I am perhaps inordinately proud of the game I created in panel 1. There’s the Star Wars and golf hazard references, of course, but if you ever played Microsoft Golf way back in the day you probably heard your Male Golfer say “it’s in the sand” with utter kill-me-now resignation more than once. [August 7, 2012]
I wrote once, and I can’t remember where, but I wrote once that “Eagle-Supervised All-American Bearded Rebelliousness” should totally be the name of an Interesting Times book one day. [June 18, 2012]
Today’s comic made possible by: Seventh Sanctum Story Generator
[BEGIN COMMENTARY] I very much like the last panel and am pleased to report that I actually hit every point in that ridiculous story idea. Part of me is tempted to re-draw it larger and more detailed, and the other part says that it’s exactly as cramped and crude as it needs to be. So I leave it alone. [June 18, 2012]
Obviously in the three years since this comic I have become a much more well-adjusted adult, with his own house and keys and a wife. Also I have been down to just four comics a week for quite some time.
I think the legs were from a GI Joe figure originally, but I couldn’t say for certain.
Finally, I just realized that there’s probably a surprising number of comics to which the title of this one would apply. [June 15, 2012]
So this is probably super self-explanatory, but my friend Jeanette admitted to me that she reads these comics at work and I responded by saying I’d have a specific message for her in the next one. [June 14, 2012]
So, the Big Hiatus. As I mentioned in the next comic and elsewhere, I was in my 2nd practicum block in the Faculty of Education, teaching grade 5 at a nice little elementary school in the next town over. The collaborating teacher was friendly, the other staff pleasant, the kids overall wonderful. And, it was the most stressful period of my entire life.
Yes of course it was a lot of work. I was prepared for that, at least partially. In the end it was not that I couldn’t handle the workload or produce competent results. It was that my heart just was not in education. I did not really want to be there. Maybe it was the leadership role, maybe it was the pressure of wanting the kids to succeed, maybe it was just that I couldn’t handle being an extrovert all day. Whatever it was, it had me lying on the floor, staring at the ceiling of my room with actual pain in my chest because I was so stressed out. Each night, I didn’t want to go to sleep because that meant it’d be the next day and I wasn’t prepared for that. One night I actually finished up the work I needed to do, so for once I didn’t need to worry, and then guess what? I spent the rest of the evening and the next morning flipping out because I felt like I must have been forgetting something.
Some days I’d finish up a day at school, get to my car and weep, actually cry, because some excusable mistake I’d made during the day was just piled on top of everything else and I didn’t know what to do with myself. I felt like I couldn’t quit and I couldn’t go on. I’d beat myself up on the drive home, arrive looking drained and say I was “just tired”. On the “up” side, I lost my appetite and a decent chunk of weight. But I kept trying to think the problem through and coming to the same point: if not education, then what? Everything in the last few years had been geared toward going into education and here I was being flattened out by it. What would I do with myself if I left?
People could tell that something was eating away at me but I have never been one to really, honestly open up about my personal problems and so I never spoke about it. One day, I finally hit my breaking point. I was staying at my parents’ place at the time, and I came down to supper and calmly announced that I was quitting. I couldn’t hack it and it was time to face that. After my parents got over their surprise they convinced me to talk to my Faculty Advisor about it. The act of talking was difficult but hugely calming, and in further conversations with her I took away two key pieces of advice that I should probably try and remember forever:
1.) Recognize that this is one path out of many and that there are always options open to you elsewhere. You should never feel trapped by what you do.
2.) Even if you’re moving on, put in your best effort to until the very end. If it goes badly, you’ll never have to worry about whether or not you could have done better.
At the time of that conversation I was halfway through the practicum block and on the verge of having a week off for spring break, which is when I took that bus trip (and got sick, but anyway) and got some of the perspective and quiet time I needed. When I returned, the people I worked with noted a marked change in my attitude — probably due to my new realization that there was, in fact, a light at the end of the tunnel. I worked like crazy and finished the school year, then took time off from the Education program that eventually turned into a complete departure.
In the end, I am honestly very glad for the experience but I know now that it is just not where I’m supposed to be. Even if I’d managed to get over the stress, the last thing our education system needs is yet another teacher who doesn’t love his/her job and is just there to pick up a paycheque. Also I will never again begrudge teachers their summer holidays, because I have a good idea of how much they put up with for the other 10 months of the year. [June 13, 2012]
The first commenter down is right, it really isn’t irony, is it? Just amusing. [June 13, 2012]
This is going to make me sound like a jerk, but I’m going to be honest here and tell you…
Why I Might Reject Your Comic Idea (Even If I Asked You For One)
It has happened that people have helped me develop great ideas that I have used. But in the main, when I ask for an idea I’m dimly hoping that the stars will align and you will open your mouth and say something brilliant, something that you maybe didn’t even think you were going to say. If that happens, great! When it doesn’t I go back to thinking for myself.
Part of it is that I’m protective of my work, and don’t really want people telling me what to do. Part of it is that I have an (enormously varied) audience to keep in mind. And part of it is, like the alt-text says, this is supposed to be a journal comic; if I used everybody else’s suggestions (and these happen more often than you might think) it would sort of defeat the purpose, wouldn’t it? [June 12, 2012]
Hey, it’s the time machine from #80! Only it makes more visual sense and the arcing electricity has gotten way cooler thanks to an increased special effects budget. [June 12, 2012]
This comic is true. (Well, except that I ever stayed up at night trying to draw a spooky thing). Occasionally I get the impulse to try and draw something scary. I have a hard time saying where exactly the impulse comes from; it may just be because it’s entirely unlike what I usually draw. But the thing is, just like in real life, if I ever actually scared anybody I’d feel terrible. I have played one Scary Prank in my memory and I apologized almost immediately afterward.
This is a bunny trail, because you’re possibly curious about what that one prank was — when I worked at the theatre, I went upstairs to the projection area to get something while the shows were running. Those projectors were old and noisy, and with all five on you really couldn’t hear much outside of your immediate vicinity. Steve was cleaning one of them and didn’t notice me up there, so I walked closer to him, pointed and made a face like Donald Sutherland at the end of Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Then I waited a few seconds for him to stand up, turn, and see me standing there. It startled him pretty badly, but even though he laughed about it right away I still felt bad and really had to question why I did it in the first place.
So…Interesting Times won’t be turning into a horror comic any time soon, is what I’m trying to say. [June 12, 2012]
