour).
All in all, latin teacher were really a weird bunch and I was glad I had learned the subject before getting to college.
I don’t remember any where just showing up was that significant – in the taking attendance and counting it heavily sense. Some where class participation was important.
Several where the professor warned us that while he wouldn’t be grading on attendance, he’d be seriously impressed if we could pass without showing up regularly.
And of course some big lecture hall classes where no one would ever know if you showed or not.
We did use to joke that the difference between high school and college was that in high school you’d have kids skipping when there was a test while in college a test would bring faces you’d never seen before.
I get the distinct impression that theirs is not exactly a happy relationship.
I’m looking forward to hopefully getting some more Sarah backstory, since as of now that’s largely been limited to events that only happened in her freshman year.
Because they made extra-sure that the coffee was already cold when they began to freeze it.
In all seriousness, a “cold brew” is a process differing from a regular brew. To quote the Chicago Tribune article I’m plagiarizing: cold brew is made by steeping ground beans in cold water. This results in both a longer brew time and a smoother taste”.
Wait, you wanna play a Nintendo game in a way Nintendo didn’t specifically lay out for you to play them in, whether they’ve made any effort to make that game available themselves or not? Why, that’s worse than murder!
Also Sarah is on a scholarship and her grades have been shown to decline when she doesn’t get her study time with focus in, so she’s not someone who just inherently ‘gets’ stuff so she can’t afford to blow off her classes.
I took my classes VERY seriously in college. I showed up every day, sometimes I stayed late and I engaged with my teachers so much it pissed other people off.
Granted that’s cuz I went to art school and I was SUPER excited to learn everything I could cuz I FUCKING LOVE ART.
Also I had a teacher where if you were late for class without an excuse (even by one minute) you got a 0 for the day. Which could range between failing a small test to failing a HUGE 70% of your grade project just because you were 2 minutes late.
While I hated taking his classes I liked him as a teacher. Really put a fire under our ass and forced us to push our limits. Which honestly I think definitely helped in the long run.
Sarah doesn’t like anybody that much. She only tolerates Joyce because she’s been through so much trauma and doesn’t want to seem like a total asshole.
I think she might like Dorothy and Dina in a quiet “I can respect your passions and you don’t annoy me with your presence” sort of way.
I also think Sarah projects “bitter cynic” to protect herself, and Joyce’s resilience and optimism in the face of it all, along with her genuine desire to learn and do better and be a good person slid past her defences. Their big sister-little sister dynamic is real and heartfelt.
Doesn’t mean Joyce doesn’t irritate the carp out of her sometimes – sisters can do that, as Liz is demonstrating – but she does genuinely care for and about Joyce, even though she’d swear blind she knows better!
Yeah, I didn’t skip intentionally, but in big lectures, the teachers NEVER bothered to take attendance. If there were over 100+ people, the teachers’ attitude was generally ‘Fuck it, I have my degree, if you don’t care to show up, IDC either.’
… ‘I’m not telling my professors I got kidnapped. Again.’ should not have made me laugh nearly as hard as it did (ie, audible, actual laughter.)
It is in fact the first week of classes and therefore missing is likely not a huge deal material-wise, so I suspect Sarah doesn’t want to spend time with Liz (and Joyce, in tandem.) Wonder if it’s something about the whole parents’ divorce thing, or just Sarah being generally avoidant with people? Either way, more than game for Sarah-centric story time.
It’s hard to say – Sarah’s hinted a couple times they don’t have a good relationship (“Lying to your parents is an adulthood rite of passage, like pretending you love them.”) but it’s hard to say if that’s true or if she’s just crusty.
I always took it as Sarah was afraid she would eventually lose her scholarship if she couldn’t study vs she was ever close to actually losing it.
Like I think she had a bad test score, but there was never any threat of academic probation or anyone in the administration/faculty talking to her about their concerns regarding her grades.
Scholarship requirements can be quite a bit higher than anything that would trigger faculty talking to a student, much less academic probation.
I think I had a small scholarship my first year that went away when I didn’t maintain a 3.0. Or maybe it was even higher – long time ago now.
She lost the other in a wacky incident involving an old arcane tome, 300 kilograms of industrial-strength gelatin condenser, a hydrospanner, and two ostrich-horses.
Huh, yeah, I’d been noticing something about her eyebrows but not placing it the last few days. Wonder if she’s a Chemistry or Physics major, we could use one of those in the (extended) cast.
Don’t they just upload the course outline to the student site? I only had one class that didn’t upload anything and i dropped bc of it (couldn’t attend class for med reasons)
I do not think Joyce is gay. And I know literally nothing about Liz. But seeing them together like this makes me think “yeah no they’d make a cute couple.”
Aesthetically.
I’ve taken the evidence into account and I can honestly say I could see her as bi-romantic perhaps, but I’m not sold on her being bisexual YET. You can hit me with the “I told you so’s” if/when it happens though.
That’s not fair. The artist formerly known as Billie’s boobs are some A+ boobage. Whom among us wouldn’t want to crawl inside that ample cleavage and feel safe?
As someone who is sexually attracted to women and likes boobs, “crawl inside and feel safe” isn’t really the reaction I have to them, so I don’t really see Joyce’s reaction there as a sign that she’s bisexual.
It certain doesn’t rule it out, of course.
Interesting cuz as someone who is sexually attracted to women and LOVES boobs, the concept of smothering myself in those pillowy mounds is pretty prevalent. Like tmi but I used to ask my ex to just hug my head in her chest when cuddling. It was the breast!
I was going to jokingly say they have a 4-way but then I realized how gross it would be for Sarah to have sex with her sister. Oh and also Liz is there too.
My uni(Rutgers)did take attendance. Even for the big classes. You just had to sign the sheet before class started. A few of my profs didn’t care but the majority of them did.
