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If you’re in college and a chronic lack of sleep due to serious issues that you can’t address without getting somebody in trouble and dealing with not only the issues themselves but all of their consequences, then being told to “let it resolve itself” is dropping your GPA, you need to ask somebody more experienced and knowledgeable than you what to do.
Fixed it for ya.
At some colleges, there are places to help students deal with grief and mental-health situations, and this one would definitely qualify. Sarah hasn’t thought of that, though, and it’s possible that this doesn’t exist at that school, or the RA didn’t think to mention it, or whatever.
Yea but the psycho prides herself on running a tight ship. But then she also drinks till she passes out. Nevermind, whatever point I was about to make is invalid.
Or get a new roommate arrangement. That’s one thing that everyone keeps overlooking here. I’m no expert at how 4-year college dorm housing arrangements work, but I can’t help but assume all that “I had no other choice” talk about getting rid of the headcase roommate narc-style was an example of “I don’t know how to handle these things.”
At least until enough real 4 year college alumni vouch for Sarah’s “Wait for the problem to resolve itself or get her kicked out of college were my ONLY options” belief. They would know better than me.
I dunno. At the place where I went the Housing Office was very strict, and would only allow roommate switches after at least a semester.From other friends who went to 4-year institutions, the situation was similar. Bluntly put, the Housing Office can’t deal with everyone who’s not happy with their roommate, and generally will not change arrangements until the break between semesters when rooms open up as people enter, leave, study abroad, or lose their scholarships and get kicked out once their grades are final.
The only way switching of roommates is allowed, is in the most severe cases. Things such as the roommate died, campus police is involved, theft of property over a certain amount and at end of semesters as Jeff D. mentioned.
I should certainly hope they’d let you switch if the roommate died! It’s bad enough dealing with smelling weed all the time; can you imagine having to deal your roommate’s dead body?
I dunno about IU, but it was pretty easy to switch rooms at my school. Basically, you notify the housing people, move stuff, trade keys, and pay a little $$$ if you switched to a more expensive dorm. I never did it during the year, but I had plenty of friends who did.
I’m starting to sympathize a bit more with Sarah. Roommate issues suck, even if it’s not that severe.
I would guess you went to a small school where just saying “Hey, I want to switch roommates with X” is financially and logistically feasible. Most people don’t get along with their freshman year roommates, or at least think they could do better. According to Wikipedia and math, the IU Bloomington campus has about 8,000 freshmen. Switching them around at any time of the year is probably not plausible.
I go to North Texas (34k students) and roommate changes were as simple as applying for a change and leaving.
I had a beef with my roommate because he got piss drunk all the time and kept leaving food out until it grew mold. When I got in the mindset my two options were to come to fists about it and just leave peacefully I chose the second.
Hell UNT is remarkably kind about roommate Russian Roulette on the second go round. You get to actually meet potential new roommates before signing.
My college was fairly small (around 3500 undergrads, I think), but I don’t see why size should be an issue. If there’s an open spot somewhere and both the person moving and the person being moved upon agree, why shouldn’t switching rooms be simple and easy?
I don’t know. I keep envisioning this scenario where Sarah goes to switch roommate and they ask her why and she tries to make up stuff and they say it’s not good enough and then she just spills the beans accidentally getting Dana expelled. Good luck with that run-on.
Yeah, as the others said, a lot of colleges are very strict about changing roommates. Particularly if they are a little overcrowded that year, as happened during my freshman year.
I don’t know, if I remember my freshman experience right, my roommate told me beginning of 2nd semester that she was going to move out (Literally it was “Hey, how was your vacation?” “I’m moving out.” “…”) but it still took her a good 2-3 weeks to do so and she already had a person to move in with. Who knows how long it would take for Sarah to find someone willing to let her move in and then the whole paperwork process. There’s also the chance that she really is worried about her roommate and even if she moved she’d feel guilty not doing something.
Oh by the way, I so wanted my roommate out of the place by the time she was ready to move that I carried her boxy PC monitor up two flights of stairs.
At most schools, the only way to do that would be to rat her out. Still, she had other options, like instead of giving an ultimatum to Raidah, maybe having given it TO DANA’S FACE.
Sarah didn’t give Raidah an ultimatum. She gathered Dana’s friends together, told them how serious the situation was and that Dana needed help. When they seemed unwilling to help, Sarah told them the situation with Dana was affecting her grades and endangering her scholarship. She didn’t threaten any action or even imply that she was going to do anything drastic if the situation didn’t resolve itself.
As to what she has or has not said to Dana, we don’t know that she hasn’t brought the situation up, just because we haven’t been shown it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I mean, does Sarah strike you as the type to suffer in silence? Hell, this is an unprecedented amount of slack that Sarah seems to have been cutting Dana. I think Sarah has gotten to the point where she’s about to give Dana an ultimatum.
While it was relatively simple to do at the one four year school I lived on, just a little paper work and a few signatures, possibly money if you upsized, the main problem is that we had a housing shortage. So if you left a room, you might end up having to be third man in a two person room. Also, whoever was stuck with the room that only had one person in it either had to now pay for the other person’s slot or find a new roommate to fill the gap.
Mine wasn’t nearly so crowded as the administration liked to pretend. Ostensibly, you had to either get a new roomie or pay up if your old one moved out. Realistically, if you ignored the notices they sent you, they never made good on their threat to partner you up with someone and never charged you anything. I had a room in one of the best dorms to myself because of that.
Yes because we all have to deal with basketcases on a 24/7 basis. It’s one thing for Dana to crash her future and who knows her Dad might be able to pull some strings to get her enrolled in another college. Sarah’s Dad might not have that clout and this is her chance. And while she could spend all her time studying in the library, but she has to sleep at some point and she obviously can’t. Considering the cost of room and board at universities I wouldn’t stand for my money being wasted.
“If you’re in college and a lack of sleep and some drama drops your gpa you need to quit life.”
Or, y’know, you’re just some 18 year old who’s been living away from home for all of 8 weeks, and not used to real life yet. Give it a semester or two.
The dramatic “controversies” that are always brought up in any form of fiction about college, whatever the media, are usually so predictable and one sided.
Agreed! I like how yesterday half of us were like, “Eeeeh, given these details, I’m not sure about Sarah anymore,” with some debate, hemming, and hawwing. Today, more of us are like, “OOoh, yeah, okay,” – with more debate following that!
No, awful would be “Mike’ll do it for a nickel, plus the price of a shovel, so he can do Dana’s mom.” Anybody who could even think of something like that would be a terrible, terrible person.
Good thing we don’t know anyone around here who would even have the phrase cross their mind, yet alone actually type it, even in passing as to say how horrible it is.
And keep in mind Walkyverse!Joe, at age twenty-four, ballparked the number of women he’d slept with at two thousand and thirty. Not number of times he’s had sex, the number of women he’s slept with.
Unless this Joe has taken a serious competence hit, I’d say that yeah, he’s got a fantastic record.
My friend has a roommate that comes to the room stoned all the time. She crashes in my suite most of the time because she can’t take the smell or the habits.
Have you ever walked through one of those small little shops that are like Hallmark but not franchised? Have you ever walked by a display of scented candles or potpourri or something, and had to take a few steps back from the smell? While I can’t speak for myself (thankfully), I’ve heard pot is like that times a thousand.
Second-hand pot smoke is definitely like that. When I worked down at the Wharf we had the Medical Marijuana club come in very often, and they would stink up the place from the front door back to the kitchen. Walking past them would result in the mildest of contact highs that had none of the fun benefits and just nausea.
I’m hypersensitive to perfumes, it’s a hoot to head to the soap aisle and play “find the unscented.” Pot… didn’t smell that bad in college. Granted it was the guys above me rather than a roommate, but I don’t find it an offensive odor. Not like cigarettes.
And it could mess with her sleep schedule, which in turn means fighting over the lights being on or off when (some people are REALLY sensitive to that when trying to sleep), and she’s probably still covering for the smell, and then there IS the smell to deal with, not to mention the worrying about her? That’s gonna take a toll on a person.
Also, if you’re not in the habit of going to sleep with music, it takes a bit to adjust. Sarah does not have this time.
I would guess the policy is generally something like “confidentiality unless the student’s actions are putting themselves or others at harm,” which Dana is most certainly doing, both to Sarah, by impeding her education, and herself. Idunno, it might also include “unless the student’s actions are illegal.” Never had to find out.
