Outsourcing
Daddy looking out for Cleo’s education!
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Enthusiasm is expensive
but some things you just can’t buy;
part of doing homework
is you need to be seen to try.
It’s your work ethic kept you honest
right up to this moment, it seems.
Although you could just be joking
as you live other kids’ dreams.
Alex is quite the planner, it seems,
thinking on what you forgot.
It just shows that, in the long run,
he’ll keep you running to plot.
Planning a party for your friends is nice and what you may want to do but you can’t just abandon your responsibilities on a whim to do whatever you want. Education for Cleo right now is one of her responsibilities so that takes priority. Besides she’s got two weeks so an hour or so each night after homework is done, especially if she’s coordinating with the twins parents out to be fine.
And the dragon missile incident from last week remains unresolved.
I really wanted to see the fallout of that one too…
Dang, we skipped over the aftermath of the Dragon Space Program’s Kaya missile. This makes 11 weeks without Kai… Well, on the bright side, Cleo didn’t give the fourth wall (us) a flash, can t say the same about Kaya and Kai. So this is the first time Cleo’s tried skipping her homework by outsourcing it? Given Alex’s comment, it seems Cleo the little noodle may still be a bit of a noodle head sometimes. That and the fact that she failed to realize the Twins’ parents may also be planning a birthday celebration. It’s their first birthday in Hybrid City, so hopefully it’s gonna be something special! But it’s still two weeks away, so keep your shirt on, Cleo, and get to your homework! Oh, and p.s., 😁😜Kai saw up your skirt when Kaya pounced on you, he didn’t mention it so it wouldn’t be too awkward! Don’t go throwing a hissy fit, you saw him changing and he barely had time to pull his pants back up!
On panel 4 Cleo’s expression makes it look like she was joking about outsourcing her homework, but then in the next panel, she looks serious about it. Was she being sarcastic or not?
I think she was joking; she’s too conscientious to cheat on her homework. I think her expression in the next panel was just her surprise(shock?) at Alex’s response, and that Dad had thought of that before her. 🙂
Also…
I like the (deliberate?) call-back to movies/tv-shows of the 50s-60s-70s stereotypical husband/father coming home from work at the office and promptly removing his tie. Though Cleo and her little ribbon/bow are way cuter than any man or his tie. 🙂
Disagree. She wasn’t kidding, she was smiling because she was already planning the party in her head.
Probably not, given her look of disappointment. Her father may have overestimated her ability to come up with homework outsourcing, given Alex’ comment. Maybe she never felt like this before and this is her first time with friends she really enjoys. Or she’s a big ditzy sometimes, like Kaya, so she didn’t think about dodging homework like this before. Maybe a bit of both. She could always give her homework to Kaya, who has more experience in outsourcing homework, likely having Kai do it, or if all else fails, have Kaya burn it and tell the teacher, “My Dragon burned my homework,” while pointing at Kaya.
Well, cuter than most men at least. Kai would definitely look adorable doing that, as well as any small, effeminate man or preteen, like Tony Tony Chopper, Chowder (from the cartoon Chowder), Avatar Aang (age 12), or Steven Universe.
[Feels Kai’s angry glares at the back of head and angry aura washing over the area]
Sorry, teen! Sorry Kai, you look (and sound) younger than you are, so I guess Dragon Hybrids age slower than normal Hybrids and Humans… I’m not taking back what I said about you being cute! Jeez, does this kid have Conqueror’s Haki or something?
Also known as staying one step ahead of your children.
All parents were children once too.
Cleo seems to get a bit laser focused on things to the point she wants to have only that thing to actually focus on when she has multiple obligations, and her father anticipated that, probably because someone in the family (possibly even himself) has or had that distinctive quirk.
Panel 2: There should be a comma at the end of “Oh”.
Panel 6: Ditto the second “sooner”.
Panel2: Nope. Cleo says “oh crisp” as a single exclamation without a pause.
