If we’re _really_ lucky, the Queen will take us back, sort out this whole Trump mess, and be very supportive of us when we’re ready to put on our Big Country trousers again.
The U.K and the U.S. share a Special Relationship (TM). That being said, let us not forget that the U.K.’s current Head of Government is Theresa May, and her chosen Foreign Secretary is Boris “Weasel-Headed Fucknugget” Johnson. There is no proof that the U.K. is any more competent to lead the free world than the U.S. is, given each country’s current administration.
There are several reasons when I married a Canadian that we chose her country to settle in!
(Of course, back then “George Bush the Lesser” was president, who had been the worst president in US history until January 2017…)
Honestly, I get a bit annoyed whenever anyone says that Bush (or, when people on the other side of the political spectrum are speaking, Obama) was the worst president in US history.
James Buchanan failed to head off the Civil War. His actions as President further inflamed tensions that were already dangerously high, and he failed to respond with military force at the very start of the run-up to war—if he had, the rebellion could have been defeated, and maybe 600,000 soldiers wouldn’t have had to die, and we could have avoided all or most of the damage to civilians, as well. Historians generally consider Buchanan’s refusal to use force to stop secession as the worst presidential mistake ever made.
If by “towards the end there” you mean, until the 80s stonewalled us, then I’ll agree. But eh, most revolutions don’t end up creating a nation that lasts almost a quarter of a millenia so I guess we get some kudos for not going as crazy as the French did when they got their first revolution.
If that America did last a quarter millennium without going crazy like that, maybe, but the revolution baked in horrible ingredients that blew the country apart in the 1860s. Partial credit for some time after that.
Well, yeah, Plutocratic Oligarchy did a whole bunch of crap to us too, but it was the Theocratic Nutjobs were the ones standing in the way of queer rights.
Just throw in White Supremicists, and maybe Law Enforcement Autocracy, and you just about have the Axis of American Evil.
I’m encouraging all my friends who are currently abroad to be obnoxiously American today because I am terrible. I told my friend who’s in Taiwan to dump out any tea she’s given in the name of freedom.
“Taiwan had nothing to do with it.”
“FREEDOM.”
I will be very disappointed if this doesn’t end in sex between Jason and Walky.
However, I will say “Walky, he’s ostensibly doing you a favor. Why are you even here if you don’t want to learn?” I admit, part of my annoyance is that I’ve had students like him.
Yeah, seriously, Walky just annoys me by being so fucking childish and lazy. I don’t understand why he even agreed to go to college to begin with, let alone what he plans on doing with his life.
Jason is an awful awful teacher but he hasn’t even started any of his problems before Walky has begun throwing every possible insult he can at the man.
I would argue that for ALL people, having things too easy early in life absolutely is a bad thing. We learn to overcome by overcoming. We grow stronger by being challenged, by doing a little more. We make mistakes that we can learn from.
If everything is easy and nobody provides any challenges… where does that growth and strength come from? What resilience can there be?
it’s weird but like…i would argue that walky’s laziness doesn’t come from having too many good things, but by not having adequate support
like. ok, fair, he didn’t learn how to work because he was smart enough to not have to work at homework, but not everyone is driven enough to find things to do when their homework/classes bores them. or to have other places to go to to find more things to do. or to even talk about how bored he was.
idk i just really feel like parents who didn’t halfass their parenting would have noticed this, and recognized it as a problem, and helped him with extracurriculars or advanced classes and not made him feel like his worth was tied to his instinctive genius so that he would later pull shit like this
speaking from experience, advanced classes do not help with the self-worth problem; being “the smart one” becomes even more important. but they do help with the boredom, at least.
at the very least it puts you in a class with people who are potentially your peers? and struggling with the same problems you are??? although i guess my ap classes were filled with, basically, the rich kids and the smart kids
They were just happy that he sailed through his schoolwork and brought home straight As. They didn’t instill in him a drive to push himself beyond that. All this did was reinforce the idea that his grades bought their support and affection. (The contrast between how they treated him compared to bad-grades Sal didn’t help either, even if he didn’t realize it at the time.)
Now that he’s struggling for the first time in years, that mental house of cards has come crashing down. He doesn’t have the maturity to analyze what’s going wrong, and what to do to fix it. All he has is the panic over losing his parents’ support due to his falling grades.
“idk i just really feel like parents who didn’t halfass their parenting would have noticed this, and recognized it as a problem,”
True enough, though I’ll at least give some slack to those who were parents in the past (like my own); because it’s relatively recently that we have come to understand just how bad the current school system really is for anyone not fitting into its mold; whether it’s learning too fast, not learning fast enough, or whatever other issues is going on.
I know that my parents did support me as they thought was fitting support for me; but I feel confident that if they had the knowledge they had today, their support would be vastly different.
I know that my parents noticed I was having trouble, but only once I started not getting stuff done properly. (I had such a severe case of smart kid syndrome). The school took advantage of split classes to put me with the readers when I was in grade 1 (a lot of my grade 1 classmates couldn’t read yet), and advance me in math, but there’s only so much that can do. My school didn’t start “immersion” until grade 5, and by then I was so invested in not working hard because I was smart, that I did really badly in all my French-language classes. My parents tried, but there’s only so much they can do if the kid refuses to work.
And that’s aside from the fact that, to a certain extent, if people from my parents’ generation see that you got a 90 in a class, they assume you’re doing it right.
I don’t think the idea of being treated like Sal is even remotely near Walky’s consciousness. Very deep down the lessons have been learned- he is loveable because he’s smart and he does well. If he isn’t smart and doesn’t do well he isn’t loveable, and the unloveable is treated very badly.
But not even close to being aware of any of that. I think as far as Walky was concerned, going to college meant delaying having to grow up and make actual decisions about his life.
He freaked out and sobbed when Dorothy found out about his failing grade, asking if she was sure she wouldn’t break up with him over that and if it didn’t mean he wasn’t good enough for her because failure = stupid and perfect people won’t be with stupid people who “screwed up everything” and people stop loving failures.
I’m not disagreeing with you at all, just commenting that I highly doubt that Walky is even vaguely aware of it on a conscious level.
“Lessons” like that are very common. The child learning that “this makes me loveable” or “this makes me unloveable” are so very common, sad as it sounds. And it’s just as common that- without counselling/therapy- people are unaware of them.
Because it was easier than arguing with his parents about it. Also, he slacked off and got good grades in high school and assumed that college would be more of the same.
That joke about Doctor Who would work really well on the show.
Have the Doctor introduce himself and then have the person asks if he knows this other time traveller and the Doctor replying with, “that’s me” to a retort of “no couldn’t be, this guy had a magic wand.”
Though that might only serve to point out how silly the screwdriver has gotten.
Oddly, the Brits in my life (boyfriend, friends he’s introduced me to, so we’re talking more than a few people) are the people who seem to be least impressed by Doctor Who. Boyfriend calls him Mr. Spacewizard.
My reaction to it (as a Brit) is “meh”. Plus I briefly dated someone who was so ridiculously enthusiastic about it that it ruined it for me completely.
In fact I don’t know anyone really into it. Even my husband- who is a TV and film geek, generally older stuff- isn’t overly interested. So… your experience checks out with me.
Maybe because it’s been around in the UK for so long at this point, that it’s become part of the background-radiation din that’s “always been there”?
Here in the US I only started hearing about Doctor Who in college during the David Tennant era, and it really started picking up mainstream inertia with Matt Smith.
I spent two years in England (USAF ’81-’83), saw Tom Baker’s wax figure at the museum, (?) marveled at the scarf and weird metal dog. Came home to people excited about the show on late night teevee. Finally saw it, loved #4 (Tom). (realized I had watched John Pertwee as Worzel Gummige while in UK)
It’s a lovely callback to the fact the character was credited as ‘Dr./Doctor Who’ for several incarnations (at least into late 4, possibly early 5). The joke about mystery and it being ‘too on the nose’ could also be a joke about Seven and the question marks turned up to eleven theme. (I say about Seven completely lovingly – he’s one of my faves)
Jason isn’t the right teacher for the job anyway. He seems like the type to firmly adhere to the lesson plan, and double down on it if that doesn’t work. He hasn’t figured out how to introduce new concepts by explaining them in different ways yet.
Walky needs someone to teach him how to study. Beating the math knowledge into his brain with the rote-memorization sledgehammer won’t solve the problem, because he’ll be right back where he started again when the class moves on to the next subject.
The problem is that the TA can’t tell (until they get the student into the office) whether the problem is lack of effort or lack of comprehension. And given that the problem is the former, the course TA isn’t the right person, no matter what. The correct response here is to give Walky the information for the first-year “how to study” class. (Offered by the first year department/counselling services/etc)
This is one of the reasons why I find Walky frustrating as a character. He was terrified at the idea of losing Dorothy if she found out he was failing one of his classes, but when his teacher offers to tutor him to help him with his grade, he doesn’t seem to take it serious at all.
It’s almost like every step that Walky takes forward, he jumps three steps backwards, afraid to move even the slightest bit towards some kind of maturity. However, I have known my fair share of people like this, so I can’t call it unrealistic.
I’m assuming Walkerton is angry at Jason for the fact he’s trying to tutor him and he resents that he needs tutoring so he’s shutting it down before it even begins.
I can definitely see that, but that just makes me more annoyed with him due to that tearful conversation he had with Dorothy. You’d think after that he’d be willing to do whatever he could to fix this issue, but he’s letting his immaturity get in the way again.
This is very, very typical behavior when they hit the wall, and the longer they were able to coast, the worse it is. At least it’s contained to calculus – I know many people who let their failure in one class infect their entire schedule for that term.
but he’s letting his immaturity get in the way again.
Well, yes, that’s because he’s immature. If I had to bet, I’d guess that as eager as his parents were to distance themselves from Sal, they were just as eager to keep Walky dependent. Lots of love and affection and presents, just so long as his grades are good and he doesn’t try too hard to assert himself. But you can’t be kept dependent and immature in just one area or two areas, it doesn’t work that way. The end result is that Walky is used to coasting because he didn’t have to push himself, and immature because any show of independence was met, obviously or not, with a withdrawal of affection.
I don’t know that this is the case. We haven’t seen enough. I’m extrapolating based on the few things we’ve seen + what I know of real life families that resemble the few things we’ve seen.