I don’t know. “Her mom passed away” seems like a valid excuse for seeking help from councilors, but it doesn’t seem as effective when trying to get a roommate change.
Depending on college policy, yes. At the very least she would have to find a new roommate, and considering how she is with people that’d be a problem. She could maybe request a transfer without requesting a specific roommate, but that could take the rest of the semester. Plus, at least this way she can keep an eye on Dana and try to control the situation. She has a very much depressed friend who’s using drugs as a coping mechanism and keeping her other friends from finding out how bad it is. That’s not exactly a good combination to leave alone in a half-empty dorm room for extended periods.
I think a lot of people are sort of overlooking that it’s not just that Dana is being distracting. Sarah is worried about her. And moving to a new location isn’t going to solve that.
Besides, I don’t imagine moving rooms (or having your roommate move) is a quick or easy process. I’d certainly think it would be just as hard to study during a roommate transfer (especially if Sarah was the one to move) as while dealing with roommate problems. Assuming the school would even allow it at all.
Ahhh. So Radiah does have legitimate reasons to be against Sarah. Because (at least with how this looks so far) Sarah seemed to just randomly turn on and tell on Dana for no reason.
And worse after her mom died.
And after Dana did everything she could to include her.
Randomly?…. When this problem started to have a measured effect on her life after doing nothing wasn’t working isn’t necessarily random. But to an outside observer who’s plan is to not do anything and continue to not do anything could be considered random.
But perhaps I am reading your comment incorectly and that Raidah is unwilling to get all the facts and judge on the biased observed information.
Yeah, I definatley agree with you that her behavior is far from random. Willis is doing a great job painting the scene both literally and metaphorically.
I suspect Raidah feels betrayed because it looks like Sarah threw Dana under the bus just because she couldn’t cope. The irony is that Raidah is doing the same to Sarah by ostracizing her.
That’s such a normal human response. No sarcasm intended. Just good writing.
That right there is why Raidah and Co. have struck me as bad friends. They stick with surface stuff and can’t be bothered to be real friends to their friend who has suffered an enormous loss. =\ (yes, it’s true that you can’t help a person who doesn’t want to let you in far enough to help, but it’s becoming pretty obvious here that they haven’t really bothered to do too much to offer that help.)
Silly Sarah. You had lots pf choices. You could’ve killed her, hired someone to kidnap her, convinced her she lived somewhere else while she was high, bricked your door…
Someone help me here; I’m running out of terrible things to do to a roommate.
buy her a puppy, snap her arms, throw her in the closet,make out with her, play baseball with her using a live grenade, have her dragged by horses, have her drag some horses, turn her on to worse drugs, cover her in roaches, hide a black widow in her tissue box, buy her a new computer with absolutely no ram or filespace, make her watch 2 girls & one cup, use her friends as blunt objects and beat her with them, dig up her mom’s corpse and puppet her “weekend at Bernie’s” style, fart in her coffee, tell her she looks fat on facebook, wait for her to fall asleep and bust the supports on your bad so it falls on her, etc.
Find her dealer, and then stalk him/her for three weeks without rest, learning his habits, his schedule, even the way he walks and his voice. Then pay one of the artsy students to sew you up a very convincing outfit, maybe a hat and a beard. Get a couple of the beauty-school students from down the street for make-up. Then, when she comes along to get her usual fix, say you got caught by the cops and you’ve been bugged. Have a friend in a police uniform come by to arrest her, and instead end up kidnapping her in the bank of a van. Then you tie her up and **************************************, finally letting her go in the middle of a strange desert, completely unaware of where she is, mentally and emotionally tortured and traumatized, and physically drained.
Or, you know, take the pot away and talk to her…? Just a suggestion. I know, it’s a stupid idea.. It’d never work…..
There are plenty of choices….email one of her professors…a campus counselor…really anyone of authority and express concern that your roommate’s emotional health is cause for alarm. Invite one of the group over during her melt downs so they can see the issue and not just assume you’re the soulless person you’ve kinda set yourself up to look like.
Choices beyond “Ruin clinically depressed girl’s life over my inability to adapt” exist.
Dana’s life is pretty ruined already. And reporting her, while maybe seemingly bad, could lead to therapy and (probably needed by this point) addiction treatment at a rehab center or something.
And part of the problem is that she can’t tell any authority figure without getting Dana in trouble- something Sarah at this point has every right to do but is trying to avoid.
To be fair, when students are kicked out for mental health/drug reasons, it’s not like they’re arrested. They are sent home to live with their family, and assuming Dana’s family is functional, they would presumably get her into rehab/therapy. When they are in a position to “try again” academically, such students have a decent chance of being allowed back, or at least getting into a different school. Getting kicked out and being at home for a while probably didn’t “ruin Dana’s life”, it was probably the best thing for her. But I’m sure Dana wouldn’t see it that way.
I’m in college, and I have to say that yes, I can go to study in the library whenever I want, even late at night.
However, the stress off having someone doing illegal drugs in your room would be unbelievable. (i’m assuming the drugs in the rooms has continued to this strip) I have stipulations in my dorm housing agreements and in my financial aid (especially FAFSA) dictating that if I am caught doing illegal drugs in my room, I am kicked out of the dorm and all money flow stops. In this case, it’s Sarah’s roommate, but it’s a shared room, and it could be hard to prove that Sarah wasn’t actually in on it (and proving otherwise would be a terrible hassle).
But even if I wasn’t accused of being the smoker, think about trying to hide the fact that your roommate is using, in the dorm room. The room constantly smells. Your clothes and bedding are permeated with the smell, because the rooms are tiny and all of your stuff is stuck in that room, so you have to try and not smell like a pothead yourself whenever you leave the room. I wouldn’t be able to sleep in a room that smelled like that, let alone deal with a person who is both depressed and high at the same time. And without sleep, school becomes a kind of living hell because you can’t operate, even in the library you all are suggesting.
Now, add the fact that even if you hide your roommate’s drug use, if your grades drop, you lose your money to go to school, and lose what you’ve been striving for your whole academic career.
Sarah might be tactless, but at this point it seems that she’d gone above and beyond what most people would do to deal with that kind of situation. My sympathy lies with her.
Thank you! Exactly what I was thinking. No matter the situation with Sarah’s roommate it doesn’t change the fact that Dana is doing an illegal think in THEIR room. Sarah could lack empathy for all I care and her making the school kick Dana out would be still be rational. No one has the right to make life shitty for someone else just because their life sucks right now.
It’s stuff like this that would leave me totally baffled and probably on the losing side of things as well. Can’t honestly say I’m any better socially adjusted than Sarah (I’m probably somewhere around Amber’s level).
…..so shes pissed cuz she got a C-……um…thats a fail in the states isnt it? cuz up here its just a slap on the wrist….i think. i rarely ever went to class and only got B’s so i dont really know
I don’t know about merit scholarships in undergrad (my school only does need-based, to the best of my knowledge), but I’ve read about GPA-based merit scholarships and law schools.
If Sarah has one like that, then she would probably be at serious risk of losing the scholarship if her grades stayed like that, or – more plausible given that they started dropping after Dana’s mother died – got worse.
If it was for a class in her major she might not be able to get credit for the class. It’s not a failing grade but it’s really bad– one grade like that messes up your GPA for your entire time at college. Let’s pretend she got a C- in all her classes that semester. If she somehow managed to get straight As every semester after, she would end up with a 3.7– not enough for magna cum laude or even cum laude in some places. When you consider that a 4.0 GPA is summa, that’s pretty unforgiving.
I don’t know how strict the terms of Sarah’s scholarship are, GPA-wise, but two Bs and two Cs, ignoring plusses and minuses, would take us to a GPA of approximately 2.5 – a C+ average, which is passing but I’d bet nowhere near good enough for the terms of a ‘strict’ scholarship. I would bet that Sarah’s scholarship requires at least a 3.0 average (B) if not a 3.5 (B+/A-) or better.
Add to that, outside of scholarships, many majors are competitive – at least, they were in my university – and while the requirements on paper to be accepted into that major frequently include ‘2.5 or better cumulative GPA’, in practice those requirements are much higher. A very popular competitive major might end up with ‘and you’d better have 3.5 cumulative or they won’t even look at you’ as a practical requirement. (When I was at uni, computer science was like that, except the practical requirement was more like 4.0 since it was popular AND there weren’t many slots available.)
