Pearls Before Swine by Stephan Pastis for March 14, 2023

It helps keep your brain sharp by studying a subject you will never use.

Does Pig ever have a nightmare where he shows up at school wearing clothes?

Me, I always have a dream about finding there’s tons and tons of homework I need to do, usually over the school holidays.

I also have the "I can’t find the classroom where the test is dream.

if I knew then what faced me when I graduated, the nightmare would have been passing!

No. I’m 82, and it never stops.

Coincidence? Both Arlo & Janis, and Pearls Before Swine are nightmare themed today.

Studying while you’re awake won’t help. You need to study in your dreams the night before. Different set of memories.

I have a recurring nightmare where I have to return to high school because I supposedly didn’t turn in the senior project required to graduate.

Weird recurring dreams are the worst. But they can also be good- I keep having this one where I go camping with friends. I guess it’s worse when it makes no sense.

I once dreamed I had to go back to high school and re-do 11th grade, I think. I also dreamed I was back in first grade, the exact same school, and when I sat down at my seat, I suddenly thought, “Wait a minute, didn’t I already do this?” :P :P :P

In fact I grew out of it when I started having nightmares about presenting my paper. Without the paper. In the nude. In front of the whole school…

Never was good at math-especially higher math m[self so join the revolution! ;D

One of my favorite XKCDs.

Last night I dreamed I was playing pinball with a large number of multi-balls. They got stuck at the bottom of the table and even the flippers couldn’t work any more. When I woke up, I really had to go to the bathroom. Symbolism much?

Got a good laugh from Rat’s response today!

If it’s not that it’s something else, Pig!

I doubt Pig ever studied calculus He’d probably be lucky to pass an exam in basic arithmetic.

Rat knows what’s up.

Pig took Calculus? Who’d a thunk it?

Never had any school related dreams or nightmares.

If you have that calculus nightmare, then you are just like everybody else. Strive for differentiation!

Nope. They never end.

I made my living as an electrical engineer and Calculus was the neatest course in all the years of my education. I never used it in my job but I tutored others.

Never had that nightmare

Having no idea what Calculus is, I decided to look it up. The definition actually made sense, but brought up another question. Defined as follows:

In simplest terms, calculus is a branch of mathematics that deals with rates of change. For example: maybe you want to calculate the change in velocity of a car rolling to a stop at a red light. Calculus can help you figure out that change.

The question it brought up was, Why would I want to calculate the change in velocity of a car rolling to a stop at a red light?As long as the car stops at a red light, is that not the important thing?

I haven’t had a final exam dream in decades.

I still have the dream. I graduated college in 1996.

Don’t drink and derive…..

Why do you need to learn calculus? Because without it, you can’t learn differential equations. Why do you need to learn differential equations? Because without them, life as we know it today wouldn’t exist.

My nightmare includes not remembering what time the exam is, as well as not knowing where the class is.

https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2023/03/14?ct=v&cti=274986

I aced mine last night…finally.

I never liked calc and I have a degree in math (and computer sci). On the other hand, my daughter loves calculus (did it for fun in HS). She has an accounting degree. Go figure.

Sometimes I have a dream I am recalled back in the service and wondering what I am going to do with the house!!

I still have the dreams where it’s the end of the semester just before I graduate and I realize I have not gone to any of my classes.

I’m 63 and I still occasionally have that flippin’-rippin’ dream.

I can remember sleepless nights before an exam…

Imagine having to maintain an A plus average.

Last night I had the strangest dream

I sailed away to China

In a little rowboat to find ya

For me, it was never the final. It was the mid-term, that always showed up the day AFTER it was too late to drop the class without a penalty.

But the nightmares continued monthly until I was 42 or so.

My husband, a university professor, has nightmares that he’s forgotten to WRITE the test. He walks into a room full of students without it. I’ve forgotten to ask if he is clothed

The nightmare of being on stage with no idea what your lines are or what part you’re playing is so common they gave it a name: “The Actor’s Nightmare.”

Arlo had a nightmare, is there going to be more?

I still have the not completing the course/ not studying for the test dream. My other recurring one is missing my flight or train through never getting to the airport/station on time through various faux pas.

Forty-some years on and I still occasionally have the “lost in the halls” nightmare.

Not really, Pig.

I have nightmares about learning I did not finish my degree and wake up realizing I have not worked in that field in 30 years.

https://www.gocomics.com/arloandjanis/2023/03/14?ct=v&cti=2143

It never stops I am 65 and it never ever stops

I used to have those dreams. They stopped around the times I started having dreams that my toddler ran off in a parking lot, I couldn’t catch her, and she got ran over and killed by a car.

Hah! I had dreams for years after graduating that somehow my record got messed up and I was short like 3 credits to get my degree. Funny how those dreams can last a long time.

I’m 74 and haven’t had that dream, or a variation, for a couple of years, so maybe it does stop eventually. In my case it was usually a case of not being able to find the test location, and its usually chemistry, not calculus.

There’s a saying, “May all your dreams come true.” I desperately hope not! (Especially the one with the big teeth and a deep pit.)

My dental hygienist studies calculus.

Yes

I was a math and physics major, so my version of the dream was history. I dreamed I had signed up for a course, skipped the first day because I knew it would just be handing out syllabi, and then totally forgot about it until I saw it on my schedule the night before the final.

I’ve never had dreams like that for some reason, but my wife did. Only once she became a college professor, she started dreaming that she was being told on five minutes notice that she had to teach a class she didn’t know anything about.

