He was there when Amber changed his grades on her phone. He asked her to undo it, which she did, but then she redid it and also broke into the office to get the hard copies of his papers.
Technically, it’s both Amber AND Amazi-girl who did a good thing for him, and he basically outright says that without BOTH of the good things combined, neither would have made a difference individually. Without hope, why bother trying? Even with hope, would he have had the time sense/management/focus to actually study? (Unlikely.)
If Amber can wrap her head around THAT fact, it could be even better for her – she might be able to understand that ALL of the various parts of her personality are valuable, not only the more “presentable” ones. Even anger and violent urges have their place in life, as long as you can channel them into something socially acceptable, if not productive. Which, to be fair, is sort of what she was actually doing when Amazi-girl originally came about, but the fear and shame she associated with that side of herself (understandably so, considering her trauma) led her to distance herself so far from it that not only did she create a totally separate persona for it but has now begun to actually dissociate between the two people. Once she starts recognizing that it’s totally healthy to have those emotions and they can even be valuable, and that all sides of her can contribute meaningfully, maybe she’ll be more able to approach a healthy reintegration – no doubt with professional guidance.
I’m still trying to decide if what’s going on with her is A) an actual, organically developing case of split-personality with a neurological basis; B) an extreme coping mechanism that has spiraled out of control to the point where her conscious brain no longer has any input; or C) some of each. 18-24 is the age range when many mood and personality disorders tend to manifest (e.g., bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc.) – just one more reason why it’s a great set-up to have free mental health care available on college campuses – so it could actually be a totally neurological thing that would have developed for her at this age no matter regardless of her life experiences. However… that does seem like a terribly large coincidence.
B) is actually what disassociative disorders are. Schizophrenia is a neurological disorder, sure, but its symptoms are paranoia and hallucinations; its Latin name is wrong. Bipolar only affects memory by exaggerating the human tendency to fail to remember happy times when sad.
Oh, fantastic. Because we didn’t have enough reasons to hate Blaine.
Tangent: Spriteless, if you’re in the US, did you ever watch the TNT (I think?) series Perception? It was possibly one of my favorite TV shows ever, and the protagonist was a psychology professor with paranoid schizophrenia who also consulted with the police and helped solve crimes. His hallucinations helped by giving him clues to things his unconscious mind had picked up on but his conscious mind hadn’t (essentially, a more visual manifestation of human intuition). I don’t remember the name of the main actor, but the female lead (the police detective) was played by Rachel Leigh Cook, I think?… Anyway, it’s a great show, and very educational about both general psychology as well as about various disorders and things. I learned a lot about schizophrenia from it, and that’s where I originally learned the thing about the ages it develops during. I highly recommend watching it – the premise is really fascinating to me, and I thought it was very well executed. I don’t watch much TV but I always looked forward to that show every week.
You have a point, but isn’t dumping dumping resources (time, energy, etc.) into a hopeless sinking ship literally a waste? I’m thinking sunk cost fallacy here.
I only ask because I tend to agree with Ealky on this particular point. Sometimes we need to force ourselves to hope just to get out of bed in the morning, but that actually proves his point. Without hope, no one would bother. Why do you think so many people don’t bother to vote, or to save for retirement, or to cut down on their carbon footprint?
Yes I am a cynic and a pessimist, but that’s also part of my point: there’s sloth, and then there’s knowing you can’t win.
Exactly. Pessimism makes you unable to move and accept doom. Optimism allows you not only to continue, but that if you face doom you are prepared to do what you can to diminish the damage or make peace with yourself before your demise.
Accept your lost and move on with your life. The dead don’t revive, evil will always exist as well as good will always exist, entropy will destroy all so something new begins, justice is created by people, and not everyone shares the same aesthetic tastes. Let’s just be nice and kind and protect beauty until our eventual death.
You should read ‘On the Beach’ by Nevil Shute, about people who really have no hope and then find a way to live as true humans regardless, by living as if there is a future even though there isn’t. It says a lot about humanity, I think.
I know you’re kidding, and appreciate a good joke. However, I live within broadcast range of the New York Jets and know some of their fans. The Jets are about third in the NFL in moral victories behind Miami and Cincinnati.
Amber you really need to tell Walky the truth about his grades. And what better time than when he is overjoyed with free food? Seriously, can you think of a better time to receive bad news than when you have just been given free food?
Yeah, let him do the work himself and hopefully salvage his grade (which shouldn’t have been unsalvageable in the first place because they literally only did weekly quizzes and homework, not even a midterm yet) and THEN break the bad news when you have an example of him doing the work you can point to.
Why? So Blaine can find out about it and get Amber expelled for hacking? Unless you think Walky is super good at keeping his mouth shut and not blabbing.
He seems to be okay at it. He hasn’t told anyone Amber is Amazigirl. Not anyone who didn’t already know, anyway. And he especially hasn’t told anyone that Amber ISN’T Amazigirl.
He kinda just told Amber? I mean she was semi-aware that Amqzigirl still seemed to be active when she wasn’t in the costume but not sure if she assumed that making peace with Sal and joining Roller Derby to give herself a healthy outlet for her rage would have stopped that…
This is what I thought too. His use of the word “miraculously” and saying it just as Amber was feeling sorry for herself about Amazigirl’s successes was a bit too on the nose. I felt he said it purposely in an off-hand way because he didn’t want to thank her for doing the wrong thing he asked her not to do, but wanted to acknowledge that he figured it out and that it did end up helping him in the long run. Or maybe I’m giving Walky too much credit.