Finally, in my university, if you dropped below a 2.0 and didn’t pick it up the next quarter, you were out. Period.
Sarah’s midterm GPA is less than 2.5 while still being above 2.0, and it’s midterm so there’s still time to turn it around, but without a change in circumstances that’s not going to happen. And this GPA that we’re seeing here, if it becomes final, is just barely good enough to stay in school let alone keep the strict scholarship that’s allowing her to go in the first place.
As far as pass/fail goes, a C is still a pass in the States for most classes (though you may need to pass with a higher grade to be able to take the next course in a sequence), but many scholarships require you to maintain a higher GPA than that. If she’s stressed over the terms of her scholarship, it’s bound to require a 3.0 (B) at the very least.
I have two questions: 1) What specifically was causing the lack of sleep and plummeting grades? Was it Dana’s drug use, or her grieving, or both? Because this comic makes it look like it was just Dana needing a shoulder to cry on, and Sarah (understandably) couldn’t be her sole support system and keep her grades up at the same time, so she (less understandably) had Dana thrown out. I really hope the drug use is meant to be implied in here, because that scenario seems SUPER CALLOUS.
2) In either case, whether it was the drug use or just the grieving, did Sarah try talking to Dana about it, and telling her “Hey this is really hurting my quality of life and my chances of staying in school.”? If she tried to talk to her about drugs, and Dana refused to stop doing them in the room after being confronted, and it was keeping Sarah up and ruining her chances of staying in college, then yeah, I can see going to an authority figure. But only after trying to handle it herself; it’s kind of a dick move to bring the authorities into it without first informing the person “Hey, this is a problem that needs addressed.”
If it was just Dana crying/needing someone to talk to, then there’s no shame in saying “Hey, I can’t help you and take care of my life at the same time, you need to let some of our other friends help you, too, or go to a counselor.” If that doesn’t work, then go get someone who can help, NOT to bust Dana for drugs, but to get her well again. You don’t even have to mention the drugs. There are a lot of choices before having someone kicked out of school.
Or it could be that Willis is trying to pull a fast one on us, and the “no other choice” refers to something else that Sarah tried first.
Yeah I’m confused. Why couldn’t she get any sleep? It just makes no sense, Dana wasn’t even in the same room as she was and smelling pot fumes does not induce insomnia.
I really think Sarah is making it worse then it actually was, and since she’s so convinced that she is the protector of everyone’s feelings, she naturally can’t distance herself from Dana’s problems.
Her character doesn’t make sense because she switches between CARING SO HARD OMG to ONLY CARING ABOUT HERSELF OMG. In reality, she turns in Dana because Sarah herself is too emotionally unstable to live with other people.
Wait what? Not even in the same room? You have seen a college dorm room before right? And you understand that Sarah and Dana are roomies?
My experience has been that dorm rooms have two beds, one small room. The beds can be stacked like bunk beds or arranged seperately. Now I will concede that upperclassmen may have access to different and more spacious arrangements but these are freshmen we’re talking about. I don’t know the specifics of the college Willis is writing about and I may totally wrong but based on what we’ve seen most of the characters are sleeping in bunk bed arrangements (Sarah and Joyce, Mike and Walky at the very least) which does not speak to multiple room set ups. The only character I can specifically remember having her own bed is Ruthless but she’s the RA, typically an upperclassman.
They’re in a small dorm room. Even if they were in a suite, smoke from a heavy smoker will leak into other rooms and make the whole place smell. And if you associate those fumes with extremely stressful situations or helplessness (like “how many times have I asked them to stop”, “great this is going to turn into another fight”), just a whiff can make you feel stressed. If you’re sensitive to smells, it can induce headaches. As someone who has actually lost sleep over this before, I identify with Sarah almost painfully here.
It was established quite a while ago that Sarah got her busted for smoking, so we know Dana was still into that. Have you ever tried to sleep, or do *anything* for that matter, when a foreign source of smoke is fouling up your air supply? Let me tell you, it’s pretty damn impossible. And considering what we’re shown in the first two panels of today’s comic, it’s a safe bet that Dana was doing a lot more than just smoking at night.
Furthermore, given panels 1 and 3 of today’s comic, it’s also a safe bet that Sarah did do more than just go straight to the authorities and turn Dana in. She did her meager best to help, but thought she likely only made things worse. She informed Dana’s friends what was going on, and they refused to believe it. She couldn’t handle it, it was putting too much stress on her to keep her grades up, so she finally gave up and kicked things up to the people in charge.
I understand Sarah’s dilemma but as others have already noted, I’m still trying to figure out why she didn’t try to get Dana’s other friends involved and see her breaking down in the confines of the dorm room. There have been so many cases of people attempting suicide when from all outside perspectives it seemed like they were doing great. I know she tried to talk to them before, but be more adamant and say it’s about her, not about your grades. Not that that’s unimportant, but a person’s life is at stake here, and that’s much more important.
…? She *DID* try to bring Dana’s friends in on it. Re-read panel 3. They refused to believe Sarah that there was a problem, because Dana hid it all from them.
People only see what they want to see. Her friends didn’t want to see Danah suffering. Why? I don’t know, but I’ve been in Sarah’s position before and the person’s friends were huge enablers. Every time the person was feeling down around them they would end up going off somewhere and come back as high as a kite. Not the best way to handle their problems.
I love how yesterday, everyone was all “boo” towards Sarah, but now that these new details have come up, people are starting to sympathize with her more.
Protip 1: The expressed view of a vocal minority are not necessarily the views of the group as a whole.
Protip 2: Conflicting views expressed by different people with in the same group is not a sign of a group flip-flopping. It’s a sign that groups are made up of individuals with their own opinions.
I wasn’t saying boo at all. I don’t think a relative stranger should be expected to put up with a situation they find untenable just because the other person involved is going through a rough patch. They aren’t married, family or even BFFs. There is no bond between them save that they share living space. Hell, I think Sarah has actually given Dana way more slack than is in keeping with her personality as shown to date.
Honestly, I like her even LESS then when this whole thing started. And I didn’t like her much to begin with (which, I’ll admit, may be giving her a bias).
thank you for the feedback Dr. Z! I guess it looks small in comparision with the other eye. I’ll try to fix it. Glad you liked it, and joy was the central emotion.
Clearly a lot of the blame falls on Raidah and the others. Like I said before, they were neglecting the problem.
Sure, Dana put on a happy face, but that’s no excuse to ignore Sarah. I mean, she’s her freaking roommate! The one she shares a close, personal space with!
If Sarah is guilty of anything, it’s of being too patient.
I think the problem is a combination of Dina being very good at hiding her emotional state and Sarah’s poor social skills. What was an honest plea from Sarah about Dina coping badly appeared to Raidah and the others as “Dina’s grieving is annoying and ruining my grades”.
I honestly don’t think Raidah at least is so unfeeling that she doesn’t care about Dina or Sarah, but it’s already been established in the strip that Sarah doesn’t express herself well.
I’ll be trying to hold off on conclusion-jumping until this flashback finishes playing out.
I really don’t want to believe that Sarah thinks her ONLY option at this point is to kick her roommate when she’s down, even if her scholarship is on the line.
Yesterday she was suggesting therapy to Dana’s friends. They dismissed it, but only because they’re not really seeing what’s going on and don’t know how serious it is.
There’s almost nothing worse than not being able to get enough sleep at uni.
My freshman year I had an alcoholic roommate who I had to baby-sit all the time. On top of that, she snored like chewbacca.
I bought her nasal-breath-right strips, asked her to use them, asked her if there was another way she could sleep, tried to use industrial strength earplugs (bought them from a construction company-slept through the fire-alarms, but not her snoring), and finally audio-recorded her snoring so she could hear it in the morning.
She told me, and I quote “sorry. you should get over that though,”.
Between her coming back at all hours HOWLING she was so drunk, her trying to climb out our second story window to get to her friends who had MORE alcohol, and the copious (also illegal) amounts of cheap swill (and that was almost worse–she drank Keystone and plastic bottle Dubra by the gallon, I could have handled Crown or even Jack or something) I was at the end of my rope. I started going home on the weekends just so I could sleep, and retaliating by sleeping with a light on durring the week (Something she couldn’t abide by, which was vindictivly satisfying).
