Luann by Greg Evans and Karen Evans for December 29, 2021

Touché, Bernice.

Truer words … ✨

I hope she decides to do something else.

Isn’t that the truth!

Hey! We just got some facts! Luann has a plan to teach and she is 19 years old.

You do you Luann, even if it means a course correction…

Bernie’s going back into friend mode! Maybe Nil has been good for her with his gentle questioning of her assumptions.

Wishy washy is Luann’s personality through the whole cartoon. No surprises there.

With the recent cartoons about Luann’s parents feeling old and a bit burnt out on running the fuse, I predict that Luann will wind up inheriting it, after they decide to retire, live the dream, and travel, maybe even become ex-pats (since living on retirement money might not be feasible in the States.) Belize might make a good choice—on the caribbean coast with warm ocean water year-round, dramatically lower cost of living, the official language is English, they use the American Dollar, and they don’t even require passports of Americans.

Still 19? A heck of a lot has happened in her first college year(s).

Another poll‽

Woah! There are more young people in the world—especially females—who don’t have such a choice than little Bernice could ever dream of. Everyone knows that. Can we please skip to the part to when Luann meets whoever it is she’s going to tutor.

So now we have it – Luann is 19.

More like 35

Just 19??? I think time has slowed down even more, in the Luann Universe, since she left High School.

Bernice you are not helping.

Luann Universe has turn back the clock.

Being 19 has nothing to do with it…

The 3rd panel has Luann Degroot’s eyes crossing together?

I must admit, Bern the Hussy has a pretty air tight argument there.

I’m 32, I grew up during a time when going to college was considered a guarantee that you would be able to get work in your chosen career field . . . however, extenuating circumstances prevented me from going to college – at least right after I graduated high school in 2007. Still, looking back on it now, I’m glad I never went . . . almost everybody I know who’s my age or even younger who have attended college, university, trade school, tech school, or anything of the sort, and have gotten their degrees, diplomas, Masters, Bachelors, whatever, are still unable to get into their chosen career; now, here they are, drowning in student debt, unable to get a decent job, and regretting wasting four or more years of their life on something that did nothing for them in the long run. A lot of blame is the job market itself: there’s been a tremendous shift in the mindset of many employers who want people to already possess X-amount of years’ worth of experience to potentially be hired – even for the lowest, most menial jobs you can imagine like a janitor (honestly, how many years experience do people need cleaning toilets?) . . . but, how can people have experience if they can’t get jobs to gain experience?

But even so, as I said, I have no regrets about going to college. I’m not at all unhappy being a struggling and unsuccessful puppeteer/cartoonist/content creator who’s also a full-time home healthcare provider – it gives me quite an edge.

Nineteen was my first wife’s age. First.

Four times a day

After all this time in college (I know Luanniverse time does not run concurrent with ours), she is just 19. In a few years, she will be 17…

You also have a good writing style. Kind of fun to read, so add that to your emerging talents. Never know when that “door” will open, and you never know what’s on the other side. Good luck.

Yep, Luann, your life course is already set in stone ( cough cough). Yet Bern upends that whole idea. Wait, WHAT?

Bernice has a point.

HOORAY! Is happening! Luann is questioning her choices thanks to Bernice, who has finally decided to act like a best friend and not like an enemy. This is incredible! I never liked the idea of Luann becoming a teacher. Thanks to Bernice, she can now face the possibility that she was wrong and start thinking about other study and career options. This could finally be the beginning of her return to the theater, as an actress or a set designer, or the beginning of something totally new. It’s great that is Bernice the one helping her understanding♡.

She can definitely change friends

“Tell you what, Bernice. I’ll change My mind about becoming a school teacher if You’ll change Your mind about becoming a “Psychologist” or something. Because Lord knows, YOU would make a LOUSY one. Deal?” – Luann

Since when did Luann make plans to teach, she doesn’t have a work ethic. What could she possibly teach anyone for that matter? How to half ass your way through life? How to not use your brain?