This was my take and I’m not that charitable to Walky as a character. He’s very good at understanding people even if he isn’t very good at what to do with that understanding the vast majority of the time.
I AM GOING TO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF WALKY UNTIL HE GETS HOPE OR HE AGREES TO GET HIMSELF TO THERAPY OR A COUNSELOR SO HE ADMITS HE HAS TROUBLE STUDYING!
Seriously, Amber’s expression in the last panel is howww I feel wwhenever I heard edgelords in anime and in real life.
How is he even remotely edgy, here? He’s saying there wouldn’t have been a point in trying to study if his grades weren’t salvageable. He doesn’t know the real reason they can be salvaged, but as long as he thinks they can be, he’s got at least that much motivation. “I wouldn’t have tried if it didn’t have a chance of working” isn’t edgy, it’s just sorta reasonable.
That’s irrelevant. He has the motivation and has put up at least a token effort so far, so why bother downing him about it maybe not paying off at a later date?
This is specifically in response to all but the last 5 words you tacked on, because I’m not sure what lies you’re talking about.
In theory, there is a small risk this could come up later, but I really doubt it. The only professor likely to even suspect Walky’s IRL and computer didn’t match up was fired when a lucky offhand comment revealed he had an inappropriate relationship with a student. I really doubt whatever overworked teacher was rushed in to fill the gap on top of all their other work is going to be tryhard enough to cross reference all the grades in the computer, if that’s even possible. And given what I remember about Walky eating paper, sounds like they don’t even keep the paper on file TO cross reference.
Given Walky appears to be turning over a new leaf, the new professor is that much more likely to accept the computer matches the IRL.
On a different axis, if this did come all the way to light, hacking grades could be an expellable offense maybe even with prison time for hacking if the school got super serious about it. Blaine could get his wish of Amber being expelled by using this if he found out about it, or maybe get lucky and have this succeed even if his own plans fail.
“Take a look at your mistakes, then hand’em in” could work. Or even more thorough, “take a picture of the grade for each one.” Effective, but tedious to manage.
One way this could get caught is if Jason filled out his grades in a spreadsheet, which he then emailed to the prof who would collate it into the document Amber hacked–this is how it works at the uni I work at. So the prof could have a record of Walky’s real grades buried in their emails should someone get suspicious.
(Also, a nitpick–but I do get confused by how americans use ‘professor’–Jason wasn’t a professor. Given that he was TAing, he might even have still been a Grad Student, though given that he only shared an office with one other person I’m guessing postdoc.)
As an American post-doc who taught classes while still a grad student, I can say with authority that faculty and grad students are acutely aware that teaching assistants are not “professors.” Undergrads, however, tend to use “professor” to refer to all instructors indiscriminately, sometimes even after being corrected by the instructor her/him/themself.
But Jason wasn’t even really an instructor – Professor Rees taught the class. Jason (and Penny) just did paperwork and were supposed to help in office hours. Not likely undergrads would make that mistake, since Jason wasn’t teaching.
I assume commenters here sometimes just forget about the actual professor since he’s barely a character.
I never know what information Amber and Amazi-Girl share, and I suspect that the situation is getting worse. Does Amber know that Walky knows she and Amazi-Girl aren’t actually the same person even though most people who know about “Amber’s hobby” would assume they are?
Currently they share nothing, as far as I can tell. How Amber thinks about that is a little more confusing. She often seems to assume that everyone understands, even when they’ve got no reason to.
No joke, my sister and her husband came out as polyamorous last week. It’s been a real drama show between us and our parents. Just wanted to share, that’s all.
… If they’re happy with the rules they have established for their relationship, what’s the issue? Are they wanting to introduce a boy/girlfriend as such, and parents aren’t sure how to react/explain it to any younglin’s in the family/tell grandma?
I hope the drama blows over and your sister and husband remain solid and happy and in agreement about what works best for them.
My parents are mad because they don’t trust my sister’s husband, but there’s more subtle things as well. My sister and I talked about our childhood past, and we connected the dots that our parents had issues with trust and control in general. I ran into similar issues when I started trying weed.
Plus, my parents believe polyamory is the same as an open marriage (which it isn’t) and say it’s going to kill the marriage itself. But my sister and my brother-in-law are intelligent, empathetic, and have likely looked into the possible drawbacks of polyamory. So it’s safe to say they know what they’re doing, or at least they should have the freedom to do what they want.
Yes, he has made a comment to Amber before to suggest that he’s aware that there are two women in her body; the impression I’ve got is that he’s okay with both of them being around him. I’m thinking that this is the first indication we’ve seen that Amazi-Girl may be interested in Walky too, even if only on a friendship level.
Remember, Walky recently met AmaziGirl . And she didn’t know they had sex or he wasn’t Dating Dorothy. This was inevitable due to the first Meet on Garbage Roof with Amber suited.
I still don’t see how Walky’s grades WOULDN’T have been salvageable at this point if Amber hadn’t changed them. They’ve only had small quizzes, not even the midterm… he has more than enough time and opportunity going forward to turn the grades around.
Don’t you know how college works? If you have bad grades for your first half-term, you get expelled, the police get to eat your parents, and you go to jail for 20 years. If Amber hadn’t illegally altered his grades, Walky would be on his way to the electric chair.
I trained as a Math teacher, so Walky was right: At the halfway point, if he was failing the class, he had almost no hope of surviving the class with a grade that would satisfy anyone.
Amber bumped him off academic probation, which means (roughly) he was getting worse than 70% of the total points available at the halfway point of the term. Judging by the Dinosaur paper, he was getting below 50% of the points available at the halfway point, on average.