In Sarah’s defense: Liz, you could at least have told her ahead of time that you were going to come here and demand she rearrange her entire schedule for you!
The days of being able to randomly skip class for no reason are dying out (if not gone already). I know when I went back in the early ’00s no one cared (at least in freshman classes in giant lecture halls). But when my brother went to college in 2013 he said they took attendance every class and if you missed 4 without excuses then your ass was auto-flunked.
They took attendance every class when I started going to college in 2011, and mostly explained it was a way to keep track of students for financial aid purposes. Which really sucked if you weren’t dependent on financial aid and had life shenanigans pop up. I wasn’t the type to skip classes so most of the time this wasn’t an issue for me, but it was really rough seeing people have to drop a class that they were otherwise excelling in just because they missed a few days.
Why does it matter for financial aid purposes? They know what the student signed up for and they’ll know how they did at the end. What more do they need?
Yeah I’m a little biased bc my college was small enough that the biggest classes were like 50, but attendance was definitely a thing haha. Lotta syllabuses said ‘if you miss 3 classes without letting me know you drop a grade’.
I went from 2014 and graduated in February this year (hooray, grad school) and in my undergrad, the lecturers RARELY took attendance (at least not out loud). Some did, if it wasn’t a huge class of over 100 people, but a lot just did not care. The prevailing attitude was ‘I have my degree, and I want you to pass but if you don’t care, I don’t either.’ More participation points for the rest of us when we answered questions. The TAs for the tutorials where we were going over assignments and such did take attendance and you couldn’t miss more than three I think, but those were much smaller and had like 20 people.
Maybe in the states? At my uni as long as you attend the tutorials/seminars/labs and exams, you’re good. Lectures are literally optional. Esp now with online classes. I had one lecturer punish me for missing classes and attendance wasn’t even graded for that class, it was just a him thing.
It… is a bit rude to show up unannounced, and make demands on someone’s time, suggesting they sacrifice they’re academics to spend time with you. If you really want to spend time with Sarah, just go to her class with her.
There were many, many things that went wrong with my time at university, of which the biggest was probably “Oh, hey, turns out undiagnosed dyscalcula and physics don’t mix!” but the moment I realised the only person who cared if I went to class was me definitely didn’t help.
Yeah, not fond of people showing up randomly and expecting you to spend time with them because they showed up. A positive attitude doesn’t make it ok to show up and start making demands of someone’s time. I’m a lot like Sarah in that I’d probably refuse out of spite.
Sorry Liz. Sisters/family is important. But classes are WAY more important. Go around with Joyce, if she want. You can’t come out of nowhere and force Sarah to show you around.
aah this reminds me of when my friend used to skip a mandatory class (mandatory for all language students at my university so it was a HUGE class) to go to another mandatory class (she failed this course last year and so her schedule was effed up)
and the only way the teacher checked absences was by having us write down our student number on a piece of paper (plus our names and school email) and i would literally just do that for her for an entire semester.
That’s strange that the teacher didn’t allow the skipping already. I was double “majoring” most of my time in college, so my schedule never was very stable, but when I had two mandatory classes at the same time, the teachers always told me that it was allright as long as I could be there for tests and giving papers sometimes I had to make the tests during classes that I wasn’t following (bc I had something else) but were taught by the same teacher with about the same course, but it never was a problem as long as it was skipping in order to study more.
idk what to tell ya, i think her problem was that both teachers told her that their class was mandatory and that she needed to attend every time, but ahe chose the one she hadnt taken before (the one she skipped had the same material as last time so she would just ask me if they said anything specific or about the test).
anyway she took a break from uni a few years back and now she might return because its become easier to take online courses.
This is unrelated to today’s strip but I had one of those sudden realizations you get in the middle of the night about a piece of media and came to realize that there really was no reason for Mike to stay alive.
Like yeah it did/kinda does bug me that Mike having his attraction to men matter to the story and now that’s gone, but then I thought about it and realized that “Mike becomes a better person and struggles with the mess he created where everyone around him is just waiting for the other shoe to drop”… that’s not only Ruth with the exact same scenario where Rachel and to a lesser degree Sal are willing to hold her accountable and she’s just kind of depressed and morose but still trying to keep going, it’s Joe in relation to Joyce where a lot of Joe’s problems are that the things he says don’t get what he means across because of those times Joyce opened up to him and then he’d let her down.
The Ruth comparison is the stronger point, but I think it’s also Ruth was a huge bastard person but not too everyone, so Ruth can have conversations with another cast member not about how she was a terrible bastard person for variety. Mike was a terrible bastard person to every character without fail, he’d be going through Ruth/Rachel/Sal dynamic in every strip, so now I’m coming around to thinking that his death and the reactions from Walky (where he’s clearly traumatized and not sure how to process it) and Ethan whenever he shows up would be sort of the most interesting drama Mike could produce.
I never though of it this way, but now that you mention it the comic is pretty full on redemption arc characters. I also think it would have been hard to write believable motivation for Mike to change. He seemed pretty set in his ways. Someone like Booster who means well but has some issues to work through offers more room for character growth.
And I can see that being motivation to sacrifice himself to save her, in the moment. I’m not sure it would have been enough for him to get up every day and work on being a better person. If anything I think his feelings for Ethan would have been a better motivator.
Basically. While I think this lets Mike off the hook and keeps his victims thinking of him as The Friend Who Saved AG, So He Couldn’t Be All Bad (rather than, as I was very much hoping someday, ‘we keep giving you chances but honestly, you’re terrible to us,’) the narrative space that redemption would’ve taken was just more than the comic had to spare for an arc that was already being addressed, and he’d been SO terrible to Amber, Ethan and Walky for so damn long that he would basically have no room to be Comedic Asshole Mike anymore with the three primary characters he interacts with. (Note that Ruth really doesn’t interact with Rachel when she can avoid it.)