Listen to your instincts, Luann. You don’t really want to be a teacher.

I learned that to be a good teacher, one must be a good entertainer as well. I learned that by watching the career of my neighbor a half mile down the street, Dr. William H. Cosby, Jr. Ed.D. Too bad that he really screwed up.

I had a new English teacher in high school. She was so nervous, she would fiddle with the top button on her blouse until it came off. Every day. It was hilarious!

Flunked out after 3 1/2 years. Repeated one semester and flunked it again. Joined the service. Out of the service after 9 years got a job. Went to Community College at night for programming. Got another job as programmer and retired. Worked out well as far as I’m concerned.

This strip is a bigger soap-opera than any one on TV!!

I think Wilma Flintstone said some thing similar once..

https://www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/billyjoel/shesalwaysawoman.html

Oh, and she never gives out

And she never gives in

She just changes her mind

Use the Force, LuAnn…

Luann 19! That means poor Puddles is nearly 130 in dog years. Time to stop the Luanniverse time machine.

WOW. Luann just had an epiphany. Her brain actually clicked. Her synapsis synapsed. It’s amazing. I suppose they will discuss this all week, maybe two weeks. We’ll see. It is super refreshing to see Bernice not being a snarky hag, though.

Playboy playmate seems fitting.

Luann, if you want to be a teacher, you need to have this tutoring thing.

And without a second thought…

If she’s 19, she’s about freshman / sophomore age. And people do change their majors – some several times. She really liked staging and working on sets for theater. She might go into show business – not in front of a camera but one of the people who make movie magic happen behind the scenes.

The mother of all punch lines

I think I’ve been reading this strip for about 30 years when they were about 5 yrs old

Uh huh, yeah, that’s nice. What is that face Luann’s making in panel 3?

You should know Bernice. Your career goals might not have changed, but other “things” in your life seem to be keep evolving. (As your dreams keep telling you.)

Bernice has a good point. If Luann has a problem teaching one, will she be able to teach 20? I think all potential teachers should have to spend at least a month teaching as a substitute. Then they can find out if teaching is really their cup of tea.

First surprise: Luann had a PLAN??? This is the first we’ve heard of it.

Second surprise: Third panel. Has Bernice awakened something in our eponymous lass? Are we about to see a “new” direction for Luann? (Probably not.)

First confirmation: Luann is 19-years-old. Ergo, so are Bernice and the gang that all graduated together. OK! Eighteen to twenty! Picky, picky, picky!8^

Who can? Ah, maybe a 19 year old male! There is nothing genetically sex determinative about indecision.

Get out now while you are young! Teachers are leaving the profession in record numbers.

WOW! A quote worthy of M*A*S*H’s MAJ Sydney Freedman! Maybe Bernice is in the right gig after all!

No kidding… I had mates who changed their majors 5 times before graduating… ’course it took them a bit longer to graduate

But they are college Sophomores unless they have really late birthdays.

I went to school as a music major to eventually become a band director. By my second semester, I knew it was a mistake. I’m currently finishing my master’s degree in library science. Find what makes you happy!

So if not teaching, what? We’ve been shown Luann’s goal for years—is it all for nothing?

If Luann ends up being assigned a kid who restores her faith in teaching, please don’t let it be Faye. I don’t want to see more foolish mentoring and chaperoning.

Luann needs more experiences to discovery what she truly “loves”. It doesn’t sound like it’s kids

Oh goody, some misogyny to start the day. “Haha, wimmen be fickle!”

Come on really?! Any 19 year old. Drop the “female” from this and I will like it.

Worst thing you can do is be in a job or career that you hate doing, even if you are good at it…..

Bernice should change her major. She would be an awful shrink.

Wait until your 50, change your career and move across country to get a MBA.

Exactly kids right out of high school have no business going into college, they are way too immature. What this nation needs is a required minimum of two years paid public service whether it be military or social work. And have a bill to provide something like the GI bill to finance education, either college or skilled trades apprentice. Colleges at this time in history are basically preying on naïve kids.