Idk why you’re being so antagonistic with your reply to Cody, all they really said is that Wally is immature and its frustrating to read, but they understood why and that it wasnt unrealistic – the same kind of things as you are saying.
Wally grates on me every now and then, and this is a prime example. He’s here to be tutored but instead dishes out some bad British jokes, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jason turned around and said right well youre not seriously here for help, let’s stop.
You pretty much hit it on the head with a hammer, Torra. I think in my original posts I might have come off as more angry then I meant it to due to yesterday not being one of the best days for me.
I think the reason why Walky frustrates me at times is because I have known people like him, reminding me of my interactions with them. Honestly, that’s why I like Willis’ work. He really does a good job at bringing these characters to life.
If Walky goofs off and fails, it’s because he’s a clown. If he works really hard and still fails – he’s stupid. He’s a failure. There’s something wrong with him. This is a common problem with many, many smart people who are accustomed to not having to study (and the longer they can coast, the worse it is). In Walky’s case, it’s exacerbated by his family dynamics. We know how the Walkertons treated Sal. So does Walky. He might intellectually understand – now that he is able to see it and acknowledge it – that Sal didn’t deserve that treatment, but he’s still scared of losing everything. His parents have a lot of expectations for him.
It’s also because Walky is an ass who doesn’t respect any kind of authority or mentorship system because he wants to coast on his own merit and be the cool rebel. Jason is a scumbag who not only slept with Sal but implied sex for services then didn’t pay–which is somehow worse in my mind than actually doing it–but he’s not done anything like that for Walky know about thus treat him this way.
This seems to be deliberate malice. I think Walky just expects Jason to take it because he views the tutor as beneath him and resents the fact he is giving him bad grades.
Yeah, I agree with the assessment, although I’d replace the word “malice” with ‘disregard”.
He doesn’t wish to hurt Jason as much as shits on him as much as possible.
And since Jason ranges from eh to awful as a tutor, he cannot defuse it.
So funny story–up until the early 1980s there was basically no problem with him being called “Doctor Who”. It was the done thing by the writers, the cast, the press. It was how the character was listed in the credits. Novelizations–how you got to revisit Who episodes before reruns became a phenominon–were generally titled Doctor Who and the [x].
Then a man named John Nathan-Turner became the show’s producer in 1980. Having a knack for self-promotion he quickly learned that a good way to attract fanatics was to give them a reason to feel superior to the general public. And so one of his first moves was to change the end credits so that the main character was listed as “The Doctor” and not “Doctor Who”, and then loudly insist to anyone who would listen that the new one was more accurate.
The show’s average viewers per season went from 11 million to 6 million during Nathan-Turner’s first year. Just saying.
Could just as easily be the fact that the writing got worse due to Douglas Adams leaving his script editor role (because The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was getting absolutely massive), though.
So much went wrong with DW in the 80s. The phrase “perfect storm” comes to mind.
(And Colin Baker got stuck/smeared with a lot of it, not really deservedly, for years.)
Oh dear, I’ve had students like Walky before. So scared of their confusion and the fact that it used to come easily that they retreat into tomfoolery and clowning around to hide it.
And for all I heap shame on Jason for being the type of scum that sleeps with his students, this is a very difficult thing for a first time teacher to know how to deal with*, especially one as inflexible as Jason and I feel sorry for him here.
*The trick is redirection and refocusing, take the attempted distraction, fold it into the lesson, while knowing when to be firm and lay down some classroom management. A timed pause, uncomfortable amounts of focused attention, and then a question of “shall we continue?” can also work well in extreme circumstances.
And I do have to praise him for keeping his temper well. Like, he’s being intentionally fucked with, but he’s keeping a relative cool and avoiding blowing up at the kid even if it would be easy for him to.
And I feel bad for Walky. Clowning around is his safe space to deal with stress and he is extremely terrified by how badly he’s doing in the class and how little things are making sense. He needs a better tutor, yes, but more than that he needs to get to a point where he can allow himself to take things seriously and allow himself to be humbled as to his need to develop real study habits.
Agreed. I almost feel bad for him here. The poor SOB had no idea just how defensive Walky is about his defence mechanism.
Also, off-topic, but sorry about that pile of word vomit I sent you pretending to be an email earlier. It was really badly written and convoluted and I’m sorry about that. I was overwhelmed when I wrote it.
I may be projecting here, but I suspect that, outside a poor grasp of and probable lack of education on study skills, Walky could be having problems specifically with Calc for similar reasons to why I did early on with the subject.
As the subject is often taught there’s a fair bit of rote memorization early on, personally a weak suit for me that caused problems in primary school for learning multiplication and in secondary school for Trig identities which Walky seems not to have had, that you then later hopefully get more explanation regarding the hows and whys of those concepts. In Walky’s case I suspect he always had a fairly intuitive grasp of most of the lead up math, which isn’t something Calc really lends itself to without a lot of explanation because it breaks so hard from the foregoing methodology’s patterns.
On study skills, I don’t know if this has changed, and god do I hope it has, from my own school days in the ’80s and ’90s, but the first time in school anyone tried to explain how to actually study to us, as opposed to merely offering specific side advice like having a quiet place to do so which is relatively constant, was early in high school once many of us had a whole bunch of poor habits we’d been building up for eight years. It took me years to actually break all my own worst habits because of that, and Walky’s even further behind that curve.
This is HARD – much harder than tutoring Sal, who at least had a determination to learn, and sadly, unless Walky take steps to meet Jason halfway (rather than running screaming in the opposite direction), I think it will be more than Jason can handle.
He has improved. He no longer seem to regard tutoring as a visit to the oracle where chosen student receive his blessings of wisdom. Now he seem to think of it as penance.
And even if I agree that tutoring her idiot brother IS a fitting punishment for boffing a student he is supposed to teach, it does not make for a wonder of didactic performance.
I just hope some actual competent teacher will give Jason some hints, because right now he tries to be a teacher by wishing really hard rather than learning the tricks of the trade.
I wouldn’t say so? Like Walky has stuff to learn. But he’s in school. This is the appropriate place for him to fumble and learn. His foolishness at most irritates Jason.
Jason’s foolishness is actually damaging to Walky’s future.
Jason has stuff to learn. He’s in school. He’s a grad student, not a professional.
He’s got a boss who should be teaching him, recognizing that he’s having problems and showing him how to overcome them. Or at least being approachable for help when Jason realizes he’s not good at part of his job.
Of course, the actual teacher for the class is both worse and teaching and less interested.
None of that addresses the sleeping with Sal part. That’s inexcusable.
Honestly, they both have the same problem. They are stubborn and terrified to change their ways out of their comfort zone but desperately need to to succeed as a student or as a teacher.
So, um, Cerberus, kind of relevant to this strip I have something of a request? Your podcast where you discuss Jason has come up many times, but it’s more than an hour long and there’s no transcript that I managed to find. Is it potentially possible for a transcript to come into being?… :{
oh my god I’m so happy you actually replied 😮 it’s a lot of work isn’t it ^^; I wish I could help but I’m terrible at focusing on listening to stuff (it takes actual effort to decipher words and if there are no visuals my focus tends to slip very quickly…)
And to make it worse for Jason, this isn’t really the kind of problem that’s covered in the “how to TA” mini-course that is all the pedagogical instruction that grad students generally have. (I don’t know, maybe he got a much better one that we did. But “how to teach” is often more about making sure that the academically gifted people, i.e. those who go on to grad school and get TA jobs, know how to understand the problems of those who are less academically able. The academically able who don’t know how to work because they made a virtue of not having to are expected to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.)
I… I’m genuinely not sure if Walky is actually doing this on purpose or not. I could actually see him being this ignorant of non-cartoon culturally significant media.
*Alt text says this is how the Revolutionary War started*
*Mind goes to the events leading up to said war, then focuses on the Boston Massacre and Crispus Attucks in particular*
I really hope that’s not how this tutoring goes down.
I love the fact that they brought up that Weird Al song that doesn’t entirely exist as far as I’m aware. It’s a song Weird Al wanted to parody, but the original artist was vegetarian and said no.
A chicken pot pie parody of live and let die never made it past sample lyrics. Paul McCartney was a strict vegetarian, and while he was fine with Al parodying his songs he wouldn’t condone any song that in any way supported eating animals.
Dr Willis, you don’t know your Weird Al. I am disappointed.
It’s an easy mistake for a new teacher to make. It’s easy to believe the disruptive student just needs to see the extent of their disruptions and how frequent they are.
But the reality is that just encourages them to continue being disruptive, because they know that’s being tracked and you’ve now made a game out of it and you’ve also now allowed the lesson to be hijacked by it. Better to just circle it back to the lesson instead, but that’s a skill that usually comes with practice being a teacher.
Jason did point out Walky’s behavior, but we have no idea how long they had been in session. For all we know, Walky had been acting up for the better part of an hour, at which point it would have been clear that focusing on the lesson was a fool’s errand.
Something to remember though… Even though Danny did a better job at getting through to Sal, Jason actually did help her improve her grades. (Perhaps not as much as Danny did.) Plus, he did genuinely seem to have an interest improving his own teaching abilities. (I won’t try to justify the whole “sleeping with a student” thing though.)
So, he wasn’t a ‘great’ tutor, but he wasn’t completely horrible.
Is there a point where immaturity stops being endearing and makes me want to punt the person into the Sun? I might be reaching it. Maybe it’s just bad memories of having to carry people like walky in labs and group projects, though.
it’s just, like, even trying to cooperate isn’t going to make this any easier, because the focus is just gonna keep slipping away
so in a way if he is ADHD it’s really good for him to externalize his lack of focus so that Jason knows exactly what he’s dealing with, instead of Walky internalizing his struggle (like before) and not dealing with how hard this really is for him
Hey, just wanted to let you know that until today I never hovered on your URL.
Anyone who can get picked up for SadlyNo is dang good at writing and has their head on straight (not that you need affirmation from some random dude on the internet).
inability to sit still, the hyperfocus, the continual distractability, the being really smart but finding it impossible to focus on something he’s not interested in
THAT GODDESS SCENE AT THE END WAS SOME REAL GALADRIEL SHIT, I NEVER THOUGHT I’D EVER SEE SOMETHING LIKE THAT ON FILM AND IT EMOTIONALLY/SPIRITUALLY FULFILLED ME ON A LEVEL I’M NOT SURE I CAN FULLY EXPLAINED
there’s just like. exterior occasional crying and interior real crying
IT’S SO GOOD ON SO MANY LEVELS!!!!
