College Bureaucracy, A Stick Comic

Dyscalculia: a specific learning disability involving innate difficulty in learning or comprehending mathematics. It is akin to dyslexia and includes difficulty in understanding numbers, learning how to manipulate numbers, learning math facts, and a number of other related symptoms.

 

Finals are coming up next week, so I thought I’d share my brush with college bureaucracy. I think the ironic part is that there will likely be no time in my life where I am required to do Algebra with no a calculator.

I find drawing stick comics very soothing to the enraged and frustrated soul. Expect more of them.

How I met Gareth

How I met Gareth

The road to Gareth is a long and convoluted one that starts out nowhere near the person in question and makes you wonder how the heck are you even going to get to him, because you probably need to borrow money from him and he’s the only one responsible/shady enough to have huge wads of cash on hand.

That sentence sort of got away from me there…..let’s try again.

As I may have mentioned before, Gareth is my roommate. He is also my very best friend, which is why we can stand living together without resorting to murder and cannibalism.

Or to feeding each other to Larry.

Looking back, I realize that I met Gareth because of three totally unrelated facts about my life as a sixth grader.

• 1.     My Music teacher was a prick

• 2.     My middle school had no drama class/club, and

• 3.     I had trouble with math.

Stay with me, this is going somewhere.

Well, with my math grade in jeopardy, perhaps from lack of a creative outlet due to my dropping out of Chorus because of said prick teacher and having no drama class to enroll in, my mother sought out a math tutor for me. I didn’t resent it; in fact, I rather liked going to see her after school once or twice a week. She was a nice lady, and teachers have usually ways liked me.

So the two of us got on fine, and one day I mentioned to my math teacher how I loved to sing and act, but could do neither because one road led to prick-y-ness and the other was a depressing dead-pool of lies and nothingness.

Thanks a lot public school budget cuts

I don’t remember why I told my math tutor those things. They seem very unrelated to math and math-like accessories. I realize now that she was not unlike a helpful NPC, directing my life in a preferable, if a bit random, direction.

Not that kind of NPC. The other kind

Anyways, she told me about Instantaneous Theater, which lead to five years of mind-exploding fun and hilarity. It was one of the few things that I allowed to influence me while in mid-teenage mode. Until very recently, all of my friends were people I had met via IT and I now have an incurable love of show-tunes.

This may or may not be a good thing

But anyways, we were talking about Gareth. Gareth did not actually participate in IT at the time, it was his brother who did. However, Gareth would sometimes come and operate the stage lights for the performances, so I sort of vaguely knew him by sight.

Three years passed with this being the extent of our relationship.

Then high school came. I wasn’t feeling overly confident about going to high school. From everything I had heard, it sounded terrible. That, and according to my older brother, they flicked pennies at freshmen and I did not want to be flicked with pennies. I don’t know why pennies seemed so terrifying at the time. They just did.

Because Abraham Lincoln is the stuff of nightmares. That’s why.

Then Xande, the director of IT, suggested a charter school that her kids had gone to. A charter school is like a regular school, except you get to sleep in as long as you like, go to class in your pajamas every day, get to choose between onsite classes, homeschooling, or taking class at the local college. The onsite classes rarely have more than six students at a time. So when I say they are like regular schools, I actually mean they are nothing like regular schools.

And it just so happened that Gareth and I ended up going to the same charter school. Even then, we may have never truly met had it not been for the fact that my onsite Spanish class took place right before his onsite Physical Science class. I mean, I didn’t even know anyone in my graduating class; this school was not made for the social butterflies of the world. But we sort of knew each other from IT, and there was a twenty second period between classes where I was coming and he was going. So what did we do? Strike up a conversation? Nod politely and mumble something that sort of resembled pleasantries? No.

We meowed at each other.

Pictured: Gareth and I, age 12 and 15

We spent an entire semester meowing at each other in passing. Here is how a typical conversation went.

Me: Meow

Gareth: (thoughtful look) Meow

Me: Mrow?

Gareth: Meow (decisive nod)

Nary an actual human word exchanged. It seemed that we were both just too weird for fate to bring us together in a decisive fashion.

Screw you, Fate, we’re going to make this as difficult as possible

Finally, finally, October came, and our mutual friend BT invited me to come to a re-enactment fair with her. She was selling some crafts that she had made and was piggy-backing off of the booth owned by …wait for it… Gareth’s family.

Gareth and I were the only ones who had nothing to do at the fair other than hang out with each other. And so we did. Having fun, we decided that we should hang out more. Because we are both lazy sods, nothing came of this. 

At this point, I would like to point out that BT must have been channeling a very annoyed and impatient goddess of fate, because she insisted on inviting me to the next event that Gareth would be attending, her Halloween party.

BT’s Halloween parties are an annual occurrence that include a game of capture the flag in the fields near her house.