My heart goes out to Sarah, because I also have courses that require a minimum 3.0 gpa, and have suffered the stress of little sleep and a roommate directly violating campus dorm rules.
I stuck it out till the end of the semester, but not without telling her if I ever saw alcohol in the open, I’d fetch the RA faster than she could get blitzed. She failed out the next semester and I’m still here, 3.9 gpa and all.
Sarah may be cold, but really, she has more of a leg to stand on than those other girls who hate her. It’s not like the girl is dead, they CAN still see her. They should grow up, quite frankly.
And Sarah should get a “social skills for dummies” handbook.
I’d be super curious (and I don’t expect an answer to this at all, I’m sure it’d ruin the mystique) as to what character in this story arc Willis thinks should be more sympathetic. I’m completely floored that people don’t find Sarah to be the one in the right here. I’ve lived in a dorm and I can’t imagine that I’d be the asshat for wanting to go back to my own home but can’t because my roommate made it unlivable. I know they became “friends” here, but, they’re not like long-time buddies who have a deep relationship, they’re friendly too each other because they have to live together. Sarah was forced to live with Dana because that’s how dorms work. You sign paperwork stating you won’t do stuff like, uh, illegal drugs, in your room, because you have to make sure the other person in the room is able to live there too. It’s sad that Dana’s mom died but Sarah is still paying for and deserves a living space she can be comfortable in.
I want to know how many people who are saying Sarah should just go to the library and suck it up have actually lived in a dorm. It’s the place you go because you live there. It’s your home and you should be able to study in your own bed if you want to. Dealing with severely depressed friends is extremely difficult and emotionally draining, I don’t think people should have to do interventions and become support systems for roommates they barely know.
I am kind of wondering that now, if Dana’s friends are happy to ignore it because that often happens with friends of severely depressed people. They don’t want to deal with it, and they don’t really care. They don’t really care about Dana deep down and are content allowing Sarah to deal with it and acting indignant at Sarah from a distance when they’re the ones who should really be taking care of their friend.
I also agree, I had 2 roomates I would have happily moved away from had there been a room to move to. One of which did cost me my scholership and almost my “tenure” in college from his antics, drug use and general stupidity.
I had 10 roomates in college (through post grad.) and only 2 were at all bad, so I think I did pretty well.
I was one of the people who said “go to the library” until this comic. Before now, it wasn’t crystal clear just how severe and disruptive Dana’s behaviour was getting, nor that Sarah was her sole emotional resource. This comic spells out that it wasn’t, like, sometimes Dana cries, and then she goes out and talks honestly with her friends, and comes back and falls fast asleep. Nopers, Dana’s spiraling, and Sarah’s her only hope: it’s a totally different kettle of fish.
Optimus Prime broke down and cried on the set of "Transformers" (2007) due to the extensive use of green screen filming. He reportedly said, "This is not why I became an actor."
“I’m just going to say it, shame on any of us who throws a trans child under the bus for thinking they’re going to get elected. That child deserves our support. Don’t worry about the pollsters calling it distractions, because we need to be the party of human dignity.”
Minnesota Star Tribune@startribune.com ⋅ 2d
Gov. Tim Walz is doubling down on trans rights — and criticizing members of his party who are retreating — at a time when the issue has become a political lightning rod nationally and back home in Minnesota.
they managed to get the arms and thighs to be different grays, which I wasn't sure they'd be able to do, the way the mold's set up
though maybe they're just producing a lot of extra thighs and/or arms in the wrong colors and throwing those away, i dunno
Minnesota Star Tribune @startribune.com ⋅ 2d
preternia @preternia.com ⋅ 2d
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Hailey Piper 
I’m glad to see her lack of sleep being addressed here. It really does suck to be anyone’s sole support system.
No sleep, completely over her head as far as how to fix things, dealing with slipping grades…I can see where she’d snap.
Snap the final straw?
The camel that broke its back trying to snap the final straw?
With its pe-
*fffffFFFFFFT* OW there’s a blowgun dart in my neccccccccʞɔǝʞɔǝuckʞɔǝuckǝukkck *FOMP*
And a femOWWIE
:c
I turned her to My Little Pony to get her addicted to something cheaper.
My Little Pony is cheaper than crack.
but equally as addicting and for some reason you’re more open about.
The problem is getting off of it. The support system for MLP: FIM detox is non-existent. Mostly because they’re all watch MLP. IT’S A VICIOUS CYCLE.
But would you want to get off of MLP?
Sorry, misread the “of” there for a second.
HELL NO!! Just watch this!!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPN5yZ5bpF8
When you think about it, a hardcore brony might be even worse than a pot-head.
Might be even worse? I can guarantee you it is. Pot heads you can at least mesmorize and confuse with something simple, or a little wordplay.
Pony on a string on a stick. Problem solved.
Not as bad as a Furry Brony…
Oh dear GOD, those guys are creepy. I mean, I’m definitely a brony, but…ugh.
I got that beat. My first college roomie was a juggalo.
I hope you turned them in immediately.
I called the congressional committee on obnoxious music, but the bureaucrats moved too slow.
Well the FBI has named them as a criminal organization
How did a juggalo get into college?
I CALL SHENANIGANS!
If only that worked.
Too bad she couldn’t study abroad. One seems like too much for her already.
Sarah would never study a broad. She’s not into that sort of thing.
That was my major.
Lots of guys come to uni to study abroad, hell many of them study as many broads as possible.
And today’s avatar?
Matoi Tsunetsuki the deep-love stalker girl from Sayonara Zetsubou Sensei.
Joe? That you?
No, you mistaked me for someone else me thinks.
What you did there… I see it.
If you’re in college and a lack of sleep and some drama drops your gpa you need to quit life.
If you’re in college and a chronic lack of sleep due to serious issues that you can’t address without getting somebody in trouble and dealing with not only the issues themselves but all of their consequences, then being told to “let it resolve itself” is dropping your GPA, you need to ask somebody more experienced and knowledgeable than you what to do.
Fixed it for ya.
I like the fixed version better.
At some colleges, there are places to help students deal with grief and mental-health situations, and this one would definitely qualify. Sarah hasn’t thought of that, though, and it’s possible that this doesn’t exist at that school, or the RA didn’t think to mention it, or whatever.
Their RA is either way tolerant, apathetic or oblivious.
Or all 3.
Consider that the only RA we’ve seen is psychotic.
Yea but the psycho prides herself on running a tight ship. But then she also drinks till she passes out. Nevermind, whatever point I was about to make is invalid.
The one from Its Walky?
http://www.itswalky.com/d/19970911.html
I think he’s talking about Ruthless from DoA.
Or get a new roommate arrangement. That’s one thing that everyone keeps overlooking here. I’m no expert at how 4-year college dorm housing arrangements work, but I can’t help but assume all that “I had no other choice” talk about getting rid of the headcase roommate narc-style was an example of “I don’t know how to handle these things.”
At least until enough real 4 year college alumni vouch for Sarah’s “Wait for the problem to resolve itself or get her kicked out of college were my ONLY options” belief. They would know better than me.
I dunno. At the place where I went the Housing Office was very strict, and would only allow roommate switches after at least a semester.From other friends who went to 4-year institutions, the situation was similar. Bluntly put, the Housing Office can’t deal with everyone who’s not happy with their roommate, and generally will not change arrangements until the break between semesters when rooms open up as people enter, leave, study abroad, or lose their scholarships and get kicked out once their grades are final.
The only way switching of roommates is allowed, is in the most severe cases. Things such as the roommate died, campus police is involved, theft of property over a certain amount and at end of semesters as Jeff D. mentioned.
I should certainly hope they’d let you switch if the roommate died! It’s bad enough dealing with smelling weed all the time; can you imagine having to deal your roommate’s dead body?
Hey they were paid up for the whole semester.
Well, on the bright side, after a few days you probably wouldn’t be smelling weed any more.
I dunno about IU, but it was pretty easy to switch rooms at my school. Basically, you notify the housing people, move stuff, trade keys, and pay a little $$$ if you switched to a more expensive dorm. I never did it during the year, but I had plenty of friends who did.