Ruth can hang out with any number of characters without touching on the fallout of her abusive actions that mostly manifests through Rachel and Sal, she can be a character outside that specific narrative and then her character is further informed by stepping outside of that specific narrative, but Mike? Everyone he interacted with was someone he was a huge asshole to, so every person he’d interact with while trying to be a better person would have the same ballpark of reactions: “I don’t believe you”, “who cares what you think?”, that kind of thing.
And it’s not necessarily that this couldn’t be done, it’s that Mike wouldn’t really have much else to offer. He’s a simple character by design except all his contributions to the cast can be found elsewhere. Mike can’t do sweet pranks, that’s Carla’s gig. Mike can’t just bluntly state an ongoing problem, that’s either Sarah (who just wants to cut to the chase) or Booster (who does so seemingly due to missing some social tact). Mike can’t even “manipulate” people into bettering themselves, Becky’s got that too and it’s still weird when Becky does it, but at least Becky doing it has some room for discussing where that came from and the impact she could have on the people around her. Like, Becky was A Douchebag with what she pulled on Ruth and Jennifer in Gender Studies, but you can at least talk about why she did it and why she would think it’s right (because these two nearly killed themselves together and Becky’s freaking out).
I don’t even think you could put Mike through a soft reboot like what Ethan is probably undergoing, because Mike is a way more defined character than Ethan was so if he moved away from that, even in a positive way, he wouldn’t really be Mike anymore. Resetting Ethan’s character, dragging Amber into even worse isolation and traumatizing Walky who is unable to talk about it healthily is probably the most actual impact he could have on the plot.
So…am I the only one who doesn’t realize how incredibly inconsiderate and selfish she’s being right now? Don’t get me wrong, relatives just popping in on your day to day without notice is always an inconvenience, but it can turn out pleasant if you’re willing to hear them out. Once they disregard your agenda for theirs though, yeah no, they gotta go. Liz, it’s cute that you and Joyce are close enough to be friends, but you gotta respect your sister’s boundaries, older or otherwise, and know your place which, right now, with that little dig in Panel 3, is NOT on that campus, much less the dorm of two direct victims.
Of course, Liz may actually have a real reason to be here today. We’ve twice now seen a sibling or close friend show up unexpectedly,and in neither case was the visit as casual as it seemed at first.
There may be drama here, not just annoying little sister bothering big sister.
As a college professor, if one of my students said, “I missed class because my little sister showed up unexpectedly and we got breakfast,” I’d say, “Yeah, okay. Hope she’s well. You caught up on the reading?”
I had a professor who said if we are going to fall asleep during his lecture to not show up. I was a 7 am class in a dark room, so that was the first and last day I went to his lectures. Still got a B.
today in #9chickweedlane i learned we have to be shown children learning and relearning what sex is, for Reasons, even though they already clearly know and have prepared nuanced questions about it!
also that Gran must hate, if she's still alive, how Old Juliette is the same but with gray hair
one of my favorite things is when a commenter explodes WHEN DO THESE CHARACTERS GET THERAPY but directed towards a character who canonically has a regular therapist
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btw if you're one of those rando bluesky weirdos who doesn't know me but sees me in the wild being sarcastic and don't know i'm being sarcastic because you haven't taken like 30 seconds to, like, maybe look at my user profile or something, keep walking, you're not going to score internet points here
Here's an entertaining cite at the bottom of the first page
Josh Gerstein@joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
JUST IN: Milwaukee Judge Hannah Dugan moves to dismiss federal criminal case against her for allegedly helping immigrant hide from ICE. Her lawyers say she's protected by official acts & judicial immunity and 10th Amendment. Doc: storage.courtlistener.com/recap/gov.us...
Where did Hollywood go so wrong? I thought movies were supposed to be an escape from reality, a chance to put your worries aside and not have to think about any underlying ideas or concepts. Well, not anymore.
theonion.com/you-can...
It's not a new argument, of course, but Chesterton dismissed it effectively in 1908.
"You will hear everlastingly... this argument that the rich man cannot be bribed. The fact is, of course, that the rich man is bribed; he has been bribed already. That is why he is a rich man."
Aaron Rupar@atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Hawley dismisses Trump lining his pockets with his memecoin: "Listen, I think nobody believes that Donald Trump can be bought. I mean, what does Donald Trump need more money for?"
wilbur, savvy enough to know he's in a comic strip but still not a great actor, awkwardly lifts a muffin up into frame so that we, the audience, understand that he has a muffin right now, which is very important narratively, but he's not really selling it well as an organic, human action
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 1d
Josh Gerstein @joshgerstein.bsky.social ⋅ 2d
Aaron Rupar @atrupar.com ⋅ 2d
Pavel
@spavel.bsky.social ⋅ 11d
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the last one, never ever got called out for skipping
especially for the auditorium classes, heck if they even noticed I was there to begin with
…it showed in my grades BUT STILL
I don’t even think it affected my grades. If it was an early morning class I probably wasn’t going to soak up much knowledge anyway. To quote Lewis Black “There’s nothing you can learn through one bloodshot eye”.
Besides, the notes were all online, and the syllabus listed which textbook sections we were covering.
I actually did have one university class that took attendance. It was compulsory for all engineering students, and was teaching us useful skills like how to use Word and Excel.
There were enough people skipping lectures that it became noticeable, so they started taking attendance. That resulted in people ticking their name off at the start and then leaving. Then they switched to taking attendance at the end, and then at a random times during the lecture. That resulted in people getting others to tick off their name.