At night. 

With only glow-sticks to see by.

After a lot of stumbling around in the dark, getting lost, tripping over various bushes and hoping that I wasn’t about to be attacked by a rabid fox and/or a skunk, Gareth and I found each other squatting in the same patch of grass, guarding our precious flag.

“…….”

“So…..”

“Wanna hang out sometime, then?”

We acceded to fate and arranged a “playdate” Though I suppose “get together” would be a less immature way to put it, but that sounds stupid. “Slumber party” would be closer to the truth, but it wasn’t a party. Whatever, I’m gonna go with playdate, even if it makes us sound like preschoolers.

Somewhere between the bad horror movies, cookie dough, chocolate, and staying up until two in the morning writing  bad comedy skits, we became friends.

I’m gonna go ahead and blame the bad horror movies for this one

So that is the long, convoluted story of how I met Gareth…. And Je-sus, it’s five pages long…..and that’s with a lot of the details skipped over or summarized…..and without adding any of the pictures yet. Damn…er…

Have some hedgehogs to make up for the long post

....I don't want to talk about it

So it’s come to this.

I am going to complain about Twilight.

I feel so dirty.

It took a sudden epiphany to sink this low. I didn’t really love/hate the book as much as the internet seems to think I should. It was good for what it was, which was a dime store romance novel that got a little too big for its boots. I happen to like certain romance novels when I’m in the right mood, so whatever. It was a good junk food read.

Now, If I were Gareth, I would spend the next few pages ranting about how people blow the whole thing out of proportion and that there are more important things to argue about than whether or not a mediocre vampire story sucked or not. I’m not going to do that, and not just because of the pun.

I’m not even going to complain about the little things that were annoying about the books, like the unhealthy relationships, or the fact that Bella choose the asshole instead of the sungod, or even the fact that her favorite book was Withering Heights, a story that I can’t stand.

This is what they make you read in Hell

I can live with all that. That’s all part of the story. Edward sparkles? Fine, sure. It’s different and creative way to explain the sun aversion.

No, what finally prompted me to start complaining was the sudden realization (yes, the definition of epiphany, which everyone knows now because the Simpsons ruined it for us smart people) of exactly why I didn’t care much for the series.

Bella never faces the consequences for her actions. There, simple as that. Think about the final book for a moment. First the big one: She gets pregnant. She gets pregnant and only spends about three days throwing up, a phenomenon that usually lasts weeks, sometimes months. Heck, Gareth’s mom had morning sickness up until she went into labor with him. Then, because Edward’s maaaahgic, what normally takes almost a year happens in a month; so no walking around feeling like a blimp, no embarrassing mornings where you look fat in everything, no maternity tops in public, and no swollen feet. She didn’t even get any stretch marks or varicose veins as far as I can tell. 

Bella got to spend a month in bed and had a few weird cravings and then she was done. Do you know how many pregnant women would kill a puppy for that?

So she had a rough birth, boo hoo. Gareth’s mom had two C-sections, both with insufficient anesthesia and both while suffering with fibromyalgia. Suck it up, Bella.

….I’m using Gareth’s Mom as an anti-MarySue, aren’t I? Sorry Gareth’s Mom.

Anyways, so the baby is born. Honestly, this is what I was expecting.

And wouldn’t that have been a great ending? Stephanie Meyer didn’t give a damn, she was already a millionaire. That would have been a hilarious little twist. But alas, it was not to be.

Right, so, baby. It’s a baby for, like, what, a week? Because it’s maaaahgic. And Bella sleeps through it. So, no dirty diapers, no colic, no baby barf, she didn’t even have to nurse the little monster. Again, no consequences there.

But she’s a vampire now, right? Awesome as that can be, there are certain repercussions. Like killing humans and never seeing your family again. Except Bella avoids those things, side-stepping them with a grace that the character never had. That intoxicating, impossible-to-resist draw of human blood that the story has been going on and on about? Not for Bella, because she doesn’t want to. And as for her family, her dad conveniently puts on blinders the size of Cincinnati, plugs his ears and sings “LALALALA” at the top of his lungs. So she doesn’t have to lose him.

That just leaves Jacob, who was arguably the best character until he transformed into an angst-ridden loup-garou. Even after that, he was still pretty cool. Bella may have a slave-like husband, an attractive, even-tempered kid, money, looks, immortality, and her parent and in-laws get along, but at least she can have some guilt, right? She broke that kid’s heart; that’s something she has to live with. That’s something we’ve all gone through.

Except no - because Jacob finds his true love and forgives Bella.

And everyone lives happily ever after.

The end.

You know what? Disney should have turned this into one of their cartoons. The story is perfect for their feel-good-no-repercussions little color dramas. And then we wouldn’t have had to see Robert Pattinson's naked chest.