…
Also, controversial opinion here, but I say Moana is much better than Frozen, and mayvery well be one of the best Disney movies of all time. (I say “one of” because The Lion King holds a very dear place in my heart, as does Mulan, and Atlantis)
like fuck frozen, guys………. i want all the moana merch. i want moana sheets. i want a moana alarm clock. i want a moana poster so she can watch me while i’m sleeping at night. are you listening, disney? i want a full size blanket of moana and maui to cuddle with on my bed. i want freaking car decals. i want every child i meet to be wearing moana costumes without the weird skin suits…..i want to live in that world
(ok, because i have a sense of restraint i am…not actually going to go out and buy all these things….but don’t tell disney that)
I liked the fact that Disney acknowledged that love at first sight wasn’t something to stake your future on. I feel the whole message in Fixer Upper is bad.
yeah, but like, very..few…. of disney princesses only knew their prince for a day
like, ok, snow didn’t have much interaction with her prince, but she also was busy not dying and we don’t know how long a timespan there was between getting kissed alive and going off into the sunset. we also don’t have proof that aurora and phillip got married immediately after he woke her up. and cindy…. o k, a little fair, but also she was in a really bad situation
but ariel? had at least three dates!! belle had a freaking SEASON. jasmine, that bullshit aladdin put her through may only have been a few days but definitely FELT like eleven years. mulan got her military training from shang and if she survived that with an intact romantic attraction you know that shit is real. they made a point of rapunzel not getting married to flynn immediately!! and tiana had a Whole Adventure and a few weeks of getting to know naveen.
there are a lot of princesses who didn’t get married in a day; and very few of them were ever people who just let things happen to them. they were active in their own lives and their own choices, and imo i get so annoyed whenever disney movies meta-ly acknowledge tropes that don’t even really belong to them in this “haha we’re so embarrassed but we’re still doing this!!” like. every single time someone gets annoyed by the music
music isn’t just music it is an outpouring of the SOUL
idk we can just, like, make things Not About Men without shaming the women whose happy ending involved a man.
because you know!!! for a lot of women through history living happily had to involve a man, because they just didn’t get other options in terms of wealth and influence and security. and sometimes you just had to make those snap decisions, because you didn’t get the opportunity to know the dude any better because doing that would compromise your chastity and societal standing. it is…a historical artifact, that a happy ending has to mean the woman getting married to a good man. and there are reasons why the princes in snow white and cinderella show up almost as afterthoughts! because the story isn’t about them, and they are made up almost entirely of fantasy. they exist entirely as a vehicle of women’s happiness
You make a good point. Actually I can’t really blame Anna for falling for Hans. She was trapped in a castle where she had very limited contact with the outside world an that was her one night to change that. I think the Disney Princess and the Frog did a good job of neither shaming women for wanting romance nor making it the only thing that matters.
i really do love that Tiana’s journey is about learning how to give herself a freaking break. this precious girl. deserves the World
Anna was super isolated!! which sucks because she’s clearly very good with people, and gets a lot of positive energy from interacting with them in general. but being isolated like that made her an easy target for Hans 🙁
and, like, it’s her first real act of agency! which is why it hurts her so much that Elsa isn’t supportive. but like agency is kind of about making both bad choices and good choices
like, congratulations, you got idina menzel…but did you get a coherent plotline? no. the best thing to come out of frozen was the extensive amount of disney racebendings, and even that didn’t come from frozen, guys, that came from the fanbase
imho, the best thing to come out of frozen was disney finally acknowledging the “One True Love” BS might not be the best relationship model for impressionable little girls.
(the second-best thing being the ending. I really needed that movie.)
…ok yes this was excellent. this and having the main relationship be between Elsa and Anna. and han’s friggin line like that is the audible gasp heard around the world!! heck
and, i mean, idina menzel. her voice is amazing and covers so many sins
but like also, it was just…too many characters. they needed to get brutal and cut kristoff out, it was just. too much going on for a fairytale let alone a 90 minute disney movie
It’s the only animated disney princess Chief’s Daughter movie that I’ve felt compelled to buy. I bought it twice. First a digital copy, then a Blue Ray (the digital copy that came with that went to a friend). Also, the soundtrack.
I could claim that I bought it for my nieces, but I also have the only blueray player in the house.
Walky’s just confusing the real deal with the Dexter and Monkey Master character Professor When from the criminally underrated episode Wiggle Woggle, Timey Monkey.
You know what the horrible thing is Jason? I don’t think he is doing this deliberately. Walky really is that ignorant and, worse ignorant of the fact he is ignorant!
man, this is hitting a bit too close to home today.
lately my brain wants to act like walky’s acting here. if something’s good for me, it doesn’t wanna do it. right down to basic things like showering. 🙁
if I let it have its way, things get worse, I lose more of what few good habits are left, and I have to deal with the mess eventually. (a mess that might include a root canal if I skip brushing my teeth much more. or that might still happen if I brush them perfectly.) and then rebuild those habits from scratch.
if I try to suppress it and get shit done, I burn though spoons like crazy, hate myself, and feel even more desperate to lash out somehow.
there better fucking well be a third option, but I’m too upset to see it right now. 🙁
Fun fact. I’m being forced to take a class on “human relations in organizations”, because apparently that’s something an accountant needs to know?
And I just had to sit down and read through a chapter on self esteem and associated problems in the workplace. It was like a guided tour on the thousand ways I knew I was messed up and ten thousand ways I didn’t. Fun assignment. Fun assignment. ;(
I now know that what I need to do to improve my self esteem is murderize my “real self” with amphetamines, in the hope that its corpse will be more like my “ideal self”. (This is not the textbook approach.)
So I was going to finally, a quarter of a century after my first ADD diagnosis, finally bite the bullet and medicate. So I needed to find a doctor or clinic or something.
I procrastinated for about a month, then I finally called a place a week ago and discovered that I’d managed to screw up my health insurance, so I have to go get that sorted out first, and now I’m procrastinating again because cold calling SUCKS and I could practically hear the receptionist’s voice sighing “oh god another spaz” except I’m pretty sure that was just my own imagination.
….
Anyhow, I’m writing from the third option to report that it needs a solution before it can become a solution.
oh, right, medication. dexedrine really fucked up my head after a while, but it didn’t “murderize” anything. 🙂 adhd meds are some of the easier meds to try out.
maybe I should try some new ones once I’m done with the latest change. at the moment I can’t even care enough to check which meds run out when, which is kinda… not great? my pharmacist is allowed to give me a little extra if I screw up and run out, but I’d rather not rely on that, and it’s stressful not having things organized.
it’s like sugilite vs sardonyx in here. :/ or like pearl trying to run amethyst’s life for her, except I’m not a gem and can’t get away with the shit amethyst can. so, two unbalanced personas that really do *not* get along, and they’re stuck in one damaged, fragile human body.
I’m not sure that last bit is true. I’ve heard of OCD being treated with meds before. I think it’d be worthwhile to talk to your doctor about it at some point.
huh, I reread some things and you’re right; medicine won’t fix it but can make it less bad. they’re just all classes of meds I’ve tried before for other reasons, so I didn’t get the spark of hope that comes with a new idea.
…and actually I don’t think I’ve tried SSRIs, it was an SNRI… but I’m on a tricyclic for the migraine so I probably can’t combine those safely 🙁
and there’s not much information on OCPD; SSRIs are mentioned again but [citation needed] and the non-wikipedia sources tend to say things like “people with OCPD don’t believe they require treatment”.
It’s worth it though. I *can* kinda function without my ADD meds for a day, but it is exhausting.
I’ve been on adderall for at least 15 years, and some kind of ADD med since 2nd grade. Due to procrastinating on finding a new doc and setting up an appointment after my old one died, I ended up having to go without meds for an entire month a couple years back. All of my energy went into forcing myself to focus at work, with limited success. At home I got even less done, because I was drained, and had less incentive to do anything besides watch tv.
I still felt like “me” just as much as I do when I’m on my meds though. I just feel much more functional with them.
thinking about this a bit more… Reltzik, that “murderize my real self” thing sounds more like my option #2, suppressing the symptoms. not really workable.
I’m finally watching the rest of Gurren Lagann, and the anti-spirals and Rossiu reminded me of that… and then Simon punched some sense into him 🙂 he said some things I think Amber and Ruth need to hear. and I needed to as well.
the mysterious option #3 isn’t suppression *or* indulgence. I… seem to have lost that glimpse of it, but, Simon has it. Enlightenment has it (and does not). there’s something about… like… when I tried so hard and just broke my head, I was pushing on a door that needed to be pulled?
there’s more than one way to try, and we don’t have the vocabulary or neuroscience to explain what the difference is or how to do the one that’s needed. yet. but meditation and mindfulness teachings seem to come the closest. it’s not about doing the thing, it’s about *how* you do the thing. like, there is something my brain does differently when I do a chore in a way that decreases anxiety instead of increasing it, but I don’t have the words. even if I had the words I’m not sure they would work on brains other than my own. part of it is… being more present? and open?
when in doubt, practice compassion, mindfulness and boundaries. 🙂
is there any safe way to release these urges, do you think? or would like, trying to find a safe way make yr urge to not take care of yourself even stronger
I’m not sure; I’m getting the impression I haven’t listened well enough to actually understand them in the first place, so I need to do a lot more listening and see where that gets me.
but in the short term, going to the gym might help, if I can talk myself into it…
it sounds like you are in a place where it’s difficult to be kind to yourself
and. like. Pearl and Amethyst as you were talking about in another comment! that is a really complicated and tense relationship
i mean. for me, i had to learn to make my goals smaller. so, like: if i can get up out of bed in the morning, that’s a success, and i’m allowed to be happy with myself for that. if i can make sure i get fed for all three meals. if i can try to write, even if i don’t meet my goals. my basic standard is whatever it is that keeps me going, because giving up is not an option, even if everything sucks. and it’s ok to do things imperfectly, because you still tried and trying counts. even if you don’t succeed one hundred percent of the time
terry crews talks about treating going to the gym like going to the spa – you don’t have to do anything necessarily once you get there, but you just have to get in the habit of going, and then eventually you start doing stuff because you’re there. which is a very gentle way of treating yourself.
and, i mean, if you can’t listen to yourself right now, that’s okay. you don’t have to listen to yourself all the time. you don’t have to control yourself all the time. but when you do listen to yourself, you also don’t have to pass judgment on yourself? it can be just, something you feel, and you don’t have to act on it just because you feel it. idk i started responding to myself with a “that’s harsh, self”, and then just like. trying to move on. and that did help a lot
idk. maybe looking into mindfulness could be helpful for you? which, the practice of mindfulness is more about existing in the moment. it’s like that “just a thought” song from SU, essentially
i mean i struggle so hard with wanting to exercise but not exercising too, haha. and i just…for one thing, haven’t made it a priority, but also i’ve built it up so big in my head that it feels impossible to tackle
haha, I’ve done all that stuff, especially mindfulness. so much mindfulness. it does help. I just…. right now I feel really fucking sick of controlling myself, but too scared not to. I… probably would have known I needed a day off today, if I’d been actually listening, but I wanted so much to do stuff so I can have clean clothes and milk and stuff, and I thought I could put off the feelings just a little longer, and I was scared one day off would make doing anything tomorrow even harder… I felt so full of energy this morning then it all vanished. that happens a lot.
