this is why we can't have nice things

a question, unrelated to anything else: tina fey, how are you inside my mind, writing 30 rock episodes out of my inner monologue? it kind of tickles, and i'm kind of okay with it.

okay, so. i considered not writing about this, because... children! potential employers! etc! and there's so much potential for shaky ground and inappropriateness. but, since everyone reading this has the internet and, presumably, a radio, i'm just going to assume everyone's heard the asher roth song "i love college" and can fill in the little radio edit bleeps or whatever. not that much is bleeped out these days. if you haven't heard it, it's on youtube. seek and ye shall find (but you might not want to watch it at work).

first of all, lame. (sub-category: in my experience, most people who talk this much about how awesome their superhard party lyfe is do it because they kinda actually don't really have a lot of friends...)

second: blatant sexism is even more horrifying coming from supposedly "educated"/"college material" 20-something white guys in lacoste polos. you're not edgy. you're a jackass.

third: all other issues (and there are many) aside, it's slightly validating in the painful way to see and hear college described as what i've seen it overwhelmingly become: a four-year bender, a social trip. people in general don't have the capacity to live the sort of life this song describes and still be strong academically. there are exceptions, but they're extraordinary.

the expectation is that you will complete high school, go to college, graduate in four years, and then start a job search that may or may not have anything whatsoever to do with your degree -- or continue school in some fashion. high school is hard work, college is your reward.

this does two things, really (i'm sure it does more than that, but these are the ones on my mind at the moment). one, it makes the people who would have belonged in college 50 years ago feel like they're surviving high school all over again, just holding out for grad school or law school or med school or whatever. two, it prolongs the self-centered, entitled, snooty, privileged attitude of the kids whos parents bought them hummers for their 16th birthdays and who will be utterly lost after graduation when they have to start taking care of themselves like grown-ups do.

and the really awful part is that none of these things matter, because...

fourth: it's catchy. really catchy. and stuck in my head.

i'm going to go ahead and say it -- as a whole, our generation might just deserve (need?) to enter adulthood during a recession.