- Can't Buffy take this semester off and resume going to college next year? A friend of mine did that when she got pregnant and was a semester below us but she was able to get back to college after she gave birth.

- Buffy loving poetry is a nice touch (I used it in a Spander fic I've written :) ) I wonder what Spike would have done with this information.

- Dawn skips going to school and poor Buffy gets blamed for it. I sympathize with Buffy and can understand why she treats Dawn like a kid, because Dawn acts like one.

- I couldn't stop laughing at the scene where Anya was watching the costumers and Xander and Willow are amused by her reasoning, I forgot all about it, it's so funny. It made me think about the elections in the US, and I can honestly say that Anya is a republican. I love when she bluntly called Giles a foreigner, poor Giles always putting up with her, lol.

- ANYA: Oh, and you know what else is unAmerican? French people.
WILLOW: You don't say.

LOL!!

- Awww, love supportive!Xander about Buffy dropping college, and his giddiness that she'll join the real world like himself, then looks at Willow and says, "You'll see." He is Buffy's bra indeed :D

- Buffy's conversion with Giles is foreshadowing their same conversation in Tabula Rasa –minus Giles leaving- where Giles refuses to take Buffy's responsibility over Dawn and pushes her to be the grown up and take care of her sister.

- It's sweet how the Scoobies are helping Dawn with math. I understand why Buffy got upset, she's under a lot of pressure, poor her.

- Willow doesn't understand why Buffy is acting like Miss Minchin, she thinks that Buffy's behavior will make Dawn more stubborn (and she's right) but she doesn't understand what it feels like to have this much responsibility. Willow is actually like Buffy, lives off her parents' money, sleeps in a dorm, never experienced the troubles of adult life, even when she must know so much about it from reading, it's not the same as living it.

- I think Willow's disapproval of Buffy's stern attitude toward Dawn goes back to her upbringing. Her parents were obsessed about her scores in school and her mother seems like the controlling type, bossing her around without giving her the freedom to do things her way (she used to pick her clothes for God's sake.)

- Tara understands why Buffy acts like that because she had experienced it, but did she say that she had to take care of her brother? Doesn't he look older than her? Or does she mean in the traditional female cooks/cleans after/washes/irons clothes way?

- The conversation between Willow and Tara is very interesting, about the witchcraft. Tara is right to be scared, Willow is changing so fast (if only Tara met her in S1) and she's getting more confident and stronger, even her obsession with magic is way more than Tara's.

- I felt bad for Willow because Tara thinks that she'd be into boys when she's bored. Willow didn't give Tara a reason to doubt her love and loyalty to her. I guess Tara thought that way because Willow already had sex with Oz and seemed to have enjoyed it, so maybe it is experimental with Tara.

- Dawn's rebellious act is more than just about her mother's death, she also lost connection with life after she learned she was the key. It was a good thing for Buffy to tell Dawn that if she wasn't working with Buffy, she'd be sent away. I think treating Dawn like an adult helps her act like one.

- Wow, Willow and Tara are a couple in heaven if this was their first fight.

- Darn it, I wish we were able to see Giles torture Glory's minion, I'm sure he's an expert in torture. *Remembers when he tortured Ethan in S2*

- Just like Spike, Tara takes Glory's torture and doesn't reveal a thing about Dawn. I wonder if one of the Scoobies would have let it slip, I doubt any of them will.

- God, I can't help but cry whenever Willow cries.

- Words can't express how much I love when Spike was about to touch Dawn's hair but pulled back when she looked at him.

- Awwww, when Anya offers to sleep with Willow, how adorable! I'm a sucker for anything Willow-Anya, and I'm not talking slash here.

- BUFFY: And I won't let you go.
WILLOW: This is not your choice. It's mine.
BUFFY: This is not the time.
WILLOW: When, Buffy? When is? When *you* feel like it? When it's someone *you* love as much as I love Tara? When it's Dawn, is that it?

This is interesting. I think Willow is right, if it were Dawn, Buffy would act as irrational as Willow. Spike and Dawn agree with me, love Spike's "I'd do it." Because it's not Dawn, Buffy is able to be rational about the situation.

- GLORY: Did anybody order an apocalypse?

My favorite Glory quote…

- Why does Tara have her own room in the dorm? I thought every student has a roommate.