I’m starting to sympathize a bit more with Sarah. Roommate issues suck, even if it’s not that severe.
I would guess you went to a small school where just saying “Hey, I want to switch roommates with X” is financially and logistically feasible. Most people don’t get along with their freshman year roommates, or at least think they could do better. According to Wikipedia and math, the IU Bloomington campus has about 8,000 freshmen. Switching them around at any time of the year is probably not plausible.
I go to North Texas (34k students) and roommate changes were as simple as applying for a change and leaving.
I had a beef with my roommate because he got piss drunk all the time and kept leaving food out until it grew mold. When I got in the mindset my two options were to come to fists about it and just leave peacefully I chose the second.
Hell UNT is remarkably kind about roommate Russian Roulette on the second go round. You get to actually meet potential new roommates before signing.
My college was fairly small (around 3500 undergrads, I think), but I don’t see why size should be an issue. If there’s an open spot somewhere and both the person moving and the person being moved upon agree, why shouldn’t switching rooms be simple and easy?
I don’t know. I keep envisioning this scenario where Sarah goes to switch roommate and they ask her why and she tries to make up stuff and they say it’s not good enough and then she just spills the beans accidentally getting Dana expelled. Good luck with that run-on.
Yeah, as the others said, a lot of colleges are very strict about changing roommates. Particularly if they are a little overcrowded that year, as happened during my freshman year.
I don’t know, if I remember my freshman experience right, my roommate told me beginning of 2nd semester that she was going to move out (Literally it was “Hey, how was your vacation?” “I’m moving out.” “…”) but it still took her a good 2-3 weeks to do so and she already had a person to move in with. Who knows how long it would take for Sarah to find someone willing to let her move in and then the whole paperwork process. There’s also the chance that she really is worried about her roommate and even if she moved she’d feel guilty not doing something.
Oh by the way, I so wanted my roommate out of the place by the time she was ready to move that I carried her boxy PC monitor up two flights of stairs.
At most schools, the only way to do that would be to rat her out. Still, she had other options, like instead of giving an ultimatum to Raidah, maybe having given it TO DANA’S FACE.
Sarah didn’t give Raidah an ultimatum. She gathered Dana’s friends together, told them how serious the situation was and that Dana needed help. When they seemed unwilling to help, Sarah told them the situation with Dana was affecting her grades and endangering her scholarship. She didn’t threaten any action or even imply that she was going to do anything drastic if the situation didn’t resolve itself.
As to what she has or has not said to Dana, we don’t know that she hasn’t brought the situation up, just because we haven’t been shown it, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. I mean, does Sarah strike you as the type to suffer in silence? Hell, this is an unprecedented amount of slack that Sarah seems to have been cutting Dana. I think Sarah has gotten to the point where she’s about to give Dana an ultimatum.
While it was relatively simple to do at the one four year school I lived on, just a little paper work and a few signatures, possibly money if you upsized, the main problem is that we had a housing shortage. So if you left a room, you might end up having to be third man in a two person room. Also, whoever was stuck with the room that only had one person in it either had to now pay for the other person’s slot or find a new roommate to fill the gap.
Mine wasn’t nearly so crowded as the administration liked to pretend. Ostensibly, you had to either get a new roomie or pay up if your old one moved out. Realistically, if you ignored the notices they sent you, they never made good on their threat to partner you up with someone and never charged you anything. I had a room in one of the best dorms to myself because of that.
Yes because we all have to deal with basketcases on a 24/7 basis. It’s one thing for Dana to crash her future and who knows her Dad might be able to pull some strings to get her enrolled in another college. Sarah’s Dad might not have that clout and this is her chance. And while she could spend all her time studying in the library, but she has to sleep at some point and she obviously can’t. Considering the cost of room and board at universities I wouldn’t stand for my money being wasted.
“If you’re in college and a lack of sleep and some drama drops your gpa you need to quit life.”
Or, y’know, you’re just some 18 year old who’s been living away from home for all of 8 weeks, and not used to real life yet. Give it a semester or two.
The dramatic “controversies” that are always brought up in any form of fiction about college, whatever the media, are usually so predictable and one sided.
Holy shit this is well done.
Agreed! I like how yesterday half of us were like, “Eeeeh, given these details, I’m not sure about Sarah anymore,” with some debate, hemming, and hawwing. Today, more of us are like, “OOoh, yeah, okay,” – with more debate following that!
I saw that she had to be destroyed…
There is no Dana, only Zuul… so she must be destroyed.
Maybe Mike’ll do it for a nickel, so he can do Dana’s M… wait. That sounds awful. Too soon?
No, awful would be “Mike’ll do it for a nickel, plus the price of a shovel, so he can do Dana’s mom.” Anybody who could even think of something like that would be a terrible, terrible person.
Good thing we don’t know anyone around here who would even have the phrase cross their mind, yet alone actually type it, even in passing as to say how horrible it is.
I know! It’s a good thing that Willis has such an upstanding and classy readership.
You thought of it.
I’d ship Joe and Johnny Bravo if it where even slightly canonically possible….
My God, what have you done?! Stop trying to divide by zero!
Now I’ve got this scenario in mind where Joe and Johnny just argue over who the wingman is going to be… except the girl thinks they’re both losers.
Only difference is Joe is actually successful getting women. Sometimes anyway.
I honestly don’t think it’s fair to hold Joyce against him, so by my measure he’s got a near-perfect record so far.
And keep in mind Walkyverse!Joe, at age twenty-four, ballparked the number of women he’d slept with at two thousand and thirty. Not number of times he’s had sex, the number of women he’s slept with.
Unless this Joe has taken a serious competence hit, I’d say that yeah, he’s got a fantastic record.
I’m sure noise canceling headphones existed back when the world was blue. Buy a cheap mp3 player and blast some lullabyes
It’s not just the noise, I would guess. Also the everlasting smell of pot.
My friend has a roommate that comes to the room stoned all the time. She crashes in my suite most of the time because she can’t take the smell or the habits.
… and that makes Batman sad.
because there’s no justice to be had here.
Dead parents tend to have that effect on him…
ACK!! TOO MUCH BATMAN!!
Now the real question is which is the real one?
First one to prove it gets a cupcake of their choice.
This is the real Batman: http://youtu.be/lH_XwLZ6Y0M
And potentially the mild contact high/ensuing mild munchies destroying her concentration. And waistline.
Then learn the ancient chinese art of controling her breathing whilst sleeping.
Have you ever walked through one of those small little shops that are like Hallmark but not franchised? Have you ever walked by a display of scented candles or potpourri or something, and had to take a few steps back from the smell? While I can’t speak for myself (thankfully), I’ve heard pot is like that times a thousand.
Second-hand pot smoke is definitely like that. When I worked down at the Wharf we had the Medical Marijuana club come in very often, and they would stink up the place from the front door back to the kitchen. Walking past them would result in the mildest of contact highs that had none of the fun benefits and just nausea.
LOL AND NOW IM SARAH HOW APPROPRIATE.
And this is why you can’t have nice things.
It’s how you get ants.
At least potpourri smells pleasant. Pot smells like sour dead skunk. XP
Where…where have you smelled a sour dead skunk? And why?
Drive around out in the country in the US and it’s bound to happen sooner rather than later.
Even worse if you’re the one who ran it over, may as well scrap the car because no one will buy it and the stink seems to last forever.
There’s a reason why it’s called “Skunk Weed”
I’m hypersensitive to perfumes, it’s a hoot to head to the soap aisle and play “find the unscented.” Pot… didn’t smell that bad in college. Granted it was the guys above me rather than a roommate, but I don’t find it an offensive odor. Not like cigarettes.
Wow. Same here — hypersensitive to perfumes and tobacco smoke, but relatively unbothered by the smell of marijuana smoke.
(I still don’t like anyone forcing their drugs on me via airborne transmission. Get your weed in brownies people, and leave the rest of us alone.)
If my roommate was suffering this much and smoking constantly, and there was nothing I could do about it, I’d lose sleep over this, too.
Especially when the only other people you know who could potentially reach out to her refuse to believe that she has a problem.
Like Carl, I can picture sitting in his room alone, “she’ll be back to normal soon… soon… any minute now…”
Even after she dumped him. “She’s just going through some stuff. She’ll be back…”
Any minute now…
“Any minute now…”
Aaaaaany minute now. Isn’t that right, Mister McKittens? Yes it is, Carl.