My animation teacher said “being punctual is important in the workforce” and literally would fail you for the day if you were even a minute late. No matter what was due that day. Also if your project wasn’t 100% finished by the time class started, it was considered late and you got an F. Even if you were just renaming it in the correct MLA format at the last second you were counted late. It was brutal.
Ugh, I remember the basic “what is computer” classes. You’d think they’d start networking majors on the OSI model, not “the W is called Microsoft Word”. Eventually we got to the good stuff, but we had to slog through a lot of stuff like Visual Basic, ISDN, and T1s (in 2007!) to get there.
One of the very first classes taught us about physical PC hardware at a very high level, think “gaming PC build tutorial” stretched out to a semester. (Luckily by that point, they had wised up and let you take that class for free after hours while you were still in high school. Somebody still managed to screw up the “remove and replace a stick of RAM” exercise though. I still don’t understand how. You’re just taking out one thing and putting it back exactly the way you found it! Somehow they managed to cram DDR2 into its slot backwards and crooked, and they fried the whitebox tutorial PC.)
Computer science night school had a staggering attrition rate, too. The first classes were standing room only, and by the end of the program there was maybe a dozen of us left. So many high schoolers and folks who were only in it for the money got suckered in on the TV commercials’ promises of easy, high-paying jobs. I think about half of the class was gone by the end of the first semester.
That basic computing skills part wasn’t even the worst part of that course. For one assignment we needed to prepare a report for acquiring/building a portable hazard lights trailer as you’d find at road works, complete with costings.
There were maybe two companies who supplied that kind of equipment in the city, neither of which published prices online. They weren’t warned that they’d have an entire class of students wasting their time on calls for that would never result in sales. They definitely weren’t happy when I called them.
We had to build out (on paper) the entire IT infrastructure for a fictional multinational corporation, from scratch, as a group project. Dell and HP reps love it when you string them along to get volume pricing, only to find out the “consultancy firm” is just some kids in a classroom working on an assignment. (You’d think they would have been tipped off by the name “Howard Fine and Associates”…) Cisco wouldn’t even give us the time of day once the jig was up.
At least our group priced out more than one copy of Office. (Seriously, another group quoted one copy that they would “just install on all the PCs”. And the professors asked us why our “bid” was so much higher than theirs…)
“love it when you string them along to get volume pricing”
Pfff their fault for not making their pricing more transparent.
I heard that Germany has laws that require phone companies to make the pricing of their coverage plans completely transparent.
We definitely need more laws like that in the U.S.
At least that was after vampire taps, and cat-3 phone wires for networking.
In one of my later semesters, I attended the first two classes of a phonology course, determined that it was going to be Absolutely Useless because the lecturer was head over heels with Optimality Theory and wasn’t going to teach about any other approaches to the subject, and stopped showing up. It was a 9:30am course, so that meant a whole extra hour of sleep on those days! I did the readings and turned in the homework on time via e-mail, and never further had to darken the door of the classroom.
Late in the semester I shared an elevator ride with the lecturer going somewhere on campus; she cheerfully greeted me and I smiled and did the smalltalk thing and although she clearly knew who I was and that I was theoretically a student of hers, zero mention of my lack of attendance was made.
(I aced the final exam, a take-home essay question, whereupon she asked if we agreed that OT was a good approach to phonology and why/why not. My answer was along the lines of ‘it explains this one very particular thing okay but for everything else it’s pretty much trash, sorry your faves are garbage’.)
Ok, so I first read this as a phrenology course, thought “WTF?”, shrugged, then kept reading. Then I cottoned on but still, it seems like what you got was the linguistics equivalent, so I’m still shrugging.
Sorry you got dragged through that mate. Though I’m glad you had the opportunity to provide solid feedback.
It’s college, they assume you’re an adult, and don’t obsess over daily attendance. If you skip every class, but still get an A on exams, they’re satisfied you know the material.
I skipped one day of economics in community college one summer, and the professor called me into his office to chew me out about it. I was really surprised at the time. Thinking back, though, I was a high schooler (the class counted both for high school and for my future university degree) and spoke up in class relatively frequently, so maybe it shouldn’t be surprising. Still, he definitely cared.
(No, I don’t remember what excuse I gave. I wasn’t about to say “well, I think your lectures are useless and I get everything I need from the textbook” to his face.)
Yeah, if its a dual highschool/college credit class, its highly likely that attendance is mandatory (for the highschoolers) I think it’s a funding thing
My nursing classes had a participation point component built into the grades, and it made up enough of a portion that missing more than one class had a noticeable impact. Considering anything less than 78% was a failing grade, it was best to not chance losing out on those easy points and to just show up.
There was the intro chem class I showed up to for the first week to watch the professor read from the book to the giant lecture hall. Didn’t waste my time with that anymore. Did go to the lab sections of course. Think I got a B+?
I had a photography class that was only once a week. I had to miss the first class. I was dropped. He explained that I missed everything about using the darkroom and all of that. Not cool.
Attendance is mandatory in college classes ATM.
As are seating charts. And assigned seating.
… so we can tell the nice medical people who was sitting next to who if someone has to quarentine.
It was very liberating in college the first time I woke up to my alarm on a Monday, declared “Fuck it”, and rolled back over to no consequences.
If only working life could be the same.
In my college experience you really only had to go to class once a week. The teacher gave you an assignment and essentially until it was due the rest of the glasses were just designated work time with maybe a lecture at the start. Each class was different of course, but most of the time you went to class if you needed the teachers assistance or advice.
Yeah, at least in my experience, most of the real WORK of college happens outside of class.
I don’t know about how it was for the rest of you, but where I went it was recommended to spend at least three hours studying for every hour of lecture.
In college, I had a theater class as what I thought was the easiest of the required arts credits. I went regularly for a while, before I realized that all the tests were not only multiple choice, but the kind of multiple choice where you could rule out three of the four answers via common sense. I stopped going regularly and started playing Morrowind more often.
