Weekly News Archive

January 5 (’03) – January 11 (’03)

Going Somewhere

Being a teen ain’t what it used to be.

Well, I don’t know, maybe it is. I can hardly profess membership in any past generations of our vaunted species. However, by all appearances, the ranks of teendom have changed considerably over the years—as has the culture surrounding us.

Let’s talk college. Did colleges exist 50 or 100 years ago? Most certainly. But due to one thing or another, the focus of teenaged existence in most circles has changed from, say, anything else at all to a single, overarching goal: GET THEE TO COLLEGE.

Everything you do, anything you are, every decision or choice you make, all of it links somehow to that final lofty end. Why must you clean up your room? Because you won’t get into your college of choice with undies on the floor, of course. Geez. Everybody knows that.

College is the ultimate. You must study hard to learn the material to get good grades to score high on the SATs to drop your name ahead of ten quadrillion other poor souls to find yourself, in some eventual place and time, at a decent college—and god forbid you do not, because then, in the words of Matt Stone, you will die poor and lonely.

So it seems.

But on slightly deeper examination, suspicious gaps beging to appear in this dogmatic approach. One obvious argument is the common one: Plenty of ridiculously successful people (talking about success in terms of, well, cash) didn’t make much of a showing in their college years. Ask any disgruntled teen. They’ve got a list of famous names. Trust me.

Yet . . . no. Unfortunately, this doesn’t fly, because all you need to do is look at the huge number of successful people who did walk the college road, and compare them to the meager number of those who didn’t, and you’ll very quickly start to blanch at the disproportionate figures. Not to mention, half of those famous names that notoriously “dropped out of school” or “went to Idaho State” have all kinds of other credentials—like they were only a few weeks short of their degree, or they’d already been trained, or they’re a legend and a genius in their own time. Yes, Einstein did badly in school. That’s nice. Are you Einstein?

On the other hand, there are plenty of slightly less notorious persons who do have very rewarding lives and who do not sport a degree from Wechargelotsofmoney U. Quite simply, they’re the people who don’t need one.

Look around you. How many of your friends or acquaintances are lawyers, physicists, doctors, or news pundits? And how many are plumbers, telephone sanitizers, or movers? The former group has a fancy-pants education and needs it; the latter may or may not, but can survive without it. You need only ask which group is inherently happier—in most cases, the answer is neither.

“Sure,” say the critics, which is everybody. “But in more and more jobs nowadays you need some kind of degree, even those that aren’t specialized.”

Aye. Here’s where the hard lines of Good and Evil collide, because this is true, and the day when McDonald’s requires a liberal arts degree (rather than just employing everybody who holds one) may not be far off. Even if you can make a living in your chosen career without the boon of higher education—and its “prestige” can easily be more important to your success than anything it taught you—it will often be much harder.

Recently I’ve been holding a correspondence with a media and web designer of some note, who has some interesting things to say. However, in the end, she herself may be the best example of how things work. She made some poor choices about her education; because of them, she took a longer and a harder path. But the path does have an end. She is now, by most standards, successful.

You can do a great deal with the jump-start of a good college education, and it will stay with you for a long time; you can do a great deal without a college-education as well. The first means harder work in the short term and less work, with a possible further grasp, in the long term. The second means conceivably less work now, and much more later. Both are possible. Both can work.

They are not mutually exclusive.

The two together can part oceans.

— Brandon

Elbow Plato Monkey Pie Digital

Those who have been comfortably living under a rock for the past few decades will be amazed, but here’s a tidbit of trivia: School is generally boring.

Even if you’ve managed to snare a fleeting mote of interest in one subject or another, or perhaps a particular class and teacher, it remains a fact of life that nobody can be amusing forever. At some point, you will be bored in class. So what to do?

Good question. What I can most reliably tell you is not to dive out your classroom window (which has been done), but all the same, here’s one to try:

1. You need two people. Preferably they are seated next to each other, but as long as they can communicate without shouting, they’ll be fine. Stare into each other’s eyes. Stare hard, mind you. Strike fear.
2. The arbitrarily-chosen first player begins by saying a word. Any word will do. “Frankfurter” is a nice opening word, but I’ve heard better.
3. Once you’ve done this thing, your eager opponent may take his turn. By doing what? Why, the same as you. He speaks a word. “Tetrapylectomy” will do.
4. Rinse and repeat.

The joy of this game comes from the one and only rule: your word may not, either directly or by obvious association, be related to any previous word. So if you say “Thermopylae,” neither of you should be saying “Sparta” any time soon.

This is a bit of a loose rule, and subject to a great deal of interpretation. If the associated word is quite recent and very obvious, you lose horribly, and your opponent receives your forfeit, which should properly consist of either a demeaning act or your attractive sister. However, if the previous word is some ways back, you can probably slip it by. And if the association is so thin as to be unnoticeable — “progressive” and “Congress,” for instance — then you’re in the clear.

Beyond that there are no rules. “Fish-eating purple conducive malaria” could be used as a word. If you get ideas from objects around the room, try to be discreet about it; saying “Joe” when your opponent’s name is “Joe” might be construed as unsporting.

This beguiling game was created by two souls in my Spanish class who shall remain nameless, until and unless they piss me off.

This site, as you can probably tell, is updating again, its owners having enjoyed a restful vacation. With it comes a new toy: a community poll, located in the right-hand column of the main page (this one). Look to your right; it should be just below the gray sub-navigation box.

The point of this poll is to gather feedback from readers about various issues, and it will sometimes be humorous, sometimes wholly in earnest. At the moment, the poll is just something somewhat random to make sure it works. A new one will be up in a while, and every week or so thereafter.

Operation is simple: just click your choice and click “Vote.” Once you do, you willl be shown the results, and not allowed to vote again. If by some chance you are allowed to vote again . . . don’t.

Report any problems to us.

Finals (that cursed beast) are nearly upon us. Next week is the so-called “dead week,” when theoretical teachers don’t assign any theoretical new material, theoretical coaches don’t schedule any theoretical games, and theoretically no new material is learned — it’s all review for the upcoming finals.

In the real world, people do whatever they like during dead week, because it’s not officially observed.

In any case, the week after next is finals itself, which will observe the following schedule:

MONDAY: No school. Martin Luther King day.

TUESDAY: Regular day.

WEDNESDAY: Period 1 Final 8:30–10:35; Period 2 Final 10:45–12:50

THURSDAY: Period 1 Final 8:30–10:35; Period 2 Final 10:45–12:50

FRIDAY: Period 1 Final 8:30–10:35; Period 2 Final 10:45–12:50

Basically, it’s the same schedule for all three days, so don’t worry about it. Finals for periods 0 and 7 will be “at the teacher’s discretion,” which means “do what they tell you to do.”

“All there is to thinking,” he said, “is seeing something noticable which makes you see something you weren’t noticing which makes you see something that isn’t even visible.”

—Norman Maclean, A River Runs Through It

Given that, it’s not much surprise that I’m light on news today. I’ve been utterly out of it for two weeks and spent the last two days in a sleepwalking daze; in such a state, very little is “noticable,” making the rest somewhat difficult.

— Brandon