If he worked a magical amount, and managed to pass every following test with 100% points? He’d end up with 75% of the total points, which is solidly passing. But if he worked super hard and managed to earn 80% of the points available in the second half? (Earning a B average for the rest of the Term) He’d end up with about 65% of the total points, which is still Academic Probation, and not a passing grade in the class. Mom does a meltdown, he’s feeling like he is forced into special classes, his carefree life is over, etc.
So Amber bumped him up to just not on Academic probation. she didn’t give him all the points so far. If he manages to improve and earn that B average for the rest of the term, he’ll end up with a solid C in the class: Not good enough for Mom, but good enough for the rest of the world. ({and teachers really are looking for cheaters who try and get an unwarranted “A” or “B” in the class. Cheating to earn a C in the class is much less noticeable. If he pulls a Walky and manages to really earn an A average (90%) for the rest of class, he’ll _maybe_ squeak up into a B average for the whole class term, which might be enough to make Mom ignore his Math grades forever.
Even if the final is weighted more, it’s still covering the material from the whole class period, not just the things you learn in the last few weeks. Percentage wise, the grade on the final exam is usually the average grade
This, of course, ignores the fact that most Math classes are set up to be cumulative: The techniques/tools/theories you learn in the first weeks are applied to more and more complex situations as the course progresses.
TL,DR: If Walky was getting “F” on his paper at the halfway point, there was no hope for him. Amber’s hacking gives him hope, but he still has to work a lot harder than he was working in order to pass the class.
Also, are weighted grades just not a thing? You can do badly in something, but if it’s only worth a small fraction of the overall grade (as most small tests would) it wouldn’t actually impact you all that much. Usually you want to worry about the things weighted more (like midterms, research papers, finals) since if you fuck THOSE up it’s more of a consequence.
65% is a D in most US schools. I imagine most colleges wouldn’t put you on academic probation for 1 D but given that this is Walky’s 1st semester, it might get his GPA low enough to land him on academic probation. At my college, you were reached out to via email if you had below a c at midterms but I don’t remember if that carried any other consequences- probably not tho.
At my college 65% is a C+. A D is 50-59%, and most universities it’s counted as “you passed, technically… but you can’t actually use it for anything”.
But he does have other classes, presumably at least another 4 if he’s got a full course load, and math is the only one he seems to be stressing about, so one class wouldn’t be enough to put him on academic probation, he’d have to tank the majority of them.
One of my friends did high school in Canada and college in the States, and it was a hell of a transition for her bc a B felt like a disappointment and a C felt like a failure.
(ftr I like Canada’s system, it’s just rough going from “B starts at 65%” to “B starts at 80%” especially when you have parents with High Expectations. We were like “your parents grew up here, they understand that a B is pretty good!”)
I doubt that’s the case here. If those small quizzes were weighted for that much, Sal would have been fucked a long time ago. And Walky HASN’T been doing badly for most of the term. He was doing really well until fairly recently. And again, we’re dealing with weekly quizzes here. I doubt all of them add up to more than 10-15% of his grade. He hasn’t even had a midterm yet, never mind a final. If he does well on both of those and still can only pull off a C, something is fucked.
The real problem is that “Math classes are set up to be cumulative”
bit. He’s got to actually catch up on all the stuff he missed, not just start tuning in to what’s happening now. He needs the tools he missed in the earlier classes.
I think what you’re skipping over here is that they’re not halfway through the class – almost in terms of time, but nowhere near in terms of grades. They’re coming up on midterms. Assuming the two exams are the major parts of the grade, he’s currently easily salvageable – technically.
The hard part will be doing well on that midterm, since he’s far enough behind not understand most of the material.
I studied ages ago and in Germany. Maths was two written exams per semester, nothing that wasn’t an exam had any impact on the grade.
Some lab courses had compulsory homework (I had to do an extra oral examination because the prof disliked my bad handwriting), other courses combined oral and written exams. So mostly, if you were up to par in the exams, no one cared about what you did the rest of the time. The year we had a student strike, the physical chemistry prof asked all who hadn’t put in their homework if they really wanted to sit the exam, but that was that.
As the bachelor and master grades were introduced, stuff seems to have become much more school-like.
So do they really take attendance and have compulsory homework for university courses?
It depends on the class. I went to a big state university for undergrad (within the current decade) and many of the huge lecture classes (150+ students) did in fact include attendance in your grade – but it was counted as “participation.” Usually it was weighted at around 5-10% of your grade, and it was tracked using “clickers” – these little remotes you had to buy at the campus bookstore for like 40 bucks (I think you could return them at the end of the quarter for a partial refund, maybe? Or students would just sell their used ones to other students). The teacher would put up a multiple choice question on the screen and turn on whatever device was synced up with the clickers, and everyone would press the letter corresponding to the answer they thought. You could see on the screen how many responses had come in, and when the number got close enough to the number of people present (or people stopped answering), they would close the poll and it would bring up a bar graph of the results. Your clicker had a unique code registering it to you so the profs could see if you participated or not. Many would give you 1-3 points per class, depending on how many questions you responded to. This let the teachers know, essentially, that you cared enough to show up to class and actually put in an effort. I think it was one way to give people a boost who were actually trying but may have been struggling with the material. It was also good for the teachers to see where people were at in such a large class – sometimes the questions were knowledge checks, to see if we were understanding the material, but sometimes they were just things like “How do you feel about your understanding of topic X” or “Would you be interested in attending if we held an extra review session before the midterm”. It was pretty cool, the prof could adapt their instruction in real-time based on student feedback even in a 300 person class.