And it could mess with her sleep schedule, which in turn means fighting over the lights being on or off when (some people are REALLY sensitive to that when trying to sleep), and she’s probably still covering for the smell, and then there IS the smell to deal with, not to mention the worrying about her? That’s gonna take a toll on a person.
Also, if you’re not in the habit of going to sleep with music, it takes a bit to adjust. Sarah does not have this time.
I wonder if getting a room transfer was out of the question? I’ve seen it done midsemester for lesser reasons.
To get a transfer she would have to explain the situation, which would mean outing Dana about the drugs.
I have a sneaking suspicion that it’ll turn out that there’s a similar situation in place for getting Dana some help from the school councilors.
I would guess the policy is generally something like “confidentiality unless the student’s actions are putting themselves or others at harm,” which Dana is most certainly doing, both to Sarah, by impeding her education, and herself. Idunno, it might also include “unless the student’s actions are illegal.” Never had to find out.
I don’t know. “Her mom passed away” seems like a valid excuse for seeking help from councilors, but it doesn’t seem as effective when trying to get a roommate change.
I don’t know how councilor work works, but I assume it’s ineffective if you’re not actually being open about what problems you’re having.
Depending on college policy, yes. At the very least she would have to find a new roommate, and considering how she is with people that’d be a problem. She could maybe request a transfer without requesting a specific roommate, but that could take the rest of the semester. Plus, at least this way she can keep an eye on Dana and try to control the situation. She has a very much depressed friend who’s using drugs as a coping mechanism and keeping her other friends from finding out how bad it is. That’s not exactly a good combination to leave alone in a half-empty dorm room for extended periods.
I think a lot of people are sort of overlooking that it’s not just that Dana is being distracting. Sarah is worried about her. And moving to a new location isn’t going to solve that.
Besides, I don’t imagine moving rooms (or having your roommate move) is a quick or easy process. I’d certainly think it would be just as hard to study during a roommate transfer (especially if Sarah was the one to move) as while dealing with roommate problems. Assuming the school would even allow it at all.
But she was smiling when she was with us! Obviously that means she has no issues! None at all!
C’mon! Gimme a smile!
she’s just got a good poker face.
Dana write lyrics for Lady Gaga.
Huh. Well that explains why Lady Gaga regularly screams for her mother in the middle of her songs.
Bonus internets for you.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bESGLojNYSo
Ahhh. So Radiah does have legitimate reasons to be against Sarah. Because (at least with how this looks so far) Sarah seemed to just randomly turn on and tell on Dana for no reason.
And worse after her mom died.
And after Dana did everything she could to include her.
There is so many shades of grey in this.
Actually, upon taking a closer look at the above comic, I think you’ll find they are shades of blue.
Better shades of blue than say…50 shades of gray.
What is 50 shades of gray? All I have heard about it is “stay away from it.”
Randomly?…. When this problem started to have a measured effect on her life after doing nothing wasn’t working isn’t necessarily random. But to an outside observer who’s plan is to not do anything and continue to not do anything could be considered random.
But perhaps I am reading your comment incorectly and that Raidah is unwilling to get all the facts and judge on the biased observed information.
Yeah, I definatley agree with you that her behavior is far from random. Willis is doing a great job painting the scene both literally and metaphorically.
I suspect Raidah feels betrayed because it looks like Sarah threw Dana under the bus just because she couldn’t cope. The irony is that Raidah is doing the same to Sarah by ostracizing her.
That’s such a normal human response. No sarcasm intended. Just good writing.
Oh, hell yeah.
That right there is why Raidah and Co. have struck me as bad friends. They stick with surface stuff and can’t be bothered to be real friends to their friend who has suffered an enormous loss. =\ (yes, it’s true that you can’t help a person who doesn’t want to let you in far enough to help, but it’s becoming pretty obvious here that they haven’t really bothered to do too much to offer that help.)
Silly Sarah. You had lots pf choices. You could’ve killed her, hired someone to kidnap her, convinced her she lived somewhere else while she was high, bricked your door…
Someone help me here; I’m running out of terrible things to do to a roommate.
buy her a puppy, snap her arms, throw her in the closet,make out with her, play baseball with her using a live grenade, have her dragged by horses, have her drag some horses, turn her on to worse drugs, cover her in roaches, hide a black widow in her tissue box, buy her a new computer with absolutely no ram or filespace, make her watch 2 girls & one cup, use her friends as blunt objects and beat her with them, dig up her mom’s corpse and puppet her “weekend at Bernie’s” style, fart in her coffee, tell her she looks fat on facebook, wait for her to fall asleep and bust the supports on your bad so it falls on her, etc.
Oh geez, it took me to “baseball” to realize you weren’t talking about the puppy anymore…
Find her dealer, and then stalk him/her for three weeks without rest, learning his habits, his schedule, even the way he walks and his voice. Then pay one of the artsy students to sew you up a very convincing outfit, maybe a hat and a beard. Get a couple of the beauty-school students from down the street for make-up. Then, when she comes along to get her usual fix, say you got caught by the cops and you’ve been bugged. Have a friend in a police uniform come by to arrest her, and instead end up kidnapping her in the bank of a van. Then you tie her up and **************************************, finally letting her go in the middle of a strange desert, completely unaware of where she is, mentally and emotionally tortured and traumatized, and physically drained.
Or, you know, take the pot away and talk to her…? Just a suggestion. I know, it’s a stupid idea.. It’d never work…..
My god. I was about to ask why buying her a puppy was a bad thing, but…
http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/ShootTheDog
There are plenty of choices….email one of her professors…a campus counselor…really anyone of authority and express concern that your roommate’s emotional health is cause for alarm. Invite one of the group over during her melt downs so they can see the issue and not just assume you’re the soulless person you’ve kinda set yourself up to look like.
Choices beyond “Ruin clinically depressed girl’s life over my inability to adapt” exist.
Dana’s life is pretty ruined already. And reporting her, while maybe seemingly bad, could lead to therapy and (probably needed by this point) addiction treatment at a rehab center or something.
And part of the problem is that she can’t tell any authority figure without getting Dana in trouble- something Sarah at this point has every right to do but is trying to avoid.
To be fair, when students are kicked out for mental health/drug reasons, it’s not like they’re arrested. They are sent home to live with their family, and assuming Dana’s family is functional, they would presumably get her into rehab/therapy. When they are in a position to “try again” academically, such students have a decent chance of being allowed back, or at least getting into a different school. Getting kicked out and being at home for a while probably didn’t “ruin Dana’s life”, it was probably the best thing for her. But I’m sure Dana wouldn’t see it that way.
Out of curiosity, which of those solutions will fix things quick enough for Sarah to pull her grades back up in time for finals?
Buy her a puppy.
None of them are miracle solutions, but at the very least, they’d give Dana a shoulder to lean on that’s not Sarah’s.
I’m in college, and I have to say that yes, I can go to study in the library whenever I want, even late at night.
However, the stress off having someone doing illegal drugs in your room would be unbelievable. (i’m assuming the drugs in the rooms has continued to this strip) I have stipulations in my dorm housing agreements and in my financial aid (especially FAFSA) dictating that if I am caught doing illegal drugs in my room, I am kicked out of the dorm and all money flow stops. In this case, it’s Sarah’s roommate, but it’s a shared room, and it could be hard to prove that Sarah wasn’t actually in on it (and proving otherwise would be a terrible hassle).
But even if I wasn’t accused of being the smoker, think about trying to hide the fact that your roommate is using, in the dorm room. The room constantly smells. Your clothes and bedding are permeated with the smell, because the rooms are tiny and all of your stuff is stuck in that room, so you have to try and not smell like a pothead yourself whenever you leave the room. I wouldn’t be able to sleep in a room that smelled like that, let alone deal with a person who is both depressed and high at the same time. And without sleep, school becomes a kind of living hell because you can’t operate, even in the library you all are suggesting.
Now, add the fact that even if you hide your roommate’s drug use, if your grades drop, you lose your money to go to school, and lose what you’ve been striving for your whole academic career.
Sarah might be tactless, but at this point it seems that she’d gone above and beyond what most people would do to deal with that kind of situation. My sympathy lies with her.