Panel 6: Definitely not in Cleo’s speech bubble. Not necessary in Alex’s.
Unusual euphemism/swear word substitute strikes again! I guess we can add “Oh Crisp,” to the list of Twin Dragons profanity.
Oh my, Alex has a mouth and a nose! :-Þ
In my circles, birthday parties are arranged by the person whose birthday is celebrated, or their parents if they’re a child. A friend inviting me to a party for my own birthday would be weird to me. Thus I find it really strange that Cleo didn’t even consider that the Romeros might be planning a party themselves.
It’s a “surprise party.” Hard to arrange those for yourself. 😉 🙂
The surprise aspect means that they can’t tell you to not arrange your own party, because that would ruin the surprise. So you’ll be preparing, buying food, inviting guests, maybe making reservations or renting something – and just when you’re busy making the cake, some “friend” shows up, cancels all your plans and abducts you to another party. Surprise!
He is definitely younger than I expected.
new running gag : never showing Alex’ face.
Kudos for not putting an “s” after the apostrophe.
The Chicago Manual of Style and the New York Public Library Writer’s Guide to Style and Usage both disagree with you.
https://www.chicagomanualofstyle.org/qanda/data/faq/topics/PossessivesandAttributives/faq0001.html
https://ell.stackexchange.com/questions/6295/when-a-word-ends-in-s-or-x-do-you-add-s-or-just-an
To be fair, I also always saw this happen with names that end in X or S. So in my book, Alex’ is right :p
Also to be fair, there are way to many different styles of writing in my opinion. Some sources take Oxford as THE style, other sources take another. It’s hard to decide on what exactly to use.
Don’t forget Z.
There will never be one definitive and universal writing style. As much as I wish for clear and unambiguous grammar, the reality is that a language is created by its speakers, and there will always be variations and sloppiness. Style guides can only describe what variants are in common use, and make recommendations. Those that try to be normative will find that reality doesn’t bend to their wishes.
Yep, it’s definitely a style thing and not “wrong” either way. My best friend growing up was named Ross, so he always had to deal with people telling him to write Ross’ instead of Ross’s. He thinks that Ross’ looks silly, and I’ve always thought that too, but we’re probably in the minority.
If only homework was that easy.
The twins’ birthday is June 15, which is two weeks away. On June 1, there’s homework? I remember having most of May off when I was in elementary school. Granted, by the time I graduated high school, we were only getting out of school by mid to late May, but that had already seemed pretty extreme to me, since the school year was also starting earlier than it had before.
I guess the original reason for kids having off of school in the summer was they were needed to help out on the farm, since unlike most farming games I’ve played, growing crops need more intensive care than just watering them if it didn’t rain. Also don’t need to be watered every single day. With so few kids being involved in farming in this millennium (at least, so far), that excuse has probably worn pretty thin.
I looked up the school year in the country I think Robin is from, their year starts September 1 and ends June 30. I remember getting out for summer in May as well, my birthday is early may and sometimes it doubled as a “no more school” party.
It also depends on the school district, they can choose to change the dates for the start and end of summer vacation (apart from the amount of days, I believe). When I was in High School, my local district (at least my local district) decided to move the Summer break time from June-September to May-August in order to match local college semesters/trimesters.
Yes it does vary across the U.S. My time in school growing up the school year generally started in mid August and ran until late May.
Farming was a major reason. Also; you do not have to go back all that far to find that there was little-to-no air-conditioning in schools, even in the Southern U.S. “Summer school” classes were available for students who failed a regular season class, and those who just wanted a chance to take something additional. In my area, teachers for those summer classes who wanted a/c had to bring their own window unit.
“You can’t downsize your homework, either.”
…you know, looking closely at Alex’s figure throughout this chapter and cross-referencing the dialogue, it occurs to me that the gender has been as ambiguous as the face. I doubt you’ll see this, Robin, but was that intentional?