Additionally, some of the courses had lecture sections and quiz/discussion sections (much smaller groups of students which were instructed by TAs; typically grad students, but VERY occasionally undergrads who had previously taken the same class. I was a TA my final quarter before graduation, in a project-based lab class I had taken the quarter before). Typically, the quiz sections are used either to go over the homework and answer questions, present and engage with supplementary material, or discuss readings. For one class in my very first quarter of college, we had a lecture and a discussion section, and for the discussion section we had to read some pretty lengthy readings each week and discuss them seminar style as a group, and we were graded on our participation in the discussions as part of our final grades.
Also, what on earth is a student strike?? I’ve heard of staff strikes and teacher strikes, but students??! If you don’t mind: why were you striking, what did that look like, and how did things turn out?! I am very intrigued by this. :)))
Only if Amber actually recognizes and takes to heart what BenRG so neatly summed up. Unfortunately, given her incredibly low self-esteem at the moment, she may not even see that message here in order to consider it as a takeaway.
Lol I wish I had read this comment before I wrote my multi-paragraph diatribe up above, I could have saved myself some time and just linked to your comment instead ;D WAAAY more concise.
Amber does realize that Amazi-girl wouldn’t be anywhere near as good st math if she hadn’t already put all that time in with years of studying. Honestly there shouldn’t be anything that one is capable of that other isn’t.
Amber has saved Walky’s school career. I don’t care how she did it, I think it was a good thing. Thanks to her (and Amazi-girl) now he can save himself.
Okay this is kind of confusing for me. From what I’ve gathered from other commenters, the US is a lot harsher on their students when it comes to individual grades. That makes Walky appear a bit less mellow dramatic. In my school if you fail a course, you just take it over in the next semester/year if it’s a requirement for your degree. As long as you keep your GPA above a certain point, nobody really cares. Most people have about 5 courses per semester (depending on the Faculty) so if you’re only failing one course while passing in others, the school isn’t going to notice.
While he could theoretically repeat if it was just one course, often, scholarships are directly tied to grades, so unless the Walkertons are loaded, Walky losing his scholarships might be the end of his college days. College is ridiculously expensive here and I know of very few people who can pay out of pocket for it, even at a public state school.
The Walkertons could afford it. It’s not necessarily a deal breaker for Walky in that way, in the way it would be for Sarah, for example.
In his case, it’s far more about both his self-image as the “smart one” and his fear of disappointing mother Walkerton – both tied into the deeply dysfunctional Walkerton family dynamics.
It’s also tied into Walky needing to learn to study and to focus on work, possibly to dealing with ADHD as well – which he’s never really had to do before, since grades in high school came easily. He could have dropped Calculus or could retake it next semester, but that doesn’t address the root of the problem.
Loading ...
“and by hope, I mean fraudulent grade alterations I knew about but thought were changed back”
Wait wait wait seriously?
After going through the comments I obviously missed something, but I thought the Amberlamps undid the grade doctoring.
She then redid it but in a believable C-sort of way.
Willis TOTALLY stole that from War Games, Bee-Tee-Dubs.
http://www.dumbingofage.com/2018/comic/book-8/04-of-mike-and-men/scooch/
There’s the classic Walky.
Sadly.
This is actually pretty good for Amber—unintentionally, he’s reminding her that *she*, and not Amazi-Girl, did a good thing for him.
Does Walky know Amber is Amazi-Girl?
(I really should have locked this bit of info down already, I know.)
He knows that Amber isn’t in fact Amazi-Girl, they just timeshare a body.
Yes. She told him on Garbage Roof.
Dammit! Of course. That was a great reveal and I can’t believe I forgot it.
Amber isn’t Amazi-Girl, and Walky thus far is the only person who seems to grasp that in the correct way.
Walky understands it’s important to know WHOSE pants you’re getting into.
Something shockingly few people in this story seem to care about, funnily enough.
I don’t think he’s doing it unintentionally. He was aware when Amber changed his grades that one time, I am pretty sure.
He was there when Amber changed his grades on her phone. He asked her to undo it, which she did, but then she redid it and also broke into the office to get the hard copies of his papers.
I think Amber is hurt that he got Amazi-girl to help him, rather than her.
Maybe Amber did it and Attributed it to AmaziGirl.
Technically, it’s both Amber AND Amazi-girl who did a good thing for him, and he basically outright says that without BOTH of the good things combined, neither would have made a difference individually. Without hope, why bother trying? Even with hope, would he have had the time sense/management/focus to actually study? (Unlikely.)
If Amber can wrap her head around THAT fact, it could be even better for her – she might be able to understand that ALL of the various parts of her personality are valuable, not only the more “presentable” ones. Even anger and violent urges have their place in life, as long as you can channel them into something socially acceptable, if not productive. Which, to be fair, is sort of what she was actually doing when Amazi-girl originally came about, but the fear and shame she associated with that side of herself (understandably so, considering her trauma) led her to distance herself so far from it that not only did she create a totally separate persona for it but has now begun to actually dissociate between the two people. Once she starts recognizing that it’s totally healthy to have those emotions and they can even be valuable, and that all sides of her can contribute meaningfully, maybe she’ll be more able to approach a healthy reintegration – no doubt with professional guidance.
I’m still trying to decide if what’s going on with her is A) an actual, organically developing case of split-personality with a neurological basis; B) an extreme coping mechanism that has spiraled out of control to the point where her conscious brain no longer has any input; or C) some of each. 18-24 is the age range when many mood and personality disorders tend to manifest (e.g., bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, etc.) – just one more reason why it’s a great set-up to have free mental health care available on college campuses – so it could actually be a totally neurological thing that would have developed for her at this age no matter regardless of her life experiences. However… that does seem like a terribly large coincidence.