Then one week I came in after a long break, and the prof said “I’ll have your grades from the test last class up on the website by the end of the week.” I wasn’t there to take said test.
I did what immature college students do: came up to the prof after class was over and lied my ass off. I spun some horrid yarn about how I was in contact with some woman in an abusive marriage who was staying at my apartment for a while, and I was too busy dealing with that situation to think about tests. It was awful, I still feel bad about it, but the theater prof ate it up. She said she would take my grade on the next test as my grade on this one too, no big deal.
Anyway, I missed that test too. Too busy currying favor with the Telvanni. Only class I ever failed. Whoops.
Plot twist: the professor saw straight through your ruse, but played along because you were learning about acting.
Never had a class like that. They gave plenty of work, but that was for your own time. Lots of lectures, class discussion, chances to question what you didn’t understand. Don’t remember any designated work time.
Man your guy’s college experience was way different than mine. Like don’t get me wrong some classes you could totally skip consequence free but I also had classes where skipping was a death sentence that cast you your whole grade.
I was granted a time turner for one class. Or at least given formal permission to schedule a clash.
I started off attending one half of each lecture, but quickly established the lecturer for the module I needed to complete as a course requirement somehow spent 2 hours reading through slides I could read in 10 minutes without adding anything at all, and the one on machine vision which was one of the advanced modules I was taking instead of doing a dissertation was worth attending.
same.
I also had this horrid lecturer who was reading from the 101 book he wrote, which was a mandatory purchase bc he did not read all of it (even if it was short) and tested on things that were only in the book. Also you couldn’t come with any good reason to miss, he wouldn’t allow it, even with a broken leg or a dead relative.
And this american latin teacher who was reading latin with his accent (he was in France since at least 20 years and knew no one here pronounce it this ways, from what I happened to know later), resulting in people who weren’t speaking english to make spelling errors. He also made grammatical errors. Mind you, what you wrote in the test wasn’t really important anyway cause he mainly checked if you were there every class (monday morning class aka the lethal hour).
All in all, latin teacher were really a weird bunch and I was glad I had learned the subject before getting to college.
I don’t remember any where just showing up was that significant – in the taking attendance and counting it heavily sense. Some where class participation was important.
Several where the professor warned us that while he wouldn’t be grading on attendance, he’d be seriously impressed if we could pass without showing up regularly.
And of course some big lecture hall classes where no one would ever know if you showed or not.
We did use to joke that the difference between high school and college was that in high school you’d have kids skipping when there was a test while in college a test would bring faces you’d never seen before.
It’s not like we’ve seen them go to many classes so far
I’m sensing two different kinds of energy from these sisters.
I think that was obvious from the first panel.
I get the distinct impression that theirs is not exactly a happy relationship.
I’m looking forward to hopefully getting some more Sarah backstory, since as of now that’s largely been limited to events that only happened in her freshman year.
I’ve always gotten the vibe that Sarah had a relatively stable home life.
Her parents are divorced, I think, but aside from that I think she’s largely ‘normal’.
Yeah ‘stable’ was probably a poor word choice. Normal or Mundane is probably better.
They both have their appeals though. Like a Black Coffee and and a Mocha Latte.
Or, and hear me out here, beverages that don’t taste like boiled arse.
All people taste like boiled arse. It’s just what flavor of boiled arse you’re choosing to tolerate at any given moment.
You’re cooking them wrong. And eating the wrong cut….
Both sound good to me!
But seriously, if you think coffee always tastes like “boiled arse”, you’ve obviously never tried a Cold Brew Mocha Freeze from Costco.
That stuff is like the Krabby Patty of coffees!
Why does that coffee have both “cold” and “freeze” in its name?
Because they made extra-sure that the coffee was already cold when they began to freeze it.
In all seriousness, a “cold brew” is a process differing from a regular brew. To quote the Chicago Tribune article I’m plagiarizing: cold brew is made by steeping ground beans in cold water. This results in both a longer brew time and a smoother taste”.
Huh, this wasn’t really a question I’d expect to have a genuine answer to, but thank you for the interesting explanation.
seriously, these people take their classes more seriously than any college students i have ever met, and i was a good college student
Sarah takes her schooling seriously, and may also be looking for an excuse to avoid socializing with her sister.
“A good idea is that which not only solves one problem, but can solve multiple problems at once.”
— Shigeru Miyamoto
…BRB gonna go make a list of problems that can be solved by starting an emulation website
Miyamoto: But not that way. NintenLawyers, attack.
Wait, you wanna play a Nintendo game in a way Nintendo didn’t specifically lay out for you to play them in, whether they’ve made any effort to make that game available themselves or not? Why, that’s worse than murder!
DANG IT I wish we had a way to “like” or “heart” or whatever here.
I’m also pretty sure Sarah’s there on academic scholarship at least partially so y’know her grades are probably more important to her than usual.
Also Sarah is on a scholarship and her grades have been shown to decline when she doesn’t get her study time with focus in, so she’s not someone who just inherently ‘gets’ stuff so she can’t afford to blow off her classes.
I took my classes VERY seriously in college. I showed up every day, sometimes I stayed late and I engaged with my teachers so much it pissed other people off.
Granted that’s cuz I went to art school and I was SUPER excited to learn everything I could cuz I FUCKING LOVE ART.
Also I had a teacher where if you were late for class without an excuse (even by one minute) you got a 0 for the day. Which could range between failing a small test to failing a HUGE 70% of your grade project just because you were 2 minutes late.
First of all, I LOVE your spirit!
Second of all, WOAH! That teacher sounds like a real world Eraser Head!
