grind
Original: grind on Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal
Transcript
Panel 1:
Student (a young woman with dark hair): "How would you get good at math?"
Student: "Endless horrible useless grinding."
Teacher (a woman with dark hair, off to the side): "My teacher said the key is the joy of discovery."
Student: "That's right!"
Panel 2:
Student: "After several months of sitting and mentally and physically screaming and bashing your head on it, you will gain a tiny insight into the austere beauty of the universe, and that's enough to make you go back for more."
Teacher: "It's sort of like crawling up a mountain of glass while bleeding from your eyes, but then you reach the top and there are crumbs hidden in the snow."
Panel 3:
Student: "Please, just say something about wonder."
Teacher: "I wonder why sports are supposed to require expertise and practice but somehow it's bad form to be good at mathematics."
Votey:
Teacher (a frowning face, agitated): "Joy is for nice people! This is mathematics!"
Student (a young woman with dark hair): "How would you get good at math?"
Student: "Endless horrible useless grinding."
Teacher (a woman with dark hair, off to the side): "My teacher said the key is the joy of discovery."
Student: "That's right!"
Panel 2:
Student: "After several months of sitting and mentally and physically screaming and bashing your head on it, you will gain a tiny insight into the austere beauty of the universe, and that's enough to make you go back for more."
Teacher: "It's sort of like crawling up a mountain of glass while bleeding from your eyes, but then you reach the top and there are crumbs hidden in the snow."
Panel 3:
Student: "Please, just say something about wonder."
Teacher: "I wonder why sports are supposed to require expertise and practice but somehow it's bad form to be good at mathematics."
Votey:
Teacher (a frowning face, agitated): "Joy is for nice people! This is mathematics!"
Alt text
A three-panel SMBC comic. A student (young woman with dark hair) asks her teacher how to get good at math. The student insists the secret is "endless horrible useless grinding," while the teacher claims the real key is "the joy of discovery"; the student sarcastically agrees, "That's right!" In panel two the student describes months of screaming and bashing your head on it until you gain a tiny insight into the austere beauty of the universe, enough to keep going. The teacher offers her own analogy: it's like crawling up a mountain of glass while bleeding from your eyes, only to reach the top and find crumbs hidden in the snow. In panel three the student pleads, "Please, just say something about wonder," and the teacher instead muses about why sports are allowed to require expertise and practice but it's somehow bad form to be good at mathematics. Votey: a close-up of an agitated, frowning face declaring, "Joy is for nice people! This is mathematics!" The joke contrasts the romanticized "joy/wonder" framing of learning math with the brutal, grinding reality.
Transcribed by Claude Opus 4.8.