B) is actually what disassociative disorders are. Schizophrenia is a neurological disorder, sure, but its symptoms are paranoia and hallucinations; its Latin name is wrong. Bipolar only affects memory by exaggerating the human tendency to fail to remember happy times when sad.
So you can blane Blaine for it.
Oh, fantastic. Because we didn’t have enough reasons to hate Blaine.
Tangent: Spriteless, if you’re in the US, did you ever watch the TNT (I think?) series Perception? It was possibly one of my favorite TV shows ever, and the protagonist was a psychology professor with paranoid schizophrenia who also consulted with the police and helped solve crimes. His hallucinations helped by giving him clues to things his unconscious mind had picked up on but his conscious mind hadn’t (essentially, a more visual manifestation of human intuition). I don’t remember the name of the main actor, but the female lead (the police detective) was played by Rachel Leigh Cook, I think?… Anyway, it’s a great show, and very educational about both general psychology as well as about various disorders and things. I learned a lot about schizophrenia from it, and that’s where I originally learned the thing about the ages it develops during. I highly recommend watching it – the premise is really fascinating to me, and I thought it was very well executed. I don’t watch much TV but I always looked forward to that show every week.
If THAT ain’t an unexploded bombshell, I dunno what is.
Panel 2 would make a good book title.
Seconded.
Dumbing of Age Book 10: Without Hope, Why Bother?
Think that’s a bit too on the nose.
Walky is a dumb version of Junko Enoshima. Despair shows the worse aspects of someone, and in Walky’s case it is sloth.
You have a point, but isn’t dumping dumping resources (time, energy, etc.) into a hopeless sinking ship literally a waste? I’m thinking sunk cost fallacy here.
I only ask because I tend to agree with Ealky on this particular point. Sometimes we need to force ourselves to hope just to get out of bed in the morning, but that actually proves his point. Without hope, no one would bother. Why do you think so many people don’t bother to vote, or to save for retirement, or to cut down on their carbon footprint?
Yes I am a cynic and a pessimist, but that’s also part of my point: there’s sloth, and then there’s knowing you can’t win.
Don’t put resources into a sinking ship. But sometimes a sinking ship has stuff on it which might be worth salvaging.
Exactly. Pessimism makes you unable to move and accept doom. Optimism allows you not only to continue, but that if you face doom you are prepared to do what you can to diminish the damage or make peace with yourself before your demise.
Accept your lost and move on with your life. The dead don’t revive, evil will always exist as well as good will always exist, entropy will destroy all so something new begins, justice is created by people, and not everyone shares the same aesthetic tastes. Let’s just be nice and kind and protect beauty until our eventual death.
You should read ‘On the Beach’ by Nevil Shute, about people who really have no hope and then find a way to live as true humans regardless, by living as if there is a future even though there isn’t. It says a lot about humanity, I think.
DoA Book 10: I Guess You Could Say I’m Polycramorous
“My one true love…in a four way tie, leaving you as the top human on my list!”
Should Amber just take the W where she can get it?
I wouldn’t call it a W. I’d call it a drop-back-ten-and-punt-it-downfield.
So, “moral victory”?
This gives me the impression you are not familiar with the sport of american football.
I know you’re kidding, and appreciate a good joke. However, I live within broadcast range of the New York Jets and know some of their fans. The Jets are about third in the NFL in moral victories behind Miami and Cincinnati.
Amber you really need to tell Walky the truth about his grades. And what better time than when he is overjoyed with free food? Seriously, can you think of a better time to receive bad news than when you have just been given free food?
I mean, should she? Now? From what Walky’s saying, it sounds like that would only do harm at this point.
Yeah, let him do the work himself and hopefully salvage his grade (which shouldn’t have been unsalvageable in the first place because they literally only did weekly quizzes and homework, not even a midterm yet) and THEN break the bad news when you have an example of him doing the work you can point to.
Yeah let’s pull the plug on this before we can salvage the only good thing to come out of this.
*Let’s not
Saying the harsh truth is the best option.
Amber: “Walky, you suck and need to get help to study because on your own your are a fucking manchild that does as much self destruction as me!”
Why? So Blaine can find out about it and get Amber expelled for hacking? Unless you think Walky is super good at keeping his mouth shut and not blabbing.
He seems to be okay at it. He hasn’t told anyone Amber is Amazigirl. Not anyone who didn’t already know, anyway. And he especially hasn’t told anyone that Amber ISN’T Amazigirl.
He kinda just told Amber? I mean she was semi-aware that Amqzigirl still seemed to be active when she wasn’t in the costume but not sure if she assumed that making peace with Sal and joining Roller Derby to give herself a healthy outlet for her rage would have stopped that…
He knew she was going to do it, and while she claimed she didn’t he’s now announcing that he’s grateful they’re mysteriously higher than he expected.
I don’t think she needs to tell him.
This is what I thought too. His use of the word “miraculously” and saying it just as Amber was feeling sorry for herself about Amazigirl’s successes was a bit too on the nose. I felt he said it purposely in an off-hand way because he didn’t want to thank her for doing the wrong thing he asked her not to do, but wanted to acknowledge that he figured it out and that it did end up helping him in the long run. Or maybe I’m giving Walky too much credit.
This was my take and I’m not that charitable to Walky as a character. He’s very good at understanding people even if he isn’t very good at what to do with that understanding the vast majority of the time.