I just want to be able to do things. 🙁 … and I just want to not do things.
yeah, sometimes the best option involves letting things be shitty for a while.
my inner pearl is realllly bad at boundaries. even when she agrees to us taking a break, she tries to sneak some productivity in soon after. :/ like, I managed to have a shower, but then she was trying to rush the end to squeeze in laundry too, instead of letting me relax and fucking enjoy the shower. 😛 it’s not about you, pearl. 😛
Honestly as a maths tutor I would wash my hands of walky at this point. There are so many students struggling I would be at the point of ‘if you don’t want to be here don’t be here. This is university and I will spend my time helping someone who wants to be helped.’
That’s the thing; Walky does kind of want to be there. He’s just so nervous (and still more than a little in denial about the need) that he’s defaulting to ‘class clown’ to try to deal with his stress.
Yeah but honestly when you have 200 students and a very short amount of time you don’t prioritize people who badger you and waste time. In my mind there’s always someone else in the class who is borderline failing and trying their best. I spent a long time trying with students like walky. It’s frustrating and disappointing but you also come to the realization that they have a lot of growing up to do before you can help them.
Maybe in this universe there’s time for walky. But it just triggered a lot of my frustration at trying so hard with students who don’t want to cooperate
It’s also worth noting that Walky is his trophy student. If he can learn how to teach someone as off track as Walky then he’ll have some proof of his ability. I think it would be a lot of students that are like Sal who want to learn but don’t understand his teaching method if he were to drop Walky.
Then again, maybe those two are a special breed that he doesn’t click with.
I’m actually with Pidgey. Except Jason doesn’t actually care about any of the students. He just wants someone can tutor who he deems “hopeless” (I’m not saying it’s because Sal and Walky are black but I wouldn’t be surprised) to justify himself. So…screw Jason.
The Doctor is a dreadful name-dropper as well as a pathological liar. However, if he’s telling the truth for once, he’s met the chap on a few occasions and heartily recommends his story about the Pliocene cave-men and Smilodon cub as a source of a laugh on a bad day.
Not sure if Walky has the uhm concentration capacity for the show (and I say it as a fan of the show but I always hace a harder time following luce action shows than cartoons).
Weirdly, despite this comic’s topics not looking funny on paper, this might be the funniest one I’ve seen here in years.
I think its sheer personality.
Good show.
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Jason, just play Look Around You and take a LONG drink break
Happy 241st, America, here are jokes about your motherland
If we’re _really_ lucky, the Queen will take us back, sort out this whole Trump mess, and be very supportive of us when we’re ready to put on our Big Country trousers again.
Right now her hands are full. Literally, she’s dragging Nigel Farage and Boris Johnson around by their earlobes for being very naughty boys.
The U.K and the U.S. share a Special Relationship (TM). That being said, let us not forget that the U.K.’s current Head of Government is Theresa May, and her chosen Foreign Secretary is Boris “Weasel-Headed Fucknugget” Johnson. There is no proof that the U.K. is any more competent to lead the free world than the U.S. is, given each country’s current administration.
I’m holding out for Canada, at least they seem to have their crap together.
There are several reasons when I married a Canadian that we chose her country to settle in!
(Of course, back then “George Bush the Lesser” was president, who had been the worst president in US history until January 2017…)
Honestly, I get a bit annoyed whenever anyone says that Bush (or, when people on the other side of the political spectrum are speaking, Obama) was the worst president in US history.
James Buchanan failed to head off the Civil War. His actions as President further inflamed tensions that were already dangerously high, and he failed to respond with military force at the very start of the run-up to war—if he had, the rebellion could have been defeated, and maybe 600,000 soldiers wouldn’t have had to die, and we could have avoided all or most of the damage to civilians, as well. Historians generally consider Buchanan’s refusal to use force to stop secession as the worst presidential mistake ever made.
But it’s not the 4th yet!!
Oh, right, timezones….
We had a good run.
*eyes American history*
….. we had a terrible run, but we were improving towards the end there.
If by “towards the end there” you mean, until the 80s stonewalled us, then I’ll agree. But eh, most revolutions don’t end up creating a nation that lasts almost a quarter of a millenia so I guess we get some kudos for not going as crazy as the French did when they got their first revolution.
If that America did last a quarter millennium without going crazy like that, maybe, but the revolution baked in horrible ingredients that blew the country apart in the 1860s. Partial credit for some time after that.
“Mark me, Franklin. If we give in on this issue, there will be trouble one hundred years hence. Posterity will never forgive us.”
(Adams had it almost to the decade.)
Yaaas 1776 FTW
We…. did improve on queer rights since the 80s? … a bit? …. uphill slog against theocracy all the way?
I’d say plutocratic oligarchy, but you do have a point.
Well, yeah, Plutocratic Oligarchy did a whole bunch of crap to us too, but it was the Theocratic Nutjobs were the ones standing in the way of queer rights.
Just throw in White Supremicists, and maybe Law Enforcement Autocracy, and you just about have the Axis of American Evil.
Eh. We had a run at least.
More like we had other people run for us and took their trophies.
Efficiency.
Oh Jason’s ready to open a can of Psilence and spray Walky’s mouth with it, directions be damned.
The hovertext makes me appreciate what a fitting comic this is for the 4th.
They should really start off with a nice tea party. That’ll bring them together.
I’m encouraging all my friends who are currently abroad to be obnoxiously American today because I am terrible. I told my friend who’s in Taiwan to dump out any tea she’s given in the name of freedom.
“Taiwan had nothing to do with it.”
“FREEDOM.”
I will be very disappointed if this doesn’t end in sex between Jason and Walky.
However, I will say “Walky, he’s ostensibly doing you a favor. Why are you even here if you don’t want to learn?” I admit, part of my annoyance is that I’ve had students like him.
Fair enough.
Yeah, seriously, Walky just annoys me by being so fucking childish and lazy. I don’t understand why he even agreed to go to college to begin with, let alone what he plans on doing with his life.
Kind of shows that, for some people, having things too easy is a recipe for disaster (not that its a disaster yet)
Jason is an awful awful teacher but he hasn’t even started any of his problems before Walky has begun throwing every possible insult he can at the man.
Interesting to note Sal and Walkys upbringing and then how they deal with similar problems
Mind you Sal had the good fortune to have Danny tutor her
Are random pop culture references insults or just stupid?
Also poor Jason. As a PhD student I feel your pain. We want to help but our training is so inadequate!
I would argue that for ALL people, having things too easy early in life absolutely is a bad thing. We learn to overcome by overcoming. We grow stronger by being challenged, by doing a little more. We make mistakes that we can learn from.
If everything is easy and nobody provides any challenges… where does that growth and strength come from? What resilience can there be?
it’s weird but like…i would argue that walky’s laziness doesn’t come from having too many good things, but by not having adequate support
like. ok, fair, he didn’t learn how to work because he was smart enough to not have to work at homework, but not everyone is driven enough to find things to do when their homework/classes bores them. or to have other places to go to to find more things to do. or to even talk about how bored he was.
idk i just really feel like parents who didn’t halfass their parenting would have noticed this, and recognized it as a problem, and helped him with extracurriculars or advanced classes and not made him feel like his worth was tied to his instinctive genius so that he would later pull shit like this
speaking from experience, advanced classes do not help with the self-worth problem; being “the smart one” becomes even more important. but they do help with the boredom, at least.
at the very least it puts you in a class with people who are potentially your peers? and struggling with the same problems you are??? although i guess my ap classes were filled with, basically, the rich kids and the smart kids
They were just happy that he sailed through his schoolwork and brought home straight As. They didn’t instill in him a drive to push himself beyond that. All this did was reinforce the idea that his grades bought their support and affection. (The contrast between how they treated him compared to bad-grades Sal didn’t help either, even if he didn’t realize it at the time.)
Now that he’s struggling for the first time in years, that mental house of cards has come crashing down. He doesn’t have the maturity to analyze what’s going wrong, and what to do to fix it. All he has is the panic over losing his parents’ support due to his falling grades.
yup
instilled mediocrity!!!
“idk i just really feel like parents who didn’t halfass their parenting would have noticed this, and recognized it as a problem,”
True enough, though I’ll at least give some slack to those who were parents in the past (like my own); because it’s relatively recently that we have come to understand just how bad the current school system really is for anyone not fitting into its mold; whether it’s learning too fast, not learning fast enough, or whatever other issues is going on.
I know that my parents did support me as they thought was fitting support for me; but I feel confident that if they had the knowledge they had today, their support would be vastly different.
I know that my parents noticed I was having trouble, but only once I started not getting stuff done properly. (I had such a severe case of smart kid syndrome). The school took advantage of split classes to put me with the readers when I was in grade 1 (a lot of my grade 1 classmates couldn’t read yet), and advance me in math, but there’s only so much that can do. My school didn’t start “immersion” until grade 5, and by then I was so invested in not working hard because I was smart, that I did really badly in all my French-language classes. My parents tried, but there’s only so much they can do if the kid refuses to work.
And that’s aside from the fact that, to a certain extent, if people from my parents’ generation see that you got a 90 in a class, they assume you’re doing it right.