While I hated taking his classes I liked him as a teacher. Really put a fire under our ass and forced us to push our limits. Which honestly I think definitely helped in the long run.
And it shows!
He really helped you to Go Beyond, Plus Ultra!
Here law and pre-law are like you have a roleplay alignment that aligns with the name of the subject.
It seems Sarah doesn’t like her sister very much
Sarah doesn’t like anybody that much. She only tolerates Joyce because she’s been through so much trauma and doesn’t want to seem like a total asshole.
I think she might like Dorothy and Dina in a quiet “I can respect your passions and you don’t annoy me with your presence” sort of way.
I also think Sarah projects “bitter cynic” to protect herself, and Joyce’s resilience and optimism in the face of it all, along with her genuine desire to learn and do better and be a good person slid past her defences. Their big sister-little sister dynamic is real and heartfelt.
Doesn’t mean Joyce doesn’t irritate the carp out of her sometimes – sisters can do that, as Liz is demonstrating – but she does genuinely care for and about Joyce, even though she’d swear blind she knows better!
Yeah, I didn’t skip intentionally, but in big lectures, the teachers NEVER bothered to take attendance. If there were over 100+ people, the teachers’ attitude was generally ‘Fuck it, I have my degree, if you don’t care to show up, IDC either.’
… ‘I’m not telling my professors I got kidnapped. Again.’ should not have made me laugh nearly as hard as it did (ie, audible, actual laughter.)
It is in fact the first week of classes and therefore missing is likely not a huge deal material-wise, so I suspect Sarah doesn’t want to spend time with Liz (and Joyce, in tandem.) Wonder if it’s something about the whole parents’ divorce thing, or just Sarah being generally avoidant with people? Either way, more than game for Sarah-centric story time.
Also, apropos of nothing, I really love Sarah’s shirt, the color scheme is excellent.
SAME.
It’s hard to say – Sarah’s hinted a couple times they don’t have a good relationship (“Lying to your parents is an adulthood rite of passage, like pretending you love them.”) but it’s hard to say if that’s true or if she’s just crusty.
That felt pretty normal to me but that might just be bc i have an awkward relationship with family
It’s a bit weird how Liz is so blase about Sarah’s grades considering she was close to losing her scholarship, but I guess Liz is more of a wild card.
I always took it as Sarah was afraid she would eventually lose her scholarship if she couldn’t study vs she was ever close to actually losing it.
Like I think she had a bad test score, but there was never any threat of academic probation or anyone in the administration/faculty talking to her about their concerns regarding her grades.
Scholarship requirements can be quite a bit higher than anything that would trigger faculty talking to a student, much less academic probation.
I think I had a small scholarship my first year that went away when I didn’t maintain a 3.0. Or maybe it was even higher – long time ago now.
Apparently Sarah’s scholarship’s standards are high and they are strict.
I mean missing one day of classes isn’t going to tank her grades
Lady’s got a point.
I drew this in like 10 minutes because I forgot to earlier and also Liz is a fucking smoke show ok g’night.
https://i.imgur.com/xx9laGw.png
All I can think is that in designing Liz, Willis has een looking at your lipstick comics.
Haha yeah I’m not gonna lie part of me immediately thought “oh, canon lipstick? Guess I’ll have to draw her smoochin’ someone soon”
This is a very good picture.
You’re a gem, Yotomoe.
Huh, is Liz missing an eyebrow?
She lost the other in a wacky incident involving an old arcane tome, 300 kilograms of industrial-strength gelatin condenser, a hydrospanner, and two ostrich-horses.
But were they military or civilian ostrich-horses?
Huh, yeah, I’d been noticing something about her eyebrows but not placing it the last few days. Wonder if she’s a Chemistry or Physics major, we could use one of those in the (extended) cast.
I like your thinking!
I did have a chem professor with no facial hair, including eyebrows.
She’s secretly El-Aurian.
It does look like she’s missing her left eyebrow. I wonder what might have caused that.
It’s a fashion statement.
At one point she got so startled that when it jumped way above her head, it never came back down.
The most important meal of the day, serving it, Liz’s way!
Sarah doesn’t want to share her baby girl with her baby sister.
Don’t miss syllabus day though. You won’t know when to show up for tests and what they cover.
Don’t they just upload the course outline to the student site? I only had one class that didn’t upload anything and i dropped bc of it (couldn’t attend class for med reasons)
I do not think Joyce is gay. And I know literally nothing about Liz. But seeing them together like this makes me think “yeah no they’d make a cute couple.”
Aesthetically.
I mean I support anything that would give Carol an aneurysm.
Yeah I’m totally on board with anything along those lines.
But then again, why would this arc be called “Sister Christian”?
What’s so significant about Muncie?
That’s where Garfield is set and was drawn from until Paws, Inc sold to Viacom.
It’s also where Ball State University is located.
There’s a pretty solid case for Joyce being bi.
I’ve taken the evidence into account and I can honestly say I could see her as bi-romantic perhaps, but I’m not sold on her being bisexual YET. You can hit me with the “I told you so’s” if/when it happens though.
I agree – most likely she’s biromantic but heterosexual.
(“if I didn’t have to deal with anything below the neck”…)
She finds
BillieJennifer’s boobs hypnotic…That’s not fair. The artist formerly known as Billie’s boobs are some A+ boobage. Whom among us wouldn’t want to crawl inside that ample cleavage and feel safe?
As someone who is sexually attracted to women and likes boobs, “crawl inside and feel safe” isn’t really the reaction I have to them, so I don’t really see Joyce’s reaction there as a sign that she’s bisexual.
It certain doesn’t rule it out, of course.
Interesting cuz as someone who is sexually attracted to women and LOVES boobs, the concept of smothering myself in those pillowy mounds is pretty prevalent.