Yeah, Walky’s a lot more perceptive than he lets on. He’s just lazy and would rather avoid unpleasant things than confront them.
I AM GOING TO BEAT THE SHIT OUT OF WALKY UNTIL HE GETS HOPE OR HE AGREES TO GET HIMSELF TO THERAPY OR A COUNSELOR SO HE ADMITS HE HAS TROUBLE STUDYING!
Seriously, Amber’s expression in the last panel is howww I feel wwhenever I heard edgelords in anime and in real life.
Wait, is Walky an edgelord? He seems more immature than edgy to me, and I’m sure he’s more of a duke.
You are thinking of Thingley ?
Always!
Eh? He’s tried one thing and it’s working.
How is he even remotely edgy, here? He’s saying there wouldn’t have been a point in trying to study if his grades weren’t salvageable. He doesn’t know the real reason they can be salvaged, but as long as he thinks they can be, he’s got at least that much motivation. “I wouldn’t have tried if it didn’t have a chance of working” isn’t edgy, it’s just sorta reasonable.
Is there any certainty that Walky will actually improve with the lies he believes?
That’s irrelevant. He has the motivation and has put up at least a token effort so far, so why bother downing him about it maybe not paying off at a later date?
This is specifically in response to all but the last 5 words you tacked on, because I’m not sure what lies you’re talking about.
The academic fraud committed by Amber and that could bite their asses.
In theory, there is a small risk this could come up later, but I really doubt it. The only professor likely to even suspect Walky’s IRL and computer didn’t match up was fired when a lucky offhand comment revealed he had an inappropriate relationship with a student. I really doubt whatever overworked teacher was rushed in to fill the gap on top of all their other work is going to be tryhard enough to cross reference all the grades in the computer, if that’s even possible. And given what I remember about Walky eating paper, sounds like they don’t even keep the paper on file TO cross reference.
Given Walky appears to be turning over a new leaf, the new professor is that much more likely to accept the computer matches the IRL.
On a different axis, if this did come all the way to light, hacking grades could be an expellable offense maybe even with prison time for hacking if the school got super serious about it. Blaine could get his wish of Amber being expelled by using this if he found out about it, or maybe get lucky and have this succeed even if his own plans fail.
If the teacher kept the papers, the students couldn’t reference them. That would be a terrible plan.
“Take a look at your mistakes, then hand’em in” could work. Or even more thorough, “take a picture of the grade for each one.” Effective, but tedious to manage.
One way this could get caught is if Jason filled out his grades in a spreadsheet, which he then emailed to the prof who would collate it into the document Amber hacked–this is how it works at the uni I work at. So the prof could have a record of Walky’s real grades buried in their emails should someone get suspicious.
(Also, a nitpick–but I do get confused by how americans use ‘professor’–Jason wasn’t a professor. Given that he was TAing, he might even have still been a Grad Student, though given that he only shared an office with one other person I’m guessing postdoc.)
I believe grad student. And I suspect that’s more one poster misremembering than American usage of Professor.
I believe that anyone calling Jason “Professor” is being sarcastic.
I hope.
As an American post-doc who taught classes while still a grad student, I can say with authority that faculty and grad students are acutely aware that teaching assistants are not “professors.” Undergrads, however, tend to use “professor” to refer to all instructors indiscriminately, sometimes even after being corrected by the instructor her/him/themself.
But Jason wasn’t even really an instructor – Professor Rees taught the class. Jason (and Penny) just did paperwork and were supposed to help in office hours. Not likely undergrads would make that mistake, since Jason wasn’t teaching.
I assume commenters here sometimes just forget about the actual professor since he’s barely a character.
\ /
>CRAM<
/ \
Oh so that’s why Walky’s phone has been shown going off in previous strips.
I can’t believe I only just now realized Walky is Shaggy from Scooby-Doo
I never know what information Amber and Amazi-Girl share, and I suspect that the situation is getting worse. Does Amber know that Walky knows she and Amazi-Girl aren’t actually the same person even though most people who know about “Amber’s hobby” would assume they are?
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/04-vote-for-robin/themask/
Currently they share nothing, as far as I can tell. How Amber thinks about that is a little more confusing. She often seems to assume that everyone understands, even when they’ve got no reason to.
No joke, my sister and her husband came out as polyamorous last week. It’s been a real drama show between us and our parents. Just wanted to share, that’s all.
*offers hugs if needed*
… If they’re happy with the rules they have established for their relationship, what’s the issue? Are they wanting to introduce a boy/girlfriend as such, and parents aren’t sure how to react/explain it to any younglin’s in the family/tell grandma?
I hope the drama blows over and your sister and husband remain solid and happy and in agreement about what works best for them.
My parents are mad because they don’t trust my sister’s husband, but there’s more subtle things as well. My sister and I talked about our childhood past, and we connected the dots that our parents had issues with trust and control in general. I ran into similar issues when I started trying weed.
Plus, my parents believe polyamory is the same as an open marriage (which it isn’t) and say it’s going to kill the marriage itself. But my sister and my brother-in-law are intelligent, empathetic, and have likely looked into the possible drawbacks of polyamory. So it’s safe to say they know what they’re doing, or at least they should have the freedom to do what they want.
Oh hej! Happy birthday to me! My official slogan henceforth is, “Without hope, why bother?”
McNuggets, tacos, and nachitos, oh my!
Happy birthday!
Happy Birthday!
Many happy returns!
Self-interest note: It is in my best interest to keep you hale ‘n’ hearty so I’m not the oldest member of regulars.
