The Book Cycle
      by Jay

        Saturday, January 18, 2003 -9:43 PM

      A new semester has begun bringing with it a slew of new problems and annoyances (and alot of fun and mischief too, but that's another story).   Of course during the first couple of days of school it is absolutely impossible to do anything productive.  No matter where you go there is line that is seemingly a mile long.  For a little while there was a line of people waiting just to get IN the bookstore.  But if you're patient enough you can actually avoid all the lines altogether.  I don't buy my books for class until after I've attended the class at least once.  One reason I do this is illustrated in the comic: I don't want to get to class and find out that I didn't get the right book or that we aren't going to use the book at all.  If you wait until the end of the first week to buy your books then usually the lines are quite smaller and easier to survive.  
      I was surprised at how many people came up to me after reading this comic telling me the same thing had happened to them.  I originally drew the comic over the Christmas holidays so I didn't have any book-buying experiences to base my comic on.  Instead I had to think up the worst possible scenarios and go from there (plus I had some help from a friend that goes to another *slightly* larger school too).   Personally, I've never had a teacher force me to buy another book for the class (even books they authored), but it sounds like alot of you have.  And of course I'm being quite facetious with the titles of the History books.   My suitemate is a history major and I've received A's in all of my history course, so the last thing I need is someone coming up to me and telling me I'm an idiot because I thought there really was an "Australian Campaign".  And our bookstore would never turn you down because of bookchecks (other schools do though). But the store clerks never seem happy when I use my checks, sometimes I think they are tempted to demand to be paid in cash when I buy books...