Holy smokes, I though only I had those dreams! To this day I dream (once in a blue moon, but still) that somehow they find out that I missed one class in college, thus my degree is invalid, and everything that was based on that (advanced degree, job, etc.) and I have to go back and take that one last class…

“arlo and janis” had the same theme today…

Pig is in highschool? thought he had a job. is this a flashback?

“You NEVER graduate dream school”. George Carlin

At age 67, I can tell you that, at least for me, it hasn’t yet.

Happy World Math Day everyone.

I’m nearly 80 and still have a dream once in a while about not being able to remember my locker combination.

I don’t know about calculus,but “in your underwear in front of a huge crowd” is a dream t hat will never go away

I’m nearly 70 and still trying to find my locker.

I graduated 33 years ago and still have high school anxiety. I skipped a lot of classes (they should never have built a high school right next to a lake) and still have nightmares (and even daymares) that I went back into the school and I had skipped so many classes that I didn’t know what room I was supposed to be in. Or I’d know the room but the teacher wouldn’t recognize me.

A dream is a wish your heart makes.

In my 2nd decade of retirement and I still dream of work projects … will it ever end? I call them pee dreams.

My dreams are always, I’m back at work in the power plant.

After all these years I still occasionally have nightmares about not being able to find my school locker, or can’t remember the combination, or it’s finals day and I haven’t attended class all year. There’s just something wrong with an educational system that causes life-long nightmares. I’m reminded of the Pink Floyd song, “The Wall”.

45 years old, and nope.

At 70 and retired for nearly three years, I find my dreams rotate among several scenarios:

I’m at high school or college and haven’t done the assignment I’m supposed to hand in;

I’m at college, trying in vain to pack up my dorm room to go home;

I’m at work (a composite of my various jobs) and can’t find where my desk is (and my missing clothes are in it);

I’m at work and can’t find the bathroom (and I wake up needing to pee);

I’m on my way to work (or on my way home) and my subway train has been re-routed through territory that is utterly alien, and I need to figure out where to get off and what train to change to;

I’m at a science fiction convention in an incredibly large hotel, scheduled to be on a panel discussion, and trying to find the right room.

Hey, at least I get variety.

The reason old people are into Bible studies…they are cramming for their final exams. >8-[

I wonder if teachers surprising students with a pop quiz is still a thing in schools

In my last go round at college one day I walked into my 8086 Assembler class and discovered we were having a midterm. I didn’t remember it was going to happen and hadn’t studied. I got one of the highest scores in the class. I have no idea how I did that. I wish the rest of school had been that easy.

my final exam nightmares ended after I retired from teaching… now they all revolve around teaching a class I haven’t prepped for

100% of my “school stress dreams” are me going back to high school as 35 year old me and trying to remember my locker combination! Ye gods!!!

Nobody ever forced me to study calculus. I even got through grad school without it. I went into accounting and tax and NEVER needed it.

My mother-in-law said she still had that nightmare in her 60s, long after her collegiate days.

Calculus, to determine just how far to the left of the intelligence mean Pig falls, more than 3 standard deviations below the mean, I believe…

No, no they don’t.

This is my first time to see Pig ‘head-on’ and – Look! Neither ear is pointing upward…

I’m surprised Pastis didn’t do a Pi joke since it’s National Pi Day.

I like the expression on Pig’s face in frame 3.

I still have that dream about my doctorate – and I finished it 15 years ago.

I hate that dream.

I have never understood why “and then all your dreams will come true” is always presented as such a wonderful thing.

Oft-heard refrain in HS calculus: “Derive my a$$.”

Pig has beard stubble?

I still have dreams of being in high school. I usually wake up and wonder why my high school was given a layout in my dreams it never had in real life. That and why I dreamed of field trips we never took.

For me, the “actor’s nightmare” won’t seem to go away either. :-)

That’s a familiar nightmare to me—I call them “school dreams.” They’re always about some class I forgot to attend, not even sure when and where the class meets, forgot to buy the textbook, and now it’s the final. Sometimes I manage to combine the school dream with my other regular, the “bathroom dream.”

In my “back to school” dreams I don’t have to worry about taking the test… I can never find the classroom.

No, that nightmare never stops.

Graduated high school 50+ years ago, and had another one last week… so, no they don’t stop. P.S. And I was a good student, and taught Algebra a few years later.

Your nightmares help make you an edgy character, Pig. And that’s a Good Thing….

I found calculus challenging but at least I could get through it!

When I got to group theory followed by ring theory all bets were off

Barely scraped through those classes!

No, it never does.

As nearly as I can tell the answer is no

This must be a common dream! I’ve had pretty much the same dream, except it was a more advanced class like Linear Algebra or something like that (I did take Calculus and passed). Either it was the final, and I wasn’t ready for it (and wondering if I could fake it), or that the class was too difficult so I stopped going but never bothered to formally drop it, and would therefore get an “F” no matter what I did. These are the times that I am so thankful to wake up and realize it was a dream (or nightmare)!

I’m 68 years old, and I still have that nightmare.

I study the calous on my feet.

With me it wasn’t so much final exam anxiety. Decades after I’d graduated, I’d have dreams in which I’d have to go back to school because it was determined that I was short on credits and should never have been allowed to graduate.

I TEACH Calculus, and I STILL have dreams about exams in a class with an imaginary advanced subject in which I never opened the book.

In my equivalent I had forgotten about the class and didn’t know which room it was in.

No, it doesn’t. Nor do the dreams where you’re expected to perform in a play and you don’t know the lines.