Happy birthday!
Okay, but what about witness and reward? Would he have bothered without those?
So Walky knows right? He knows and he’s telling her he knows. That’s the subtext of this scene.
Yes, he has made a comment to Amber before to suggest that he’s aware that there are two women in her body; the impression I’ve got is that he’s okay with both of them being around him. I’m thinking that this is the first indication we’ve seen that Amazi-Girl may be interested in Walky too, even if only on a friendship level.
I think Zatar was referring to Amber changing walky’s grades
That was indeed what I was referring to.
Yes. All this is sweet in a very twisted way.
Remember, Walky recently met AmaziGirl . And she didn’t know they had sex or he wasn’t Dating Dorothy. This was inevitable due to the first Meet on Garbage Roof with Amber suited.
Found it
https://www.dumbingofage.com/2019/comic/book-9-comic/04-vote-for-robin/themask/
I still don’t see how Walky’s grades WOULDN’T have been salvageable at this point if Amber hadn’t changed them. They’ve only had small quizzes, not even the midterm… he has more than enough time and opportunity going forward to turn the grades around.
Don’t you know how college works? If you have bad grades for your first half-term, you get expelled, the police get to eat your parents, and you go to jail for 20 years. If Amber hadn’t illegally altered his grades, Walky would be on his way to the electric chair.
I can’t believe I’m saying this, but I really miss the American education system from before Betsy Devos.
I trained as a Math teacher, so Walky was right: At the halfway point, if he was failing the class, he had almost no hope of surviving the class with a grade that would satisfy anyone.
Amber bumped him off academic probation, which means (roughly) he was getting worse than 70% of the total points available at the halfway point of the term. Judging by the Dinosaur paper, he was getting below 50% of the points available at the halfway point, on average.
If he worked a magical amount, and managed to pass every following test with 100% points? He’d end up with 75% of the total points, which is solidly passing. But if he worked super hard and managed to earn 80% of the points available in the second half? (Earning a B average for the rest of the Term) He’d end up with about 65% of the total points, which is still Academic Probation, and not a passing grade in the class. Mom does a meltdown, he’s feeling like he is forced into special classes, his carefree life is over, etc.
So Amber bumped him up to just not on Academic probation. she didn’t give him all the points so far. If he manages to improve and earn that B average for the rest of the term, he’ll end up with a solid C in the class: Not good enough for Mom, but good enough for the rest of the world. ({and teachers really are looking for cheaters who try and get an unwarranted “A” or “B” in the class. Cheating to earn a C in the class is much less noticeable. If he pulls a Walky and manages to really earn an A average (90%) for the rest of class, he’ll _maybe_ squeak up into a B average for the whole class term, which might be enough to make Mom ignore his Math grades forever.
Even if the final is weighted more, it’s still covering the material from the whole class period, not just the things you learn in the last few weeks. Percentage wise, the grade on the final exam is usually the average grade
This, of course, ignores the fact that most Math classes are set up to be cumulative: The techniques/tools/theories you learn in the first weeks are applied to more and more complex situations as the course progresses.
TL,DR: If Walky was getting “F” on his paper at the halfway point, there was no hope for him. Amber’s hacking gives him hope, but he still has to work a lot harder than he was working in order to pass the class.
I’m glad there’s someone reasonable about Wally’s attitude in this thread. Thank you.
What academic hellhole are you in where a 65% isn’t a pass? Nevermind that it would put you on *academic probation*????
Also, are weighted grades just not a thing? You can do badly in something, but if it’s only worth a small fraction of the overall grade (as most small tests would) it wouldn’t actually impact you all that much. Usually you want to worry about the things weighted more (like midterms, research papers, finals) since if you fuck THOSE up it’s more of a consequence.
65% is a D in most US schools. I imagine most colleges wouldn’t put you on academic probation for 1 D but given that this is Walky’s 1st semester, it might get his GPA low enough to land him on academic probation. At my college, you were reached out to via email if you had below a c at midterms but I don’t remember if that carried any other consequences- probably not tho.
I continue to be glad I live in Canada, jeez.
At my college 65% is a C+. A D is 50-59%, and most universities it’s counted as “you passed, technically… but you can’t actually use it for anything”.
But he does have other classes, presumably at least another 4 if he’s got a full course load, and math is the only one he seems to be stressing about, so one class wouldn’t be enough to put him on academic probation, he’d have to tank the majority of them.
In trimester systems he’d have 3-4 total. I forget if he’s semester or trimester. We have both here.
One of my friends did high school in Canada and college in the States, and it was a hell of a transition for her bc a B felt like a disappointment and a C felt like a failure.
(ftr I like Canada’s system, it’s just rough going from “B starts at 65%” to “B starts at 80%” especially when you have parents with High Expectations. We were like “your parents grew up here, they understand that a B is pretty good!”)
I’m so glad the pass mark at my university is a 50%…
I doubt that’s the case here. If those small quizzes were weighted for that much, Sal would have been fucked a long time ago. And Walky HASN’T been doing badly for most of the term. He was doing really well until fairly recently. And again, we’re dealing with weekly quizzes here. I doubt all of them add up to more than 10-15% of his grade. He hasn’t even had a midterm yet, never mind a final. If he does well on both of those and still can only pull off a C, something is fucked.
The real problem is that “Math classes are set up to be cumulative”
bit. He’s got to actually catch up on all the stuff he missed, not just start tuning in to what’s happening now. He needs the tools he missed in the earlier classes.
YUP. Which is why I hope that timer is set for multiple times a day. He’s gonna need it.