He didn’t have much choice, did he? His parents told him what to do and he did it. Don’t want to end up like Sal, do you, Walky?
I don’t think the idea of being treated like Sal is even remotely near Walky’s consciousness. Very deep down the lessons have been learned- he is loveable because he’s smart and he does well. If he isn’t smart and doesn’t do well he isn’t loveable, and the unloveable is treated very badly.
But not even close to being aware of any of that. I think as far as Walky was concerned, going to college meant delaying having to grow up and make actual decisions about his life.
He freaked out and sobbed when Dorothy found out about his failing grade, asking if she was sure she wouldn’t break up with him over that and if it didn’t mean he wasn’t good enough for her because failure = stupid and perfect people won’t be with stupid people who “screwed up everything” and people stop loving failures.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/02-everything-youve-ever-wanted/flunking/
There is no way he wasn’t affected by his upbringing, even if he doesn’t show it as easily as Sal does. (Really, she’s the lucky one. She got out.)
I’m not disagreeing with you at all, just commenting that I highly doubt that Walky is even vaguely aware of it on a conscious level.
“Lessons” like that are very common. The child learning that “this makes me loveable” or “this makes me unloveable” are so very common, sad as it sounds. And it’s just as common that- without counselling/therapy- people are unaware of them.
Oh, I see what you mean.
Yeah, Walky survived by being oblivious. I doubt even now he fully realizes where his fear comes from.
In fairness, the fear of Dorothy dumping him is not at all unreasonable given the high standards she sets for herself.
Because it was easier than arguing with his parents about it. Also, he slacked off and got good grades in high school and assumed that college would be more of the same.
Not going well eh.
RE: Alt-Text: Hmm… yeah, sounds about right.
Something something bowties something.
That joke about Doctor Who would work really well on the show.
Have the Doctor introduce himself and then have the person asks if he knows this other time traveller and the Doctor replying with, “that’s me” to a retort of “no couldn’t be, this guy had a magic wand.”
Though that might only serve to point out how silly the screwdriver has gotten.
They’ve basically done that. Apparently all the good wizards with magic wands in fairy tales are actually him.
in the screwdriver’s second appearance–in 1968–it blows up a wall
“how silly the screwdriver has gotten” only checks out because “has gotten” is, in fact, past tense
But it still doesn’t have a setting for wood.
It was once used to actually turn a screw. Once.
Best possible July 4th comic, well done.
Oddly, the Brits in my life (boyfriend, friends he’s introduced me to, so we’re talking more than a few people) are the people who seem to be least impressed by Doctor Who. Boyfriend calls him Mr. Spacewizard.
My reaction to it (as a Brit) is “meh”. Plus I briefly dated someone who was so ridiculously enthusiastic about it that it ruined it for me completely.
In fact I don’t know anyone really into it. Even my husband- who is a TV and film geek, generally older stuff- isn’t overly interested. So… your experience checks out with me.
A lot of enthusiasm for Mr. Potter though.
Maybe because it’s been around in the UK for so long at this point, that it’s become part of the background-radiation din that’s “always been there”?
Here in the US I only started hearing about Doctor Who in college during the David Tennant era, and it really started picking up mainstream inertia with Matt Smith.
I spent two years in England (USAF ’81-’83), saw Tom Baker’s wax figure at the museum, (?) marveled at the scarf and weird metal dog. Came home to people excited about the show on late night teevee. Finally saw it, loved #4 (Tom). (realized I had watched John Pertwee as Worzel Gummige while in UK)
Jason and Walky are destined to do this for the rest of their lives
I misread that as “designed” at first. But… also yes.
I resemble that remark!
come on, Jason, at least you can say this isn’t boring, and be thankful walky isn’t talking about the queen. :p
*plays Billy Joel’s “Captain Jack” on the hacked Muzak*
Now I’m just disappointed that ‘Mr. Benjamin Who’ wasn’t in the bit where the Master is discussing the Doctor’s name in World Enough and Time.
I was cackling with glee at that exchange, just knowing how many people on the internet were about to lose their shit.
It’s a lovely callback to the fact the character was credited as ‘Dr./Doctor Who’ for several incarnations (at least into late 4, possibly early 5). The joke about mystery and it being ‘too on the nose’ could also be a joke about Seven and the question marks turned up to eleven theme. (I say about Seven completely lovingly – he’s one of my faves)
Also the fact that that’s what Capaldi often calls his character in interviews, therefore making it completely acceptable.
Capaldi calls him that because he was watching Doctor Who for its first twenty years, when that’s what he was called!
While we’re on the subject, Jason is the only character I could possibly imagine reading TARDIS Eruditorum.
HOORAY FOR OVERLAPPING REFERENCE POOLS
Maybe Amber.
Fandom salt is delicious, and Doctor Who fandom shows that it gets even better with age.
Come to think of it, that probably explains half of what drives Willis.
Case in point, if someone tried Walky’s routine with me, I’d be smirking, yeah, but I’d be frowning at the same time. *sigh*
Walky reminds me a helluva lot of myself a few decades ago…unfortunately it also means I was even more immature then I thought was
Jason, it’s weird but this is actually an entirely valid opportunity to walk out and say, “Come back when you actually want to learn.”
Jason isn’t the right teacher for the job anyway. He seems like the type to firmly adhere to the lesson plan, and double down on it if that doesn’t work. He hasn’t figured out how to introduce new concepts by explaining them in different ways yet.
Walky needs someone to teach him how to study. Beating the math knowledge into his brain with the rote-memorization sledgehammer won’t solve the problem, because he’ll be right back where he started again when the class moves on to the next subject.
The problem is that the TA can’t tell (until they get the student into the office) whether the problem is lack of effort or lack of comprehension. And given that the problem is the former, the course TA isn’t the right person, no matter what. The correct response here is to give Walky the information for the first-year “how to study” class. (Offered by the first year department/counselling services/etc)
This is one of the reasons why I find Walky frustrating as a character. He was terrified at the idea of losing Dorothy if she found out he was failing one of his classes, but when his teacher offers to tutor him to help him with his grade, he doesn’t seem to take it serious at all.
It’s almost like every step that Walky takes forward, he jumps three steps backwards, afraid to move even the slightest bit towards some kind of maturity. However, I have known my fair share of people like this, so I can’t call it unrealistic.
I’m assuming Walkerton is angry at Jason for the fact he’s trying to tutor him and he resents that he needs tutoring so he’s shutting it down before it even begins.
I can definitely see that, but that just makes me more annoyed with him due to that tearful conversation he had with Dorothy. You’d think after that he’d be willing to do whatever he could to fix this issue, but he’s letting his immaturity get in the way again.
You don’t know many bright people, do you?
This is very, very typical behavior when they hit the wall, and the longer they were able to coast, the worse it is. At least it’s contained to calculus – I know many people who let their failure in one class infect their entire schedule for that term.
but he’s letting his immaturity get in the way again.
Well, yes, that’s because he’s immature. If I had to bet, I’d guess that as eager as his parents were to distance themselves from Sal, they were just as eager to keep Walky dependent. Lots of love and affection and presents, just so long as his grades are good and he doesn’t try too hard to assert himself. But you can’t be kept dependent and immature in just one area or two areas, it doesn’t work that way. The end result is that Walky is used to coasting because he didn’t have to push himself, and immature because any show of independence was met, obviously or not, with a withdrawal of affection.
I don’t know that this is the case. We haven’t seen enough. I’m extrapolating based on the few things we’ve seen + what I know of real life families that resemble the few things we’ve seen.
Idk why you’re being so antagonistic with your reply to Cody, all they really said is that Wally is immature and its frustrating to read, but they understood why and that it wasnt unrealistic – the same kind of things as you are saying.
Wally grates on me every now and then, and this is a prime example. He’s here to be tutored but instead dishes out some bad British jokes, I wouldn’t be surprised if Jason turned around and said right well youre not seriously here for help, let’s stop.
You pretty much hit it on the head with a hammer, Torra. I think in my original posts I might have come off as more angry then I meant it to due to yesterday not being one of the best days for me.
I think the reason why Walky frustrates me at times is because I have known people like him, reminding me of my interactions with them. Honestly, that’s why I like Willis’ work. He really does a good job at bringing these characters to life.
If Walky goofs off and fails, it’s because he’s a clown. If he works really hard and still fails – he’s stupid. He’s a failure. There’s something wrong with him. This is a common problem with many, many smart people who are accustomed to not having to study (and the longer they can coast, the worse it is). In Walky’s case, it’s exacerbated by his family dynamics. We know how the Walkertons treated Sal. So does Walky. He might intellectually understand – now that he is able to see it and acknowledge it – that Sal didn’t deserve that treatment, but he’s still scared of losing everything. His parents have a lot of expectations for him.
This. He’s self-sabotaging because he’s scared out of his mind. And that’s something he’s going to have to work through, but it won’t be easy for him.
Sadly, yes. And his sister has shown him what his parents feel about children that fail.
And also how they feel about kids who are too independent.
Unfortunately, being dependent at this age doesn’t do shit for your maturity.
It’s also because Walky is an ass who doesn’t respect any kind of authority or mentorship system because he wants to coast on his own merit and be the cool rebel. Jason is a scumbag who not only slept with Sal but implied sex for services then didn’t pay–which is somehow worse in my mind than actually doing it–but he’s not done anything like that for Walky know about thus treat him this way.
So this is the alternate universe where Paul McCartney didn’t convince Al to become a vegetarian.
I’m not sure it’s that he’s doing it on purpose as much as it is that he doesn’t know how to NOT do it.
This seems to be deliberate malice. I think Walky just expects Jason to take it because he views the tutor as beneath him and resents the fact he is giving him bad grades.
Yeah, I agree with the assessment, although I’d replace the word “malice” with ‘disregard”.
He doesn’t wish to hurt Jason as much as shits on him as much as possible.
And since Jason ranges from eh to awful as a tutor, he cannot defuse it.
Who?
Jason’s response should be, “It’s the Doctor, not Doctor Who!”
He did that back when Walky called him ‘Doctor Who’
and both are valid names for the character anywaySo funny story–up until the early 1980s there was basically no problem with him being called “Doctor Who”. It was the done thing by the writers, the cast, the press. It was how the character was listed in the credits. Novelizations–how you got to revisit Who episodes before reruns became a phenominon–were generally titled Doctor Who and the [x].