Like tmi but I used to ask my ex to just hug my head in her chest when cuddling. It was the breast!“Safe and warm” isn’t usually what I’m thinking when cuddling breasts. It might just be me though.
The “safe and warm” sounds more like motherly comforting than sexual attraction.
Willis is gonna have Joe and Sarah hook up (it’s cannon in roomies) or Joe and Liz and it’s gonna ruin Joe/Joyce.
I was going to jokingly say they have a 4-way but then I realized how gross it would be for Sarah to have sex with her sister. Oh and also Liz is there too.
Okay, that was a good one.
Lil sis got game!
My uni(Rutgers)did take attendance. Even for the big classes. You just had to sign the sheet before class started. A few of my profs didn’t care but the majority of them did.
In Sarah’s defense: Liz, you could at least have told her ahead of time that you were going to come here and demand she rearrange her entire schedule for you!
So, Liz is the little devil on Sarah’s shoulder telling her to take a day off? More importantly, does that make Joyce the angel on her other shoulder?
Joyce is the angel on the other shoulder telling her to take a day off.
They seem to be on the same page here
The days of being able to randomly skip class for no reason are dying out (if not gone already). I know when I went back in the early ’00s no one cared (at least in freshman classes in giant lecture halls). But when my brother went to college in 2013 he said they took attendance every class and if you missed 4 without excuses then your ass was auto-flunked.
No wonder education is going downhill.
They took attendance every class when I started going to college in 2011, and mostly explained it was a way to keep track of students for financial aid purposes. Which really sucked if you weren’t dependent on financial aid and had life shenanigans pop up. I wasn’t the type to skip classes so most of the time this wasn’t an issue for me, but it was really rough seeing people have to drop a class that they were otherwise excelling in just because they missed a few days.
Why does it matter for financial aid purposes? They know what the student signed up for and they’ll know how they did at the end. What more do they need?
Yeah I’m a little biased bc my college was small enough that the biggest classes were like 50, but attendance was definitely a thing haha. Lotta syllabuses said ‘if you miss 3 classes without letting me know you drop a grade’.
I went from 2014 and graduated in February this year (hooray, grad school) and in my undergrad, the lecturers RARELY took attendance (at least not out loud). Some did, if it wasn’t a huge class of over 100 people, but a lot just did not care. The prevailing attitude was ‘I have my degree, and I want you to pass but if you don’t care, I don’t either.’ More participation points for the rest of us when we answered questions. The TAs for the tutorials where we were going over assignments and such did take attendance and you couldn’t miss more than three I think, but those were much smaller and had like 20 people.
Maybe in the states? At my uni as long as you attend the tutorials/seminars/labs and exams, you’re good. Lectures are literally optional. Esp now with online classes. I had one lecturer punish me for missing classes and attendance wasn’t even graded for that class, it was just a him thing.
(currently still in school)
It… is a bit rude to show up unannounced, and make demands on someone’s time, suggesting they sacrifice they’re academics to spend time with you. If you really want to spend time with Sarah, just go to her class with her.
There were many, many things that went wrong with my time at university, of which the biggest was probably “Oh, hey, turns out undiagnosed dyscalcula and physics don’t mix!” but the moment I realised the only person who cared if I went to class was me definitely didn’t help.
Yeah, not fond of people showing up randomly and expecting you to spend time with them because they showed up. A positive attitude doesn’t make it ok to show up and start making demands of someone’s time. I’m a lot like Sarah in that I’d probably refuse out of spite.
Something tells me this has always been a recurring theme with them…
Sorry Liz. Sisters/family is important. But classes are WAY more important. Go around with Joyce, if she want. You can’t come out of nowhere and force Sarah to show you around.
First week orientation classes can be the biggest time waste though.
Though we’re late in the first week, so these are likely classes she’s had at least once already and they may well be getting down to business by now.
Dumbing of Age Book 12: Just Tell Them You Got Kidnapped Again
aah this reminds me of when my friend used to skip a mandatory class (mandatory for all language students at my university so it was a HUGE class) to go to another mandatory class (she failed this course last year and so her schedule was effed up)
and the only way the teacher checked absences was by having us write down our student number on a piece of paper (plus our names and school email) and i would literally just do that for her for an entire semester.
That’s strange that the teacher didn’t allow the skipping already. I was double “majoring” most of my time in college, so my schedule never was very stable, but when I had two mandatory classes at the same time, the teachers always told me that it was allright as long as I could be there for tests and giving papers sometimes I had to make the tests during classes that I wasn’t following (bc I had something else) but were taught by the same teacher with about the same course, but it never was a problem as long as it was skipping in order to study more.
idk what to tell ya, i think her problem was that both teachers told her that their class was mandatory and that she needed to attend every time, but ahe chose the one she hadnt taken before (the one she skipped had the same material as last time so she would just ask me if they said anything specific or about the test).
anyway she took a break from uni a few years back and now she might return because its become easier to take online courses.
This is unrelated to today’s strip but I had one of those sudden realizations you get in the middle of the night about a piece of media and came to realize that there really was no reason for Mike to stay alive.
Like yeah it did/kinda does bug me that Mike having his attraction to men matter to the story and now that’s gone, but then I thought about it and realized that “Mike becomes a better person and struggles with the mess he created where everyone around him is just waiting for the other shoe to drop”… that’s not only Ruth with the exact same scenario where Rachel and to a lesser degree Sal are willing to hold her accountable and she’s just kind of depressed and morose but still trying to keep going, it’s Joe in relation to Joyce where a lot of Joe’s problems are that the things he says don’t get what he means across because of those times Joyce opened up to him and then he’d let her down.