I think what you’re skipping over here is that they’re not halfway through the class – almost in terms of time, but nowhere near in terms of grades. They’re coming up on midterms. Assuming the two exams are the major parts of the grade, he’s currently easily salvageable – technically.
The hard part will be doing well on that midterm, since he’s far enough behind not understand most of the material.
I wouldn’t even say most of the material. A good chunk of it though and he’s gonna need it.
I studied ages ago and in Germany. Maths was two written exams per semester, nothing that wasn’t an exam had any impact on the grade.
Some lab courses had compulsory homework (I had to do an extra oral examination because the prof disliked my bad handwriting), other courses combined oral and written exams. So mostly, if you were up to par in the exams, no one cared about what you did the rest of the time. The year we had a student strike, the physical chemistry prof asked all who hadn’t put in their homework if they really wanted to sit the exam, but that was that.
As the bachelor and master grades were introduced, stuff seems to have become much more school-like.
So do they really take attendance and have compulsory homework for university courses?
It depends on the class. I went to a big state university for undergrad (within the current decade) and many of the huge lecture classes (150+ students) did in fact include attendance in your grade – but it was counted as “participation.” Usually it was weighted at around 5-10% of your grade, and it was tracked using “clickers” – these little remotes you had to buy at the campus bookstore for like 40 bucks (I think you could return them at the end of the quarter for a partial refund, maybe? Or students would just sell their used ones to other students). The teacher would put up a multiple choice question on the screen and turn on whatever device was synced up with the clickers, and everyone would press the letter corresponding to the answer they thought. You could see on the screen how many responses had come in, and when the number got close enough to the number of people present (or people stopped answering), they would close the poll and it would bring up a bar graph of the results. Your clicker had a unique code registering it to you so the profs could see if you participated or not. Many would give you 1-3 points per class, depending on how many questions you responded to. This let the teachers know, essentially, that you cared enough to show up to class and actually put in an effort. I think it was one way to give people a boost who were actually trying but may have been struggling with the material. It was also good for the teachers to see where people were at in such a large class – sometimes the questions were knowledge checks, to see if we were understanding the material, but sometimes they were just things like “How do you feel about your understanding of topic X” or “Would you be interested in attending if we held an extra review session before the midterm”. It was pretty cool, the prof could adapt their instruction in real-time based on student feedback even in a 300 person class.
Additionally, some of the courses had lecture sections and quiz/discussion sections (much smaller groups of students which were instructed by TAs; typically grad students, but VERY occasionally undergrads who had previously taken the same class. I was a TA my final quarter before graduation, in a project-based lab class I had taken the quarter before). Typically, the quiz sections are used either to go over the homework and answer questions, present and engage with supplementary material, or discuss readings. For one class in my very first quarter of college, we had a lecture and a discussion section, and for the discussion section we had to read some pretty lengthy readings each week and discuss them seminar style as a group, and we were graded on our participation in the discussions as part of our final grades.
Also, what on earth is a student strike?? I’ve heard of staff strikes and teacher strikes, but students??! If you don’t mind: why were you striking, what did that look like, and how did things turn out?! I am very intrigued by this. :)))
Crime pays
Face it, Amber: You and Mazie are a team and you always get the best results when you work together, as bizarre as it must be for you both sometimes.
A hint toward the path to reintegration, or at least harmonious coexistence?
Only if Amber actually recognizes and takes to heart what BenRG so neatly summed up. Unfortunately, given her incredibly low self-esteem at the moment, she may not even see that message here in order to consider it as a takeaway.
Lol I wish I had read this comment before I wrote my multi-paragraph diatribe up above, I could have saved myself some time and just linked to your comment instead ;D WAAAY more concise.
Amber does realize that Amazi-girl wouldn’t be anywhere near as good st math if she hadn’t already put all that time in with years of studying. Honestly there shouldn’t be anything that one is capable of that other isn’t.
Amber has saved Walky’s school career. I don’t care how she did it, I think it was a good thing. Thanks to her (and Amazi-girl) now he can save himself.
DoA book 10: I guess you could say I’m polycramorous
DING DING DING we have a winner
“CRAM” as a sound effect … with burst-lines no less. Perfect.
Nothing else would have worked there.
A timer on the phone… I guess it’s worth a try
(and as usual, it fairly creeps me out that Amber doesn’t remember what Amazi-girl do these days…)
Okay this is kind of confusing for me. From what I’ve gathered from other commenters, the US is a lot harsher on their students when it comes to individual grades. That makes Walky appear a bit less mellow dramatic. In my school if you fail a course, you just take it over in the next semester/year if it’s a requirement for your degree. As long as you keep your GPA above a certain point, nobody really cares. Most people have about 5 courses per semester (depending on the Faculty) so if you’re only failing one course while passing in others, the school isn’t going to notice.
While he could theoretically repeat if it was just one course, often, scholarships are directly tied to grades, so unless the Walkertons are loaded, Walky losing his scholarships might be the end of his college days. College is ridiculously expensive here and I know of very few people who can pay out of pocket for it, even at a public state school.
The Walkertons could afford it. It’s not necessarily a deal breaker for Walky in that way, in the way it would be for Sarah, for example.
In his case, it’s far more about both his self-image as the “smart one” and his fear of disappointing mother Walkerton – both tied into the deeply dysfunctional Walkerton family dynamics.
It’s also tied into Walky needing to learn to study and to focus on work, possibly to dealing with ADHD as well – which he’s never really had to do before, since grades in high school came easily. He could have dropped Calculus or could retake it next semester, but that doesn’t address the root of the problem.