Then a man named John Nathan-Turner became the show’s producer in 1980. Having a knack for self-promotion he quickly learned that a good way to attract fanatics was to give them a reason to feel superior to the general public. And so one of his first moves was to change the end credits so that the main character was listed as “The Doctor” and not “Doctor Who”, and then loudly insist to anyone who would listen that the new one was more accurate.
The show’s average viewers per season went from 11 million to 6 million during Nathan-Turner’s first year. Just saying.
lmao this is amazing
Could just as easily be the fact that the writing got worse due to Douglas Adams leaving his script editor role (because The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was getting absolutely massive), though.
So much went wrong with DW in the 80s. The phrase “perfect storm” comes to mind.
(And Colin Baker got stuck/smeared with a lot of it, not really deservedly, for years.)
Poor Colin Baker. He was only working with what he had been given. The Big Finish audio dramas have done a lot to redeem the Sixth Doctor, I think.
Most of Adams’ tenure is pretty bad, though.
I mean, not because Adams isn’t talented, but he was demanding a level of talent from the writing staff they were never gonna be able to give him.
Comic Reactions:
Oh dear, I’ve had students like Walky before. So scared of their confusion and the fact that it used to come easily that they retreat into tomfoolery and clowning around to hide it.
And for all I heap shame on Jason for being the type of scum that sleeps with his students, this is a very difficult thing for a first time teacher to know how to deal with*, especially one as inflexible as Jason and I feel sorry for him here.
*The trick is redirection and refocusing, take the attempted distraction, fold it into the lesson, while knowing when to be firm and lay down some classroom management. A timed pause, uncomfortable amounts of focused attention, and then a question of “shall we continue?” can also work well in extreme circumstances.
And I do have to praise him for keeping his temper well. Like, he’s being intentionally fucked with, but he’s keeping a relative cool and avoiding blowing up at the kid even if it would be easy for him to.
And I feel bad for Walky. Clowning around is his safe space to deal with stress and he is extremely terrified by how badly he’s doing in the class and how little things are making sense. He needs a better tutor, yes, but more than that he needs to get to a point where he can allow himself to take things seriously and allow himself to be humbled as to his need to develop real study habits.
And that’s not going to be easy for him.
Agreed. I almost feel bad for him here. The poor SOB had no idea just how defensive Walky is about his defence mechanism.
Also, off-topic, but sorry about that pile of word vomit I sent you pretending to be an email earlier. It was really badly written and convoluted and I’m sorry about that. I was overwhelmed when I wrote it.
*hugs* It’s all good. I genuinely wasn’t bothered by it at all and was happy to answer the question within it.
I may be projecting here, but I suspect that, outside a poor grasp of and probable lack of education on study skills, Walky could be having problems specifically with Calc for similar reasons to why I did early on with the subject.
As the subject is often taught there’s a fair bit of rote memorization early on, personally a weak suit for me that caused problems in primary school for learning multiplication and in secondary school for Trig identities which Walky seems not to have had, that you then later hopefully get more explanation regarding the hows and whys of those concepts. In Walky’s case I suspect he always had a fairly intuitive grasp of most of the lead up math, which isn’t something Calc really lends itself to without a lot of explanation because it breaks so hard from the foregoing methodology’s patterns.
On study skills, I don’t know if this has changed, and god do I hope it has, from my own school days in the ’80s and ’90s, but the first time in school anyone tried to explain how to actually study to us, as opposed to merely offering specific side advice like having a quiet place to do so which is relatively constant, was early in high school once many of us had a whole bunch of poor habits we’d been building up for eight years. It took me years to actually break all my own worst habits because of that, and Walky’s even further behind that curve.
I don’t think you’re just projecting – my experience agrees with everything you wrote.
This is HARD – much harder than tutoring Sal, who at least had a determination to learn, and sadly, unless Walky take steps to meet Jason halfway (rather than running screaming in the opposite direction), I think it will be more than Jason can handle.
He has improved. He no longer seem to regard tutoring as a visit to the oracle where chosen student receive his blessings of wisdom. Now he seem to think of it as penance.
And even if I agree that tutoring her idiot brother IS a fitting punishment for boffing a student he is supposed to teach, it does not make for a wonder of didactic performance.
I just hope some actual competent teacher will give Jason some hints, because right now he tries to be a teacher by wishing really hard rather than learning the tricks of the trade.
“right now he tries to be a teacher by wishing really hard rather than learning the tricks of the trade”
kinda like how walky was trying to fix his grades…
EXACTLY like that. which is why they so deserve each other, and why they both need to change before they actually gain anything from it.
And why yesterday perfectly summarised their interaction
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2017/comic/book-7/04-the-do-list/abstract/
I wouldn’t say so? Like Walky has stuff to learn. But he’s in school. This is the appropriate place for him to fumble and learn. His foolishness at most irritates Jason.
Jason’s foolishness is actually damaging to Walky’s future.
You are right. Their flaws are not equal. “With great responsibility comes lower acceptance for being terrible at it”, and all that.
Jason has stuff to learn. He’s in school. He’s a grad student, not a professional.
He’s got a boss who should be teaching him, recognizing that he’s having problems and showing him how to overcome them. Or at least being approachable for help when Jason realizes he’s not good at part of his job.
Of course, the actual teacher for the class is both worse and teaching and less interested.
None of that addresses the sleeping with Sal part. That’s inexcusable.
*nods furiously in agreement* I do too.
Honestly, they both have the same problem. They are stubborn and terrified to change their ways out of their comfort zone but desperately need to to succeed as a student or as a teacher.
Couldn’t agree with you more
So, um, Cerberus, kind of relevant to this strip I have something of a request? Your podcast where you discuss Jason has come up many times, but it’s more than an hour long and there’s no transcript that I managed to find. Is it potentially possible for a transcript to come into being?… :{
I can try to whip something up, but it might be a little bit until I can create it if that’s okay.
oh my god I’m so happy you actually replied 😮 it’s a lot of work isn’t it ^^; I wish I could help but I’m terrible at focusing on listening to stuff (it takes actual effort to decipher words and if there are no visuals my focus tends to slip very quickly…)
i really hate how so much of emotional growth is just. triggered by crashing and burning
but i mean That’s How You Do It i guess
And to make it worse for Jason, this isn’t really the kind of problem that’s covered in the “how to TA” mini-course that is all the pedagogical instruction that grad students generally have. (I don’t know, maybe he got a much better one that we did. But “how to teach” is often more about making sure that the academically gifted people, i.e. those who go on to grad school and get TA jobs, know how to understand the problems of those who are less academically able. The academically able who don’t know how to work because they made a virtue of not having to are expected to pull themselves up by their bootstraps.)
The last frame is the most emotion I’ve seen Jason exhibit since the final days of It’s Walky.
I… I’m genuinely not sure if Walky is actually doing this on purpose or not. I could actually see him being this ignorant of non-cartoon culturally significant media.
England has cartoons! There’s Wallace and Gromit, Amazing World of Gumball, uh…
…
…The Secret Show…
Violence is not only necessary, sanity demands it!
The window… beckons…
*Alt text says this is how the Revolutionary War started*
*Mind goes to the events leading up to said war, then focuses on the Boston Massacre and Crispus Attucks in particular*
I really hope that’s not how this tutoring goes down.
I love the fact that they brought up that Weird Al song that doesn’t entirely exist as far as I’m aware. It’s a song Weird Al wanted to parody, but the original artist was vegetarian and said no.
Correction. He did perform it live, but it wasn’t an officially released song.
Steam is going to come out of his ears in a minute.
A chicken pot pie parody of live and let die never made it past sample lyrics. Paul McCartney was a strict vegetarian, and while he was fine with Al parodying his songs he wouldn’t condone any song that in any way supported eating animals.
Dr Willis, you don’t know your Weird Al. I am disappointed.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lZ-VHKQ0bsY
Though the fact that Walky knows all the words to unreleased Weird Al songs speaks volumes.
Presumably he was Mr. Who before he got his doctorate. Or at least Young Master Who.
Hey! He’s a Time Lord! Him getting a doctorate MIGHT BE IN THE FUTURE!
Maybe that’s why the Master is so antagonistic towards him. Bitter envy of Doctor Who’s doctorate when he only has a masters.
Looool, the secret truth, the Doctor is actually just The Master after he got a new degree.
I miss this dynamic. I miss these two in the same strip bickering.
So Walky is trying to be nice but is being, well, Walky. Jason, on the other hand, is just being a penis.
Tall, wears a hat, sprouted arms and legs, but still a penis.
How is Jason being a penis in this situation with Walky?
Well, he did start the strip with recounting Walky’s behavior rather than trying to focus on the lesson.
But yeah, he’s doing his best I think
It’s an easy mistake for a new teacher to make. It’s easy to believe the disruptive student just needs to see the extent of their disruptions and how frequent they are.
But the reality is that just encourages them to continue being disruptive, because they know that’s being tracked and you’ve now made a game out of it and you’ve also now allowed the lesson to be hijacked by it. Better to just circle it back to the lesson instead, but that’s a skill that usually comes with practice being a teacher.
Walky is a … cat? Cos that’s how my cats behave when they think a game is a foot:)
Jason did point out Walky’s behavior, but we have no idea how long they had been in session. For all we know, Walky had been acting up for the better part of an hour, at which point it would have been clear that focusing on the lesson was a fool’s errand.
Jason deserves this for being such an awful tutor.
Something to remember though… Even though Danny did a better job at getting through to Sal, Jason actually did help her improve her grades. (Perhaps not as much as Danny did.) Plus, he did genuinely seem to have an interest improving his own teaching abilities. (I won’t try to justify the whole “sleeping with a student” thing though.)
So, he wasn’t a ‘great’ tutor, but he wasn’t completely horrible.
“Chicken Pot Pie”? That’s a hell of a deep cut, Willis. Respect.
Just as long as Walky doesn’t mix up The Mr. Who and The Mr. Guess Who, he’s fine.
Personally if I was I’d (after having an internal debate about slapping Walky) tell Walky he has a choice, leave or take the tutoring seriously
Yeah Jason isn’t the best tutor but it sounds like Walky hasn’t even bothered to try
If I was Jason dammit
It’s “The Mister”.
Be careful Jason, he will pour out the tea next.
