The Kids Are (Not) Alright

I'm back from a long weekend in Portland, for the wedding of 2 friends. It was a wonderful ceremony, a fun reception, and a great time hanging out with Portland friends, and it was nice introducing Jessica (who came along) to those friends, and showing her cool stuff in town and nearby. I will have photos online soon.

So now I've returned to the heat and the back-to-school rush of Tucson. Oh. My. Gawd. College kids seem so materialistic and unaware now. I don't know if this is my age, or whether things have changed, or whether this particular campus is just particularly full of shallow frat boys, ROTCers, and "sorostitutes," but it just really annoys me, and it's annoying to have enjoyed the wonderful quiet of summer here and then all of sudden swarms of chattering rich kids are choking the streets and coffeehouses, chanting the mantra "hi how was your summer?" to each other.

I'm glad i'm now going to be living quite far from campus now.

And I just have to ask: can someone tell me why, even if you're a ditzy sorority girl, you'd want to wear pink short-shorts with the name of your college emblazoned across your butt cheeks? Pink? (Can anyone say "baboon in heat"?)

re: The Kids Are (Not) Alright

As someone who has been working on a college campus for almost a year and is about to start grad school in a few weeks, I'm equally baffled. It seems that college campuses have been effectively smashed as a site of resistance since the 60's. My theory is that so much radicalism came out of colleges in the 60s that major effort was put into stamping it out and that has worked very effectively. But thats just a theory of mine with no empirical basis. College campuses are very disappointing. Check this out: http://cryptome.org/teach-fear.htm we ended up getting 3 people to sign on and send it in, but it took a lot of work.

re: The Kids Are (Not) Alright

Steeve,I've been a grad. student at Columbia in NYC for three years and know other people who have been in school other places in New York. I think a huge difference in school now and school when I (but especially when our parents generation) may have gone to college is the degree to which higher education is now viewed as a pure commodity. I have heard so many students, their parents, and administrators talk about "value for money," the "educational investment," etc. over the past few years, its insane.I don't know how this might affect wearing pink short-shorts with the name of your college emblazoned across your butt cheeks, but there must be some connection somewhere ;)

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