I’m not even going to put a picture of that up. It was that disturbing.

There. I’m done. Let us never speak of this again. I may not even post this, unless I am completely out of material. The internet has enough Twilight rants on it.

Edit: Wow, look at that. Collage classes keep me from writing and this is going up. Please don't hate me.

Wisdom Teeth

This sucks. No, I take that back, this doesn’t suck, because if I suck or sip anything then I might disturb my clots and that could lead to a very painful phenomenon known as empty socket syndrome. Not that I’d notice the difference; really, as I am already in way more pain then I am comfortable being conscious for.

I had my Wisdom Teeth taken out less than a day ago. So far, I see no benefit to this.

It was a funny little day, yesterday. It started with my mother picking Gareth and me up, dropping my little sister off at school, going back to my little sisters school because she forgot something, and finally arriving at the oral surgeon’s. We live in a small town, so thank whatever powers that control the universe of dentistry that our only oral surgeon is good at what he does. This is balanced out by giving him a pair of rude, condescending, harpies for secretaries.

“You didn’t get the paperwork in the mail? My, aren’t you slow, stupid and ugly.”

Has anyone ever noticed that waiting rooms have the worst music ever? I have long believed this to be a sinister plot, and I feel that yesterday proves this. There we were, sitting in the magazine strewn waiting room for a half hour, being forced to listen to the worst offerings that modern music has to offer, when finally a good song comes on. I recognized it as one of Pink’s earlier songs. It had a good rhythm, though I can’t for the life of me remember the title. Just when Gareth and I start to tap our fingers, the song halted mid-introduction, and an ugly sounding pop song from the eighties starts playing instead.

As Gareth said at that moment: Madness

Anyways, I was trundled away to the back room and finally got to exchange a handful of words with the surgeon. He at least was nice and answered a few question. I was nervous as hell, this being my first surgery of any kind. Funny thing was, the main comfort I had was that the nurse looked exactly like Nurse Kelly from MASH.

Whatever works, I guess

The last thing I remember is telling the surgeon to make sure I was unconscious before cutting on me. He assured me that they wouldn’t and then I passed out.

I woke up fully conscious with a numb face and a mouth full of cotton. According to Garth, I looked like a happy chipmunk because of the swelling and the gauze pushing my face into something resembling a smile.

Photograph of me after coming out of the operating room

And then we went home. Well, we sung by my sister’s school again to drop off some forms. And we got my medication from the pharmacy. Then we went home, after sitting in the car for thirty minutes while waiting for the tow truck to get out of our way.

Remember how I said we lived on a mountain? Well, some idiot went off the cliff. My mom made the mistake of asking the cop if we could just scuttle by, since I was recovering from surgery. The tow truck guys had barely begun to crane the car up, and we could have easily made it past them. She should have asked them, not the cop who showed up five minutes after us, and as far as I could tell did nothing but stand around and look like a douche-bag.

He responded to her question with a dismissive little, “Yes, well, we all have reason why we want to get home,”

This is the reason why he wanted to get home

I mean, I can sort of understand not making an exception for a surgery patient, I guess, but he could at least have been polite about it. He then proceeded to tell my mother that “there is a hospital down the street.” Which wasn’t even true, the hospital was on the other side of town. I have a theory that most cops aren’t born, they are grown in cloning vats from the DNA of a gorilla and some jerk-off named Bruce.

The origin of our police force

But I digress. Eventually, we did get home. I was so fucking thirsty. I hadn’t had anything to drink all morning because to the anesthesia, plus my mouth had been open for forty-five minutes while it was being sliced open.

Anyone who has ever tried to drink with a numb face before knows what is about to happen. I got soaked.

Finally, finally, I got settled down. My mom, worried but satisfied that I was okay, left, and Gareth and I played some video games.

Then the anesthesia wore off.

Want to know the worst part about how the body processes anesthesia? The de-numbing goes outward to the end of the nerves, so now I found myself in excruciating, sob racking pain, and my face was still numb.

Gareth ended up on the phone trying to explain to the bimbo secretaries that I hadn’t eaten anything yet because they had said to wait until the bleeding stopped, and that I needed to take the pain pill anyways. They just kept repeating that they had said to eat at least an hour after the surgery so that I could take the pill before the anesthesia wore off, and no, of course I couldn’t take it on an empty stomach.

At last, Gareth’s godfather, alias: Ocho, got me to eat some yogurt. I took my pill and managed to whimper myself to sleep.

Later, when my face had finally stop being numb, we watched Read Or Die, followed by Tank Girl, which made me feel much better.

The universal cure-all

Later: It’s a couple of day’s after, and I’m getting ready to post this. Status-wise, I’m finally starting to feel more like a human being and less like a blowfish that somebody kicked in the face. Why they would do that to a poor little blowfish is beyond me.