Is there a point where immaturity stops being endearing and makes me want to punt the person into the Sun? I might be reaching it. Maybe it’s just bad memories of having to carry people like walky in labs and group projects, though.
Third panel does it for me
Stop him before he starts quoting Monty Python!
What about Sherlock Holmes? Agatha Christie? Poe? Monty Python? Lord of the Rings?
How can you only think of two British things Walky?
who could forget the adventures of the famous Sherlock Marple-Poirot? or that famous film series Lord of the Caribbean?
but monty python is definitely canadian, it even has monties in the name. i mean. who else would know just how okay lumberjacks are???
Poe was from *New* England.
The rest Walky is keeping in reserve for when he runs out of material.
I constantly forget Poe was American and I don’t know why
Wasn’t Mr. Benjamin Who the one who wanted the national bird to be the Millennium Falcon?
yes. that guy.
he dated Betsy Ross, it was scandalous
C’mon Walky, make it up to him. Buy him a nice Fez.
No he’s not the Doctor. He’s the Master… but he will be a doctor when he completes his PhD.
Ooooooh!
That much be a sore spot for The Master, that his archenemy has outperformed him in academic prowess.
…..
….. honestly, a student like this….
….. I’d be pressing him on whether he really wanted to be in my office hours or not. Because this has all the appearance of “not”.
it’s weird because he reads as pretty strongly ADHD to me
which. definitely has its challenges! but is ultimately kind of workable
Oh, definitely.
…. but Walky has to at least TRY to cooperate.
hahaha fair enough
it’s just, like, even trying to cooperate isn’t going to make this any easier, because the focus is just gonna keep slipping away
so in a way if he is ADHD it’s really good for him to externalize his lack of focus so that Jason knows exactly what he’s dealing with, instead of Walky internalizing his struggle (like before) and not dealing with how hard this really is for him
…le sigh
what if this *is* him trying? 🙁
…..
…..
…. okay, this phrasing is ambiguous. I think we need to clarify our usage of the word “trying”.
Hmm, yeah, I can definitely read Walky as ADD/ADHD, especially with how hard it is for him to study traditionally.
Hey, just wanted to let you know that until today I never hovered on your URL.
Anyone who can get picked up for SadlyNo is dang good at writing and has their head on straight (not that you need affirmation from some random dude on the internet).
it just feels so familiar!!! *collapses*
inability to sit still, the hyperfocus, the continual distractability, the being really smart but finding it impossible to focus on something he’s not interested in
really. really familiar
this is entirely unrelated to anything but
i watched moana for the first time yesterday
i cried twice
it’s so good
;_; I AM VERKLEMPT.
IT’S SO GOOD
IT’S AMAZING
IT’S SO VITAL AND BEAUTIFUL
THAT GODDESS SCENE AT THE END WAS SOME REAL GALADRIEL SHIT, I NEVER THOUGHT I’D EVER SEE SOMETHING LIKE THAT ON FILM AND IT EMOTIONALLY/SPIRITUALLY FULFILLED ME ON A LEVEL I’M NOT SURE I CAN FULLY EXPLAINED
there’s just like. exterior occasional crying and interior real crying
IT’S SO GOOD ON SO MANY LEVELS!!!!
…
Also, controversial opinion here, but I say Moana is much better than Frozen, and mayvery well be one of the best Disney movies of all time. (I say “one of” because The Lion King holds a very dear place in my heart, as does Mulan, and Atlantis)
YEAH NO THAT IS EXACTLY RIGHT
like fuck frozen, guys………. i want all the moana merch. i want moana sheets. i want a moana alarm clock. i want a moana poster so she can watch me while i’m sleeping at night. are you listening, disney? i want a full size blanket of moana and maui to cuddle with on my bed. i want freaking car decals. i want every child i meet to be wearing moana costumes without the weird skin suits…..i want to live in that world
(ok, because i have a sense of restraint i am…not actually going to go out and buy all these things….but don’t tell disney that)
lmao and looking at merch like…half of the stuff i could use or would want is on etsy anyways
disney doesn’t love itself or its merch like it should
I liked the fact that Disney acknowledged that love at first sight wasn’t something to stake your future on. I feel the whole message in Fixer Upper is bad.
yeah, but like, very..few…. of disney princesses only knew their prince for a day
like, ok, snow didn’t have much interaction with her prince, but she also was busy not dying and we don’t know how long a timespan there was between getting kissed alive and going off into the sunset. we also don’t have proof that aurora and phillip got married immediately after he woke her up. and cindy…. o k, a little fair, but also she was in a really bad situation
but ariel? had at least three dates!! belle had a freaking SEASON. jasmine, that bullshit aladdin put her through may only have been a few days but definitely FELT like eleven years. mulan got her military training from shang and if she survived that with an intact romantic attraction you know that shit is real. they made a point of rapunzel not getting married to flynn immediately!! and tiana had a Whole Adventure and a few weeks of getting to know naveen.
there are a lot of princesses who didn’t get married in a day; and very few of them were ever people who just let things happen to them. they were active in their own lives and their own choices, and imo i get so annoyed whenever disney movies meta-ly acknowledge tropes that don’t even really belong to them in this “haha we’re so embarrassed but we’re still doing this!!” like. every single time someone gets annoyed by the music
music isn’t just music it is an outpouring of the SOUL
idk we can just, like, make things Not About Men without shaming the women whose happy ending involved a man.
because you know!!! for a lot of women through history living happily had to involve a man, because they just didn’t get other options in terms of wealth and influence and security. and sometimes you just had to make those snap decisions, because you didn’t get the opportunity to know the dude any better because doing that would compromise your chastity and societal standing. it is…a historical artifact, that a happy ending has to mean the woman getting married to a good man. and there are reasons why the princes in snow white and cinderella show up almost as afterthoughts! because the story isn’t about them, and they are made up almost entirely of fantasy. they exist entirely as a vehicle of women’s happiness
and tbh that is kind of powerful in its own right
You make a good point. Actually I can’t really blame Anna for falling for Hans. She was trapped in a castle where she had very limited contact with the outside world an that was her one night to change that. I think the Disney Princess and the Frog did a good job of neither shaming women for wanting romance nor making it the only thing that matters.
yeeeeeeeees
i really do love that Tiana’s journey is about learning how to give herself a freaking break. this precious girl. deserves the World
Anna was super isolated!! which sucks because she’s clearly very good with people, and gets a lot of positive energy from interacting with them in general. but being isolated like that made her an easy target for Hans 🙁
and, like, it’s her first real act of agency! which is why it hurts her so much that Elsa isn’t supportive. but like agency is kind of about making both bad choices and good choices
frozen is overrated anyways
like, congratulations, you got idina menzel…but did you get a coherent plotline? no. the best thing to come out of frozen was the extensive amount of disney racebendings, and even that didn’t come from frozen, guys, that came from the fanbase
imho, the best thing to come out of frozen was disney finally acknowledging the “One True Love” BS might not be the best relationship model for impressionable little girls.
(the second-best thing being the ending. I really needed that movie.)
(and I am totally watching Moana tomorrow. 🙂 )
…ok yes this was excellent. this and having the main relationship be between Elsa and Anna. and han’s friggin line like that is the audible gasp heard around the world!! heck
and, i mean, idina menzel. her voice is amazing and covers so many sins
but like also, it was just…too many characters. they needed to get brutal and cut kristoff out, it was just. too much going on for a fairytale let alone a 90 minute disney movie
(moana is on netflix!!!!!)
Thanks for reminding me of Frozen. That “love melts” line… Isn’t exactly a solution, but it helps. I feel a tiny bit less trapped now 🙂
Also I feel like there’s a story behind my feelings… Maybe if I give them more mindfulness I can find out what it is…
i personally don’t enjoy frozen very much but i am glad i reminded you of something that helps you!!!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yTiTcSKQsFU
ok u know what this is also pretty good
🙂 oh dear, the internet has got me now… so many funny videos…
I watched Moana… and now I have Under the Sea stuck in my head, damnit 😛
It’s the only animated disney
princessChief’s Daughter movie that I’ve felt compelled to buy. I bought it twice. First a digital copy, then a Blue Ray (the digital copy that came with that went to a friend). Also, the soundtrack.I could claim that I bought it for my nieces, but I also have the only blueray player in the house.
mwahahhaha
i currently have access to it through netflix but it is On The List. right after howl’s moving castle
that fucking movie O my god I just. I JUST. I want to wrap myself up in the movie and sleep in it every night.
SAME
go to sleep rocked by the ocean…. smell of plumeria and salt in the air…green grass growing
somewhere hei hei eats a grasshopper that Won’t Shut Up
The more you know:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M%C4%81ui_(M%C4%81ori_mythology)
i can’t get over maui dying via vagina dentata
WHAT A WORLD
Would have been interesting showing that in the movie
MOANA 2
Keep it for the (probable) live action remake of Moana I reckon
The Rock as you’ve never seen him before 🙂
Walky’s just confusing the real deal with the Dexter and Monkey Master character Professor When from the criminally underrated episode Wiggle Woggle, Timey Monkey.
Hooray! It’s America’s Independence Day! Let’s celebrate by being AWFUL TO OUR FELLOW AMERICANS AND NOT GIVING A FUCK WHETHER THEY CAN GET ANY SLEEP.
yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay
let’s throw tea at republicans
You know what the horrible thing is Jason? I don’t think he is doing this deliberately. Walky really is that ignorant and, worse ignorant of the fact he is ignorant!
Some of Weird Al’s songs are okay, but every time I hear one about food, I get angry, for some reason.
is there an acceptable point to just give up on walky? because this is where i give up on him.
I’d have given up on myself long ago if I wasn’t stuck with me. :/
man, this is hitting a bit too close to home today.
lately my brain wants to act like walky’s acting here. if something’s good for me, it doesn’t wanna do it. right down to basic things like showering. 🙁
if I let it have its way, things get worse, I lose more of what few good habits are left, and I have to deal with the mess eventually. (a mess that might include a root canal if I skip brushing my teeth much more. or that might still happen if I brush them perfectly.) and then rebuild those habits from scratch.
if I try to suppress it and get shit done, I burn though spoons like crazy, hate myself, and feel even more desperate to lash out somehow.
there better fucking well be a third option, but I’m too upset to see it right now. 🙁
Ugh. Tell me about it.
Fun fact. I’m being forced to take a class on “human relations in organizations”, because apparently that’s something an accountant needs to know?
