12:57 p.m. | 2004-01-27
I Never Seem To Be Awake For Sociology
Word of the Day for Tuesday January 27, 2004
frangible FRAN-juh-buhl, adjective:
Capable of being broken; brittle; fragile; easily broken.
*drudgingly grabs her soap box and pulls it out to the podium, stepping up on it with a sigh as she puts her hands on each side of the podium, putting her face up to the microphone and begins to speak.*
Youth sucks.
In the very first entry, or perhaps the second one, or somewhere around there I promised y'all somethin' that I intend on keeping. I said I'd give you thoughtworthy thoughts. That's what we have today. I started thinking before Sociology today and before you knew it...the lecture was over, I hadn't taken a single note, and I had notebook pages of crap. Here we go:
"It's high school--with readily available alcohol and no cooking.
And it's not that I expected a big change either; look at the material we're given.
Your average high school graduate: some are college bound, most fit into a strict social group, and most might have held a low-level job if any. (More than that the children coming of age today are born of a privlidged era where parents try to cover our ears from the supposed 'horrors of the world.' We also come--because of that protection--fromt his group of coherent 16-22 year olds that know nothing about the world around them. How many of you can honestly say that you've heard of the Ten Year War in the Middle East? 1979-1989 HOLDS THE KEY to things like September 11th and you have the balls to say to me: "but we never could have expected it!"? Honestly--take a history lesson).
Sadly your average adult can even vaguely remember that time period. I partially blame our parents (still scared by Vietnam, our education, and the society that shapes us).
First, a side note: don't get me wrong, times are changing and I (even at the tender age of 18) am at the end of this generation. Those entering 'young-adulthood' from 1985-1995 seem to exhibit it most. Don't think I'm a sociologist--take a look around you, I don't lie.
Now we've got a background; 16-22 year olds which don't really fit the ideality of what 'adults' are. They don't fall into a 'sink or swim' lifestyle anymore either. Our teachers/parents/mentors simply coddle us and keep us in this same state--they react to our lazy 'I don't wanna; I'm not gonna' attitude--and the fact that more kids than ever are willing to fail (because in today's world there is very little real failing) and prove to our teachers/parents/mentors that we aren't adult enough to do this.
I fail a final and a class? There's always next semester.
With this background set we can easily understand why it's so simple for us (as 16-22 year olds) to fall into the typical college lifestyle.
Not that college has ever been that different, but I can promise you our grandparent's generation didn't drink 3 out of 7 nights a week.
We end up with cliques, people who don't live in the real world--and may never--and high school all over again."
There's satisfaction in that. The fact that I can understand that. Honestly, though, I'm too lazy to change it, I instead will ride the top of that wave--letting them coddle me and make it easy.
Signing Off--Lauren