Thank you! Exactly what I was thinking. No matter the situation with Sarah’s roommate it doesn’t change the fact that Dana is doing an illegal think in THEIR room. Sarah could lack empathy for all I care and her making the school kick Dana out would be still be rational. No one has the right to make life shitty for someone else just because their life sucks right now.
Sarah gave her the finger! She named names!
Is Dana going to be… still alive, at the conclusion of this story? Is this where it’s going? Man, I hope not
Not dead, just expelled.
Hermione Granger disapproves.
She’s in rehab on a farm.
It’s sad that nobody is allowed to visit. But that is the rule.
It’s stuff like this that would leave me totally baffled and probably on the losing side of things as well. Can’t honestly say I’m any better socially adjusted than Sarah (I’m probably somewhere around Amber’s level).
…..so shes pissed cuz she got a C-……um…thats a fail in the states isnt it? cuz up here its just a slap on the wrist….i think. i rarely ever went to class and only got B’s so i dont really know
Depends what GPA she has to maintain for her scholarship. 1 or 2 C- may be survivable but they’ll tank her GPA pronto if they add up.
Ain’t nobody but parents and loansharks interested in funding mediocrity.
I don’t know about merit scholarships in undergrad (my school only does need-based, to the best of my knowledge), but I’ve read about GPA-based merit scholarships and law schools.
If Sarah has one like that, then she would probably be at serious risk of losing the scholarship if her grades stayed like that, or – more plausible given that they started dropping after Dana’s mother died – got worse.
The scholarship I have for my school requires I maintain a 3.2 or they take away my scholarship. Grades that low and I would have to leave.
If it was for a class in her major she might not be able to get credit for the class. It’s not a failing grade but it’s really bad– one grade like that messes up your GPA for your entire time at college. Let’s pretend she got a C- in all her classes that semester. If she somehow managed to get straight As every semester after, she would end up with a 3.7– not enough for magna cum laude or even cum laude in some places. When you consider that a 4.0 GPA is summa, that’s pretty unforgiving.
I don’t know how strict the terms of Sarah’s scholarship are, GPA-wise, but two Bs and two Cs, ignoring plusses and minuses, would take us to a GPA of approximately 2.5 – a C+ average, which is passing but I’d bet nowhere near good enough for the terms of a ‘strict’ scholarship. I would bet that Sarah’s scholarship requires at least a 3.0 average (B) if not a 3.5 (B+/A-) or better.
Add to that, outside of scholarships, many majors are competitive – at least, they were in my university – and while the requirements on paper to be accepted into that major frequently include ‘2.5 or better cumulative GPA’, in practice those requirements are much higher. A very popular competitive major might end up with ‘and you’d better have 3.5 cumulative or they won’t even look at you’ as a practical requirement. (When I was at uni, computer science was like that, except the practical requirement was more like 4.0 since it was popular AND there weren’t many slots available.)
Finally, in my university, if you dropped below a 2.0 and didn’t pick it up the next quarter, you were out. Period.
Sarah’s midterm GPA is less than 2.5 while still being above 2.0, and it’s midterm so there’s still time to turn it around, but without a change in circumstances that’s not going to happen. And this GPA that we’re seeing here, if it becomes final, is just barely good enough to stay in school let alone keep the strict scholarship that’s allowing her to go in the first place.
I think the 2.0 requirement is pretty standard.
As far as pass/fail goes, a C is still a pass in the States for most classes (though you may need to pass with a higher grade to be able to take the next course in a sequence), but many scholarships require you to maintain a higher GPA than that. If she’s stressed over the terms of her scholarship, it’s bound to require a 3.0 (B) at the very least.
In regards to raidah and the rest, the term “fair weather friend” comes to mind.
Because their personalities are warm and refreshing like a spring morning?
I have two questions: 1) What specifically was causing the lack of sleep and plummeting grades? Was it Dana’s drug use, or her grieving, or both? Because this comic makes it look like it was just Dana needing a shoulder to cry on, and Sarah (understandably) couldn’t be her sole support system and keep her grades up at the same time, so she (less understandably) had Dana thrown out. I really hope the drug use is meant to be implied in here, because that scenario seems SUPER CALLOUS.
2) In either case, whether it was the drug use or just the grieving, did Sarah try talking to Dana about it, and telling her “Hey this is really hurting my quality of life and my chances of staying in school.”? If she tried to talk to her about drugs, and Dana refused to stop doing them in the room after being confronted, and it was keeping Sarah up and ruining her chances of staying in college, then yeah, I can see going to an authority figure. But only after trying to handle it herself; it’s kind of a dick move to bring the authorities into it without first informing the person “Hey, this is a problem that needs addressed.”
If it was just Dana crying/needing someone to talk to, then there’s no shame in saying “Hey, I can’t help you and take care of my life at the same time, you need to let some of our other friends help you, too, or go to a counselor.” If that doesn’t work, then go get someone who can help, NOT to bust Dana for drugs, but to get her well again. You don’t even have to mention the drugs. There are a lot of choices before having someone kicked out of school.
Or it could be that Willis is trying to pull a fast one on us, and the “no other choice” refers to something else that Sarah tried first.
Yeah I’m confused. Why couldn’t she get any sleep? It just makes no sense, Dana wasn’t even in the same room as she was and smelling pot fumes does not induce insomnia.
I really think Sarah is making it worse then it actually was, and since she’s so convinced that she is the protector of everyone’s feelings, she naturally can’t distance herself from Dana’s problems.
Her character doesn’t make sense because she switches between CARING SO HARD OMG to ONLY CARING ABOUT HERSELF OMG. In reality, she turns in Dana because Sarah herself is too emotionally unstable to live with other people.
Wait what? Not even in the same room? You have seen a college dorm room before right? And you understand that Sarah and Dana are roomies?
My experience has been that dorm rooms have two beds, one small room. The beds can be stacked like bunk beds or arranged seperately. Now I will concede that upperclassmen may have access to different and more spacious arrangements but these are freshmen we’re talking about. I don’t know the specifics of the college Willis is writing about and I may totally wrong but based on what we’ve seen most of the characters are sleeping in bunk bed arrangements (Sarah and Joyce, Mike and Walky at the very least) which does not speak to multiple room set ups. The only character I can specifically remember having her own bed is Ruthless but she’s the RA, typically an upperclassman.
They’re in a small dorm room. Even if they were in a suite, smoke from a heavy smoker will leak into other rooms and make the whole place smell. And if you associate those fumes with extremely stressful situations or helplessness (like “how many times have I asked them to stop”, “great this is going to turn into another fight”), just a whiff can make you feel stressed. If you’re sensitive to smells, it can induce headaches. As someone who has actually lost sleep over this before, I identify with Sarah almost painfully here.
It was established quite a while ago that Sarah got her busted for smoking, so we know Dana was still into that. Have you ever tried to sleep, or do *anything* for that matter, when a foreign source of smoke is fouling up your air supply? Let me tell you, it’s pretty damn impossible. And considering what we’re shown in the first two panels of today’s comic, it’s a safe bet that Dana was doing a lot more than just smoking at night.
Furthermore, given panels 1 and 3 of today’s comic, it’s also a safe bet that Sarah did do more than just go straight to the authorities and turn Dana in. She did her meager best to help, but thought she likely only made things worse. She informed Dana’s friends what was going on, and they refused to believe it. She couldn’t handle it, it was putting too much stress on her to keep her grades up, so she finally gave up and kicked things up to the people in charge.
“at that point I had no other choice. I had to kill her in her sleep.”
“I knew that, at the very least, she would be reunited with her mother. So hey bonus, right?”
It was the logical and kind thing to do.
Meanwhile Dina is happily thinking about dinosaurs.
Dinosaaaaauuuuuurs…
That doesn’t work without the Dina Grav.
Willis, please help me.
Do it yerself:
http://www.dumbingofage.com/wp-content/themes/comicpress-dumbingofage/images/avatars/dumbingofage/avdina.png?s=64
http://en.gravatar.com/
I understand Sarah’s dilemma but as others have already noted, I’m still trying to figure out why she didn’t try to get Dana’s other friends involved and see her breaking down in the confines of the dorm room. There have been so many cases of people attempting suicide when from all outside perspectives it seemed like they were doing great. I know she tried to talk to them before, but be more adamant and say it’s about her, not about your grades. Not that that’s unimportant, but a person’s life is at stake here, and that’s much more important.