- The last scene with Buffy, Dawn, Willow and Tara is so sweet. Now Willow is able to understand what Buffy goes through, she has Tara to take care of.

- Urgh, I hate when Willow calls Tara "Baby".
 

Can't Buffy take this semester off and resume going to college next year?
Yes, she definitely could - and she does say to her professor that hopefully she'll be back next semester. She missed the re-enrollment deadline in the fall because she was dead (she says so in "Life Serial," which is when Tara suggests she audit class with her), and she for some reason misses the deadline again for the spring semester (she gets a rejection letter in "As You Were" ). I guess she was too busy being depressed to submit her application on time?

Buffy loving poetry is a nice touch
It's interesting that back in season three, Angel gives her a book of poetry for her birthday and she seems less than thrilled about it. It could just be that she was bummed about being powerless, but I wonder if that book was what actually sparked her interest in poetry.

Tara understands why Buffy acts like that because she had experienced it, but did she say that she had to take care of her brother? Doesn't he look older than her? Or does she mean in the traditional female cooks/cleans after/washes/irons clothes way?
Yeah, he's definitely older than her (in "Family," he says, "Don't you have a hug for your big brother?" ), but here she says, "I had to deal with my brother's problems after..." so maybe she didn't mean taking care of him in the motherly sense, the way Buffy is, just putting up with him causing trouble or something. Also, considering that family, I wouldn't put it past them to make Tara do all the "female chores" once her mother died.

Wow, Willow and Tara are a couple in heaven if this was their first fight.
It actually doesn't surprise me at all that this is Willow and Tara's first fight. Not because their relationship is so perfect, but because Willow actively avoids direct conflict and always uses passive-aggression or persuasion to get what she wants, and because Tara is very much a pushover when it comes to all things Willow, so I rarely see her standing up for herself if Willow did something she didn't agree with. Since neither one of them is likely to initiate an argument, that leads to very few fights - but not necessarily a healthy relationship, because those issues are still there, just not being talked about. It's something of a Scooby pathos. :)

Why does Tara have her own room in the dorm? I thought every student has a roommate.
Not necessarily. As freshman, almost certainly they all had roommates, but at my college, after freshman year, you had lots of options - singles, doubles, triples, and suites with four or five people. So it's possible Tara had a single (a huuuuge single, but then again, all their dorm rooms are ridiculous), or it's possible that her roommate moved out in the middle of the year and no one else was assigned to that room.

she does say to her professor that hopefully she'll be back next semester. She missed the re-enrollment deadline in the fall because she was dead (she says so in "Life Serial," which is when Tara suggests she audit class with her), and she for some reason misses the deadline again for the spring semester (she gets a rejection letter in "As You Were" ). I guess she was too busy being depressed to submit her application on time?

Makes sense. :)

Angel gives her a book of poetry for her birthday and she seems less than thrilled about it. It could just be that she was bummed about being powerless, but I wonder if that book was what actually sparked her interest in poetry.

I can see Buffy reading the book out of love for Angel and probably trying to get into what he enjoys, then she felt engrossed with it and learned to enjoy and love poetry.

Willow actively avoids direct conflict and always uses passive-aggression - E, I never thought about it that way,but you're right.  I usually focused on the Willow getting her own way part, but she usually gets her way in a sneaky manner. She was such a cute girl, but she certainly developed a nasty streak when she grew up.

Yeah, it was the same way at my uni, where you had room options once you got past freshman year. Now, there were always more people than spaces for that kind of thing, because it was a small campus, but the option was there.

CM

Could someone kindly explain what that whole business of Buffy pulling the slide out of the projector for her poetry professor is about?  I feel a deep symbol heaving up from the dark somewhere but damned if I can figure it out.  Also, what would a poetry professor use a slide projector for anyway?  I thought this was something only art students got tortured with. 

The whole Buffy likes poetry thing seemed to come out of left field.  We never saw the teacher before or saw Buffy talk about it or in the class and she never evinced the slightest interest in poetry before this, did she?  It was sweet and a nice way to show that Buffy was sorry to be leaving class, which for another thing, Buffy was never the big scholar before so a nice, subtle development.  Of course being a Spikeaholic, I'm sure its a connection to him.  Really what else could it be.