Just before his last semester in law school, a law student told his parents he didn’t want to be a lawyer.

Luann needs to realize she wants to be an elementary school teacher, not a teacher of teenagers. Nothing at all wrong with that.

Any time is right

Bernice is being a little bit less snobby then usual. Guess she’s feeling under the weather.

19 years for the last 10… works for me.

We may never see any tutoring students. Not this week anyway.

You can’t possibly find a teaching certificate with a couple of years in a community collage.

Remember when Bernice organized all of Nancy’s business papers for the Fuse, and Luann was boasting about just how impressive a job she had done of scrubbing the toilets? She may have found her calling. Luann and Knute can work together as washroom attendants.

My friend’s daughter wanted to be a chef since she was a child – she had both the talent and the drive. Some of the meals she made as a teenager were some of the best food I have ever eaten. So, when the time came her Mom got her into Le Cordon Bleu college here in Minnesota. Two quarters and roughly $78k later she wanted to be a game designer…

Hmm, what could a 19 yr. old girl tutor some one that they might find interesting enough to want to learn?

She could become a chiropractor…

Bern should next ask Luann what she’s passionate about. Maybe we can get back to art. I hope Bern brings that up; she has seen Luann doing sketches for Zebo’s class.

so…6:1 ratio in aging from our world to Luann’s?

Better to realize you are in the wrong program (for you) before graduating, not after.

I am very impressed with 19 year olds that know what they want to do with their lives.

I changed plans 3x, and ended up working in a different field anyway.

I mentored Student teachers for years. I recall one student teacher who did the educational class work. She finally did student teaching & then decided it was not for her. She left the program & every now & again I wondered what her next step would have been…

When did Luann have a plan to become a teacher? I’m old enough to remember that the reason she was going to community college instead of Muni U. was because she could not make up her mind what she wanted her career to be, so she was taking classes to make up her mind without having to declare a major. Now it sounds like she has always planned to be a teacher in which case why didn’t she just enroll in Muni to begin with? (Answer is that Luann enrolling in Muni would have distracted from the big "Bernice Goes to College story that kind of fizzled out anyway Also, when did Muni (for Municiple) become “Mooney”?)

Bernice is a classicist: See (actually, hear) the great Mildred Bailey: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9G9BEdXAb2w

From what I’ve seen of her education and her work with little kids, I think being a kindergarten teacher would be more her thing? She loved working with them at her old job, though that was a preschool I assume. Being a college grad at 24 with a teaching degree may sound okay, but teaching kids in high school would be tricky. That requires a lot of experience and discipline.

Tutoring a most likely high school kid when you are just out of high school yourself probably isn’t a good idea – the “kid” could be 17 or 18 and either impossible to teach, or too tempting if their hormones align.

My wife married me when she was eighteen years old. I can’t tell you how glad I am that she’s never changed her mind.

Luann has a plan for her life? Don’t make me laugh. She is in a downward spiral of self-delusion and self-doubt. At this point it seems questionable whether she will ever attain a profession….

No! She’s turning into Cathy!

Oh, tutoring and teaching are VERY different. Plus, you might think you won’t like something, but by trying it you find out you DO like it, because it’s not like what you’d thought it would be.

Are we building up for another disappointing “thud”? Like Gunther’s trip to Peru, or Al and Irma’s unseen wedding, the girls’ camping trip, Bernice and Luann’s trip to New York, Luann’s computer date that lasted all of 5 minutes before she got dumped? It’s going to be 2022, and my wish is to see more of Tiffany emerging from the shower and looking for a towel. Make comics fun again.

Isn’t changing their minds women’s prerogative regardless of age?

Freshman/sophomore year is a great time to change your mind; you still have enough time to earn enough credits for a different major, after having tried one and found out it’s not great. Sophomore year was when I switched from chem to comp sci. ;-)

I wonder if Luann’s gonna tutor Fay.