And I just had to sit down and read through a chapter on self esteem and associated problems in the workplace. It was like a guided tour on the thousand ways I knew I was messed up and ten thousand ways I didn’t. Fun assignment. Fun assignment. ;(
I now know that what I need to do to improve my self esteem is murderize my “real self” with amphetamines, in the hope that its corpse will be more like my “ideal self”. (This is not the textbook approach.)
So I was going to finally, a quarter of a century after my first ADD diagnosis, finally bite the bullet and medicate. So I needed to find a doctor or clinic or something.
I procrastinated for about a month, then I finally called a place a week ago and discovered that I’d managed to screw up my health insurance, so I have to go get that sorted out first, and now I’m procrastinating again because cold calling SUCKS and I could practically hear the receptionist’s voice sighing “oh god another spaz” except I’m pretty sure that was just my own imagination.
….
Anyhow, I’m writing from the third option to report that it needs a solution before it can become a solution.
oh, right, medication. dexedrine really fucked up my head after a while, but it didn’t “murderize” anything. 🙂 adhd meds are some of the easier meds to try out.
maybe I should try some new ones once I’m done with the latest change. at the moment I can’t even care enough to check which meds run out when, which is kinda… not great? my pharmacist is allowed to give me a little extra if I screw up and run out, but I’d rather not rely on that, and it’s stressful not having things organized.
it’s like sugilite vs sardonyx in here. :/ or like pearl trying to run amethyst’s life for her, except I’m not a gem and can’t get away with the shit amethyst can. so, two unbalanced personas that really do *not* get along, and they’re stuck in one damaged, fragile human body.
and… there is no medication for ocd. 🙁
I’m not sure that last bit is true. I’ve heard of OCD being treated with meds before. I think it’d be worthwhile to talk to your doctor about it at some point.
huh, I reread some things and you’re right; medicine won’t fix it but can make it less bad. they’re just all classes of meds I’ve tried before for other reasons, so I didn’t get the spark of hope that comes with a new idea.
…and actually I don’t think I’ve tried SSRIs, it was an SNRI… but I’m on a tricyclic for the migraine so I probably can’t combine those safely 🙁
and there’s not much information on OCPD; SSRIs are mentioned again but [citation needed] and the non-wikipedia sources tend to say things like “people with OCPD don’t believe they require treatment”.
I really wish the dexedrine had worked out.
Oh, erf, I just kinda assumed you were talking about the same thing I’m going through. It just sounded so familiar.
*hugs*
It’s worth it though. I *can* kinda function without my ADD meds for a day, but it is exhausting.
I’ve been on adderall for at least 15 years, and some kind of ADD med since 2nd grade. Due to procrastinating on finding a new doc and setting up an appointment after my old one died, I ended up having to go without meds for an entire month a couple years back. All of my energy went into forcing myself to focus at work, with limited success. At home I got even less done, because I was drained, and had less incentive to do anything besides watch tv.
I still felt like “me” just as much as I do when I’m on my meds though. I just feel much more functional with them.
thinking about this a bit more… Reltzik, that “murderize my real self” thing sounds more like my option #2, suppressing the symptoms. not really workable.
I’m finally watching the rest of Gurren Lagann, and the anti-spirals and Rossiu reminded me of that… and then Simon punched some sense into him 🙂 he said some things I think Amber and Ruth need to hear. and I needed to as well.
the mysterious option #3 isn’t suppression *or* indulgence. I… seem to have lost that glimpse of it, but, Simon has it. Enlightenment has it (and does not). there’s something about… like… when I tried so hard and just broke my head, I was pushing on a door that needed to be pulled?
there’s more than one way to try, and we don’t have the vocabulary or neuroscience to explain what the difference is or how to do the one that’s needed. yet. but meditation and mindfulness teachings seem to come the closest. it’s not about doing the thing, it’s about *how* you do the thing. like, there is something my brain does differently when I do a chore in a way that decreases anxiety instead of increasing it, but I don’t have the words. even if I had the words I’m not sure they would work on brains other than my own. part of it is… being more present? and open?
when in doubt, practice compassion, mindfulness and boundaries. 🙂
-hugs-
is there any safe way to release these urges, do you think? or would like, trying to find a safe way make yr urge to not take care of yourself even stronger
I’m not sure; I’m getting the impression I haven’t listened well enough to actually understand them in the first place, so I need to do a lot more listening and see where that gets me.
but in the short term, going to the gym might help, if I can talk myself into it…
mmm
it sounds like you are in a place where it’s difficult to be kind to yourself
and. like. Pearl and Amethyst as you were talking about in another comment! that is a really complicated and tense relationship
i mean. for me, i had to learn to make my goals smaller. so, like: if i can get up out of bed in the morning, that’s a success, and i’m allowed to be happy with myself for that. if i can make sure i get fed for all three meals. if i can try to write, even if i don’t meet my goals. my basic standard is whatever it is that keeps me going, because giving up is not an option, even if everything sucks. and it’s ok to do things imperfectly, because you still tried and trying counts. even if you don’t succeed one hundred percent of the time
terry crews talks about treating going to the gym like going to the spa – you don’t have to do anything necessarily once you get there, but you just have to get in the habit of going, and then eventually you start doing stuff because you’re there. which is a very gentle way of treating yourself.
and, i mean, if you can’t listen to yourself right now, that’s okay. you don’t have to listen to yourself all the time. you don’t have to control yourself all the time. but when you do listen to yourself, you also don’t have to pass judgment on yourself? it can be just, something you feel, and you don’t have to act on it just because you feel it. idk i started responding to myself with a “that’s harsh, self”, and then just like. trying to move on. and that did help a lot
idk. maybe looking into mindfulness could be helpful for you? which, the practice of mindfulness is more about existing in the moment. it’s like that “just a thought” song from SU, essentially
i mean i struggle so hard with wanting to exercise but not exercising too, haha. and i just…for one thing, haven’t made it a priority, but also i’ve built it up so big in my head that it feels impossible to tackle
i dunno sometimes it feels like adulthood is just. being both your own exasperated overworked mother, and your own hyperactive toddler
and learning to meld and work with the two
haha, I’ve done all that stuff, especially mindfulness. so much mindfulness. it does help. I just…. right now I feel really fucking sick of controlling myself, but too scared not to. I… probably would have known I needed a day off today, if I’d been actually listening, but I wanted so much to do stuff so I can have clean clothes and milk and stuff, and I thought I could put off the feelings just a little longer, and I was scared one day off would make doing anything tomorrow even harder… I felt so full of energy this morning then it all vanished. that happens a lot.
I just want to be able to do things. 🙁 … and I just want to not do things.
-hugs-
it’s ok
you’re allowed to not be good at things, and to change your plans and take a break last minute
ergh i would like to be more helpful, but like i think all i can say to you right now is That Sucks and I Know That Feel
-hugs-
*hugs*
yeah, sometimes the best option involves letting things be shitty for a while.
my inner pearl is realllly bad at boundaries. even when she agrees to us taking a break, she tries to sneak some productivity in soon after. :/ like, I managed to have a shower, but then she was trying to rush the end to squeeze in laundry too, instead of letting me relax and fucking enjoy the shower. 😛 it’s not about you, pearl. 😛
-pets pearl- it’s ok, pearl, it’s not the end of the world if the laundry doesn’t get done perfectly
Honestly as a maths tutor I would wash my hands of walky at this point. There are so many students struggling I would be at the point of ‘if you don’t want to be here don’t be here. This is university and I will spend my time helping someone who wants to be helped.’
That’s the thing; Walky does kind of want to be there. He’s just so nervous (and still more than a little in denial about the need) that he’s defaulting to ‘class clown’ to try to deal with his stress.
Yeah but honestly when you have 200 students and a very short amount of time you don’t prioritize people who badger you and waste time. In my mind there’s always someone else in the class who is borderline failing and trying their best. I spent a long time trying with students like walky. It’s frustrating and disappointing but you also come to the realization that they have a lot of growing up to do before you can help them.
Maybe in this universe there’s time for walky. But it just triggered a lot of my frustration at trying so hard with students who don’t want to cooperate
It’s also worth noting that Walky is his trophy student. If he can learn how to teach someone as off track as Walky then he’ll have some proof of his ability. I think it would be a lot of students that are like Sal who want to learn but don’t understand his teaching method if he were to drop Walky.
Then again, maybe those two are a special breed that he doesn’t click with.
I’m actually with Pidgey. Except Jason doesn’t actually care about any of the students. He just wants someone can tutor who he deems “hopeless” (I’m not saying it’s because Sal and Walky are black but I wouldn’t be surprised) to justify himself. So…screw Jason.
Look hes a bad tutor with questionable ethics why go looking for something that may (or may not) be there without any shred of evidence
Word.
… Walky needs to get dragged over hot coals for abuse of Dr. Who…
Either that or be dragged on a full season of adventures with the good Doctor in question. Nothing like living something to build appreciation for it!
Now I think about it, Joyce was sort of born to be a Companion of The Doctor in the rebooted show.
Nothing like running from the Daleks to teach you the awesomness of the Doctor!
She might get traumatized by all the revelations though… what is Doctor Who’s stance on God and all that?
The Doctor is a dreadful name-dropper as well as a pathological liar. However, if he’s telling the truth for once, he’s met the chap on a few occasions and heartily recommends his story about the Pliocene cave-men and Smilodon cub as a source of a laugh on a bad day.
Not sure if Walky has the uhm concentration capacity for the show (and I say it as a fan of the show but I always hace a harder time following luce action shows than cartoons).
Walky, Jason is being very patient right now. But that patience is also stretched very thin. So you miiiiight wanna cut down on the smart talk.
I don’t think he’s physically capable of that
(I agree, though)
Not a Potterhead, eh Walky?
This is Jason’s penance for being a bad tutor to Sal.
Dammit, Walky, “Mr Who” is the name of the show, the character is “the Mister”!
(His arch-enemy is the Dector.)
Weirdly, despite this comic’s topics not looking funny on paper, this might be the funniest one I’ve seen here in years.
I think its sheer personality.
Good show.
Cool your crumpets, Edgar Wright! Don’t need to go all David Attenborough on us…
The more I look at panel three the more I want Jason to smack some respect into Walky
“It is actually ‘doctor Whom ?’ “