Why?

This is a good thing, because I kind of have to go to school tomorrow and I really didn’t want to do that with an inflated face. I’m finally eating things that resemble food and not liquefied colors, but MY GOD, I would murder someone for the ability to eat a steak sandwich.

This Guy. I’ll murder him

Apparently I’m actually doing a lot better than someone who just had four wisdom teeth taken out, two of which were impacted. That’s cold comfort when you’re as pitiful as I am in the face of long term pain and discomfort. WORST SPRING BREAK EVER.

Graduation

I didn’t want to go to my High School Graduation. As far as I could tell, there wasn’t much of a point. I had been taking a lot of college classes that semester, and as far as I was concerned, I had already left high school far behind me. The ceremony seemed like it would be a lot of pointless standing around, and I didn’t need it for closure or anything.

And, I mean, it was a charter school. A small one. We’re talking a graduating class of twelve people here. Twelve people that I didn’t even know.

Who are you people?!?

So, ditch it, right? I knew other charter school students who had ditched their high school graduation. It was no big deal.

Apparently I was wrong.

My mom hit the roof when I told her of my intentions. I didn’t want to go, it wasn’t a big deal, there were only twelve graduates anyway, it’s gonna be at the grange for crying out loud, I don’t want to. But my mom wanted me to want to, it is so a big deal! It just is! You have to go, rite of passage, it is a big deal shut up and eat your broccoli.

EAT IT

 And so the months of arguing commenced. And then hey, look at that, they made me valedictorian. I am to this day convinced that my teachers only made me valedictorian so that I’d stop trying to ditch. No, that’s not entirely true, there was one other person in the running for it. Want to know how she got out of it? She got pregnant.

Why didn’t I think of that!

So now I definitely had to go, and everyone was oh so proud of me, and the world was filled with rainbow sugar and ice-cream!

Yippee!

I hate it when people praise me for something that was very, very easy. Oh my, I got marginally better grades than twelve other people!  How did I ever manage that when half of them were delinquents, a quarter of them were distracted by getting pregnant, and the three other smart kids weren’t taking as many college classes as me?

How?

Okay…that was a lot of sarcasm there. Ahem. Yes, as I was saying. Make a big deal about it when I put actual effort into something. I lucked out in the gene pool and am able to do well in school. Praise me after I spend five hours drawing or writing something that shows drastic improvement of my technique. Don’t praise me for something that I barely noticed doing. If I didn’t work for it, I don’t want it.

                                   Oh my gosh! YOU’RE BREATHING!!!! You’re amazing!        

Digressions aside, I finally caved and said I’d go to the stupid graduation. And I would wear purple goggles. Because purple goggles, that’s why. Besides, they matched the graduation gown.

And so that prompted even more weeks of argument. Even though I had cleared it with the principal, for some reason my parents got very hung up on the purple goggles. I finally abandoned the plan when my mom pulled out the whole “Fine, do whatever you want, I don’t care.” Now, that may sound like a victory. Do not be fooled. That is the set-up for a lifetime of awkward, estranged Christmas visits. So the goggles were abandoned. Funny thing is, even though I had promised my mom that I wouldn’t wear them, she kept bringing them up. Every time we talked about graduation, she always asked “You’re not going to wear those goggles, are you?” She either didn’t believe or forgot. I may never know.

So graduation day approached, and there was so much I wanted to do. It could have been awesome. The plots were as minimal as having my friends stand behind me during the speech holding cue cards that said things like “applause” and “panic” to having them burst in dressed like voodoo witchdoctors, point to me, declare that I was now an adult, swarm, and remove me from the hall, all the while laughing maniacally. So many plans….. but I didn’t do them. Want to know why?

Because I love my mom, that’s why.

I love you enough to not ruin an elaborately planned social event!

This whole thing was obviously important to her, even if I didn’t care. So really, shutting up and taking it was the only thing I could’ve done.

…Okay, I did do one thing, but I made sure it was okay with my mother and the school principal first. Here is the beginning of my valedictorian speech.

Attention mortals! We have infiltrated the governments of this planet and taken hold of all your military bases. You are at our mercy, and I am here to prepare you for your future as the slave race of the glorious Xarcov Empire, I…. (look up, notice audience)

Um, (cough). Wrong speech, different date. Hold on a sec….. (paper shuffle) ….mass disintegrations will commence….brain transplantation…..clones already in place…all your base are belong to us…. (clear throat)

Okay.

Attention mortals! Today is our high school graduation. Today we have passed a milestone in our lives……

Blah, blah, achievements, blah, blah. It’s pretty normal after that. Yes, I am pretty weird. Not everyone threatens to enslave humanity in their valedictorian speech. But that’s okay; things are more fun when you’re weird.

That, and the un-weird are the first to go once the armada gets here.