…? She *DID* try to bring Dana’s friends in on it. Re-read panel 3. They refused to believe Sarah that there was a problem, because Dana hid it all from them.
Ah yes you are correct. My mistake.
People only see what they want to see. Her friends didn’t want to see Danah suffering. Why? I don’t know, but I’ve been in Sarah’s position before and the person’s friends were huge enablers. Every time the person was feeling down around them they would end up going off somewhere and come back as high as a kite. Not the best way to handle their problems.
I love how yesterday, everyone was all “boo” towards Sarah, but now that these new details have come up, people are starting to sympathize with her more.
Welcome to the internet, and life in general.
Protip 1: The expressed view of a vocal minority are not necessarily the views of the group as a whole.
Protip 2: Conflicting views expressed by different people with in the same group is not a sign of a group flip-flopping. It’s a sign that groups are made up of individuals with their own opinions.
I wasn’t saying boo at all. I don’t think a relative stranger should be expected to put up with a situation they find untenable just because the other person involved is going through a rough patch. They aren’t married, family or even BFFs. There is no bond between them save that they share living space. Hell, I think Sarah has actually given Dana way more slack than is in keeping with her personality as shown to date.
No, I’m still like ‘F- Sarah’.
Honestly, I like her even LESS then when this whole thing started. And I didn’t like her much to begin with (which, I’ll admit, may be giving her a bias).
I can’t help but see Sarah over-reacting to all of this.
Hey everyone! I did a fanart including Joyce and Walky, hope you can see it
http://ryanbalis.tumblr.com/post/29969217329/gravity-toons-my-latest-pin-up-features-mabel
Beautiful colors, Mr. Balis.
The pictures has an abundance of energy and enthusiasm. It is a fun little joy to look at.
Joyce looks wonderful and you have really captured her quirky spunk.
Walky’s one eye looks really off, like he’s melting. It distracts from the rest of the composition, and is the only flaw I can see.
Great stuff. Thank you for sharing!
Looking back at Walky’s eye, if you increased the size of the left pupil to match the larger right one, I think it’d look right.
thank you for the feedback Dr. Z! I guess it looks small in comparision with the other eye. I’ll try to fix it. Glad you liked it, and joy was the central emotion.
Sarah where is your torso in panel 2 .___.
Oh, this is getting interesting… I’m looking forward to reading what happens next!
Remember when we were all friends…now we’ve made all these decisions over fictional characters. YOU ARE TEARING THIS FAMILY APART WILLIS.
IT MAKES ANGRY BOWSER ANGRY!!
Clearly a lot of the blame falls on Raidah and the others. Like I said before, they were neglecting the problem.
Sure, Dana put on a happy face, but that’s no excuse to ignore Sarah. I mean, she’s her freaking roommate! The one she shares a close, personal space with!
If Sarah is guilty of anything, it’s of being too patient.
I think the problem is a combination of Dina being very good at hiding her emotional state and Sarah’s poor social skills. What was an honest plea from Sarah about Dina coping badly appeared to Raidah and the others as “Dina’s grieving is annoying and ruining my grades”.
I honestly don’t think Raidah at least is so unfeeling that she doesn’t care about Dina or Sarah, but it’s already been established in the strip that Sarah doesn’t express herself well.
Yay! I have time to post things!
It’s called a LIBRARY, you imbecile. USE IT.
To sleep in!
…did you bother to read the comic?
To sleep in?
Yes, Sarah. You are so stupid for not moving in to library!
I did hear a story about a college student who lived in the library basement for a semester before people found out.
Or the steam tunnels! IU has those, right?
The perfect murder weapon! Just lure her in with some pot, then WHAM! Drop a bookshelf or fifty on her!
Better yet, trap her in the Stacks. Shelves on wheels are much easier to move.
I’ll be trying to hold off on conclusion-jumping until this flashback finishes playing out.
I really don’t want to believe that Sarah thinks her ONLY option at this point is to kick her roommate when she’s down, even if her scholarship is on the line.
Yesterday she was suggesting therapy to Dana’s friends. They dismissed it, but only because they’re not really seeing what’s going on and don’t know how serious it is.
There’s almost nothing worse than not being able to get enough sleep at uni.
My freshman year I had an alcoholic roommate who I had to baby-sit all the time. On top of that, she snored like chewbacca.
I bought her nasal-breath-right strips, asked her to use them, asked her if there was another way she could sleep, tried to use industrial strength earplugs (bought them from a construction company-slept through the fire-alarms, but not her snoring), and finally audio-recorded her snoring so she could hear it in the morning.
She told me, and I quote “sorry. you should get over that though,”.
Between her coming back at all hours HOWLING she was so drunk, her trying to climb out our second story window to get to her friends who had MORE alcohol, and the copious (also illegal) amounts of cheap swill (and that was almost worse–she drank Keystone and plastic bottle Dubra by the gallon, I could have handled Crown or even Jack or something) I was at the end of my rope. I started going home on the weekends just so I could sleep, and retaliating by sleeping with a light on durring the week (Something she couldn’t abide by, which was vindictivly satisfying).
My heart goes out to Sarah, because I also have courses that require a minimum 3.0 gpa, and have suffered the stress of little sleep and a roommate directly violating campus dorm rules.
I stuck it out till the end of the semester, but not without telling her if I ever saw alcohol in the open, I’d fetch the RA faster than she could get blitzed. She failed out the next semester and I’m still here, 3.9 gpa and all.
Sarah may be cold, but really, she has more of a leg to stand on than those other girls who hate her. It’s not like the girl is dead, they CAN still see her. They should grow up, quite frankly.
And Sarah should get a “social skills for dummies” handbook.
Ahaahaha, I’m Sal and preaching about being a goody-two-shoes student, that’s rich!
Meanwhile, in his hidden base somewhere at approximately 23 degrees nort latitude, Tom Batiuk chuckles malevolently.
I’d be super curious (and I don’t expect an answer to this at all, I’m sure it’d ruin the mystique) as to what character in this story arc Willis thinks should be more sympathetic. I’m completely floored that people don’t find Sarah to be the one in the right here. I’ve lived in a dorm and I can’t imagine that I’d be the asshat for wanting to go back to my own home but can’t because my roommate made it unlivable. I know they became “friends” here, but, they’re not like long-time buddies who have a deep relationship, they’re friendly too each other because they have to live together. Sarah was forced to live with Dana because that’s how dorms work. You sign paperwork stating you won’t do stuff like, uh, illegal drugs, in your room, because you have to make sure the other person in the room is able to live there too. It’s sad that Dana’s mom died but Sarah is still paying for and deserves a living space she can be comfortable in.
I want to know how many people who are saying Sarah should just go to the library and suck it up have actually lived in a dorm. It’s the place you go because you live there. It’s your home and you should be able to study in your own bed if you want to. Dealing with severely depressed friends is extremely difficult and emotionally draining, I don’t think people should have to do interventions and become support systems for roommates they barely know.
I am kind of wondering that now, if Dana’s friends are happy to ignore it because that often happens with friends of severely depressed people. They don’t want to deal with it, and they don’t really care. They don’t really care about Dana deep down and are content allowing Sarah to deal with it and acting indignant at Sarah from a distance when they’re the ones who should really be taking care of their friend.
I agree. Alot of the comments here make me think people either have never even slept over in a dorm, or have had the most idyllic college life ever
I also agree, I had 2 roomates I would have happily moved away from had there been a room to move to. One of which did cost me my scholership and almost my “tenure” in college from his antics, drug use and general stupidity.
I had 10 roomates in college (through post grad.) and only 2 were at all bad, so I think I did pretty well.
I was one of the people who said “go to the library” until this comic. Before now, it wasn’t crystal clear just how severe and disruptive Dana’s behaviour was getting, nor that Sarah was her sole emotional resource. This comic spells out that it wasn’t, like, sometimes Dana cries, and then she goes out and talks honestly with her friends, and comes back and falls fast asleep. Nopers, Dana’s spiraling, and Sarah’s her only hope: it’s a totally different kettle of fish.
Man I’m glad I didn’t read this when it was first coming out because this story would have killed me back then.
As someone who lost their mother Sarah’s selfishness in this hurts me deep down.