The Ruth comparison is the stronger point, but I think it’s also Ruth was a huge bastard person but not too everyone, so Ruth can have conversations with another cast member not about how she was a terrible bastard person for variety. Mike was a terrible bastard person to every character without fail, he’d be going through Ruth/Rachel/Sal dynamic in every strip, so now I’m coming around to thinking that his death and the reactions from Walky (where he’s clearly traumatized and not sure how to process it) and Ethan whenever he shows up would be sort of the most interesting drama Mike could produce.
I never though of it this way, but now that you mention it the comic is pretty full on redemption arc characters. I also think it would have been hard to write believable motivation for Mike to change. He seemed pretty set in his ways. Someone like Booster who means well but has some issues to work through offers more room for character growth.
Willis wrote him a reason to change. He wrote in Mike’s revelation that he was using the same excuses for abusing Amber that Blaine was.
And I can see that being motivation to sacrifice himself to save her, in the moment. I’m not sure it would have been enough for him to get up every day and work on being a better person. If anything I think his feelings for Ethan would have been a better motivator.
“Oh shit, I’m an abuser and I’ve been lying to myself all along about it” seems like a reason to stop abusing.
Basically. While I think this lets Mike off the hook and keeps his victims thinking of him as The Friend Who Saved AG, So He Couldn’t Be All Bad (rather than, as I was very much hoping someday, ‘we keep giving you chances but honestly, you’re terrible to us,’) the narrative space that redemption would’ve taken was just more than the comic had to spare for an arc that was already being addressed, and he’d been SO terrible to Amber, Ethan and Walky for so damn long that he would basically have no room to be Comedic Asshole Mike anymore with the three primary characters he interacts with. (Note that Ruth really doesn’t interact with Rachel when she can avoid it.)
Yeah that’s basically how I’m approaching it.
Ruth can hang out with any number of characters without touching on the fallout of her abusive actions that mostly manifests through Rachel and Sal, she can be a character outside that specific narrative and then her character is further informed by stepping outside of that specific narrative, but Mike? Everyone he interacted with was someone he was a huge asshole to, so every person he’d interact with while trying to be a better person would have the same ballpark of reactions: “I don’t believe you”, “who cares what you think?”, that kind of thing.
And it’s not necessarily that this couldn’t be done, it’s that Mike wouldn’t really have much else to offer. He’s a simple character by design except all his contributions to the cast can be found elsewhere. Mike can’t do sweet pranks, that’s Carla’s gig. Mike can’t just bluntly state an ongoing problem, that’s either Sarah (who just wants to cut to the chase) or Booster (who does so seemingly due to missing some social tact). Mike can’t even “manipulate” people into bettering themselves, Becky’s got that too and it’s still weird when Becky does it, but at least Becky doing it has some room for discussing where that came from and the impact she could have on the people around her. Like, Becky was A Douchebag with what she pulled on Ruth and Jennifer in Gender Studies, but you can at least talk about why she did it and why she would think it’s right (because these two nearly killed themselves together and Becky’s freaking out).
I don’t even think you could put Mike through a soft reboot like what Ethan is probably undergoing, because Mike is a way more defined character than Ethan was so if he moved away from that, even in a positive way, he wouldn’t really be Mike anymore. Resetting Ethan’s character, dragging Amber into even worse isolation and traumatizing Walky who is unable to talk about it healthily is probably the most actual impact he could have on the plot.
I was 20 minutes late to the first day of a sophomore-level literature class because having my laptop fixed by the IT lab took longer than I expected.
The professor never forgave me and was openly hostile for the rest of the semster even though I was never late again and never skipped.
College instruction, like all other professions of authority, attracts assholes.
In my experience the only lecturers who care about attendance (excluding programs where it’s actually important) are narcissistic dick holes)
Depending on class size, Liz might be right. On the other hand, it’s a bad habit to get into, and I hope she doesn’t influence Joyce.
Signed, someone who skipped way more college classes than they should have and regrets it now.
So…am I the only one who doesn’t realize how incredibly inconsiderate and selfish she’s being right now? Don’t get me wrong, relatives just popping in on your day to day without notice is always an inconvenience, but it can turn out pleasant if you’re willing to hear them out. Once they disregard your agenda for theirs though, yeah no, they gotta go. Liz, it’s cute that you and Joyce are close enough to be friends, but you gotta respect your sister’s boundaries, older or otherwise, and know your place which, right now, with that little dig in Panel 3, is NOT on that campus, much less the dorm of two direct victims.
They are siblings, yes.
Liz is 18 at most. Her world still revolves around her own desires.
Sounds par for the course for a younger, teenage sibling, tbh
Of course, Liz may actually have a real reason to be here today. We’ve twice now seen a sibling or close friend show up unexpectedly,and in neither case was the visit as casual as it seemed at first.
There may be drama here, not just annoying little sister bothering big sister.
“Unlike most the people I bloody seems to know, I seems to be the only one that cares about graduating ?”
I am with Sarah here
stop the fuckery and let her go to class, for god’s sake
Uh
While yunno dropping in to say hi is cool and all
Maybe dont try to force her to skip class, especially since Sarah take her education seriously
This ain’t Smart People Always Do The Right Thing.
Why do y’all want a character to avoid actions that avoid drama and/or shenanigans?
avoid actions that *cause* drama and/or shenanigans?
Willis pls, an edit button, my children are dying
Since when does this strip being about kids doing dumb things mean we can’t complain about the kids doing specific dumb things?
Thanks for the update lu.
As a college professor, if one of my students said, “I missed class because my little sister showed up unexpectedly and we got breakfast,” I’d say, “Yeah, okay. Hope she’s well. You caught up on the reading?”
If I was a professor I’d say “oh, did you get me anything?”
I had a professor who said if we are going to fall asleep during his lecture to not show up. I was a 7 am class in a dark room, so that was the first and last day I went to his lectures. Still got a B.