Birthday’s inspire reflection

Wednesday July 16th:

With my birthday coming up I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be an adult in this country at this time. A couple weekends ago I celebrated a friend’s birthday and this past one, mine, another friend celebrated her birthday yesterday. We have been friends for a long time. We are from white middle class families in Wisconsin. We’re all young for our grade in school and spent our entire first year of college 18.

Being 18 has had some advantages. I was able to vote in the primary elections this year, on the cruise my family went on I was able to gamble in the on board casino in which I won $161 after feeding about three dollars into a slot machine (yeah that was a very cool part) I suppose I could have bought cigarettes if I wanted to…

But with becoming an adult I’ve also had to completely face the realities of money and loans and tuition and rent, the cost of groceries is suddenly much more important to me. We were never ignorant of the costs of things. We’ve always been responsible, reliable, I’m sure there are other Rs out there but you get the point. But this is something new.

All of my life, or for a very long time, I’ve been frustrated recognizing the education system for what I still think it is. A slim amount of knowledge taught overshadowed by the constant fervor of preparation. In elementary school they prepared us for middle school we needed to know the basics of every subject but also that you raised your hand before you spoke. They spent weeks teaching us cursive “because in high school they don’t except work unless it’s written in cursive” in actuality I turned in any in high school completed in cursive. Papers? That’s a joke no, no those are typed using 12 point Times New Roman, double spaced, indented paragraphs, 1 inch margin on all sides, title centered and Name, Date, Teacher, and Class in the upper left hand corner. I remember so clearly teachers who would think they were giving us the thrill of our lives saying that we could use other fonts as long as they were close in size to 12 point Times New Roman….honestly I’m already writing the damn paper, I really couldn’t care less what font it’s in and I’m not going to waste and time deliberating on it.

In middle school we had home room teachers and classes but we moved rooms! Our class would shift in one great herd from one room to the next. But we were getting used to switching rooms all prep for what was to come. When we got to 8^th grade we could even pick a couple of our classes, art or choir. It was amazing the freedom they bestowed upon us.

When we finally reached high school we were pros Thank God for the years of carefully practiced room switching, we’d all have been lost. We’re lucky that they had given us those options before, art or choir, or we never would have been able to decide if we wanted to fill our days with science or art. But still despite all of their careful prep work training unruly elementary brats into relatively controlled teenagers they were still on their guard.

I would like to mention here that I’m from a relatively small town with a population of just over twelve thousand people. My class had somewhere around 350 people in it. The school was large by some standards but small by most. It’s a small community outside of Madison. We do not have metal detectors at our doors; we do not have gang activity.

My senior year they installed doors at all of the entrances but one main one that would lock after school started at eight and they would unlock for the lunch hour and re-lock when it ended. This was, I’m sure, in some respects considered a safety measure but it was pretty well acknowledged that it’s primary purpose was to make it difficult and awkward for people to skip seeing as they would have to walk right past a hall monitor at the school’s entrance in order to get back into the school. We had hall passes that you had to take in order to leave the room otherwise if spotted in the hallway without the proper pass clearance you would be “escorted” back to your classroom or the office so that it could be determined whether or not you had permission or if you were in fact a loitering skipper. This all seemed so ridiculous to me. It was procedure yes, but it was absurd.

We are prepared from elementary school through our last year in high school for what’s coming next. But they fail us miserably. We are not prepared for what comes after high school. Most of us cope. Our generation is strong, we are good problem solvers, and we’re creative. But that doesn’t mean that we should be lied to or treated unfairly. That’s what I feel when I think of most of my high school education. There were of course teachers who stood out, who treated students like adults, who were frank without reeking of bitterness but they shine through the muddled fog of academics who failed us, at least my class. They told us to act big kids, then that we weren’t kids anymore, and finally that we’re adults. But adults don’t use bathroom passes.

They told us the new measures were put in place for our safety, insulting our intelligence at every word. School shootings are a reality. They are horrifying and should never be allowed to happen. But with one entrance still standing open at all times and nothing but a social studies teacher standing guard armed with only a Sudoku they are not protecting us against much.

Through so much of our education teachers and administrators told us to act like adults when it was convenient for the them but then failed to give us the respect that we not only deserved but that we’d earned, by showing even a little faith in us. So now we’re not in high school anymore. We were thrust out into the world, some choose the workforce others choose school and that’s what brings me back to the beginning.

All three of us are now struggling with paying for college and everything that comes with it. I am very fortunate to be receiving financial support from my family and I do not take it for granted however, I am still aware of all the other expenses that life is throwing my way and my looming plans/ hopes to study abroad next year.

The three of us laughed at the debt we plan to amass. I am heavily considering law school, while my other friends are certain of their dreams of medical school and veterinarian school. The tuition for these schools is frightening in and of itself, but when you take into account the hours that you need to devote leaving you with slim job options while in school. We considered the books and rent and groceries bills we will have to pay and still think that in the end no matter how much we will suffer during those years our pain will be worth it. But it’s hard. It’s hard to know that. Neither of them have close family that has been through these career paths and though I do have a stunning number of lawyers in my family none live on the coasts which is where I intend to practice should I pursue that track (I haven’t decided which coast yet) and none of them have applied or been in law school in the last couple decades and it’s simply not that same as it used to be. The competition and tuition are not at all what they used to be.

I had a long discussion with my mother about this the other day. She argued that it’s always been this way. That you get kicked out of high school and it’s a shock, you are a kid one day and an adult the next. But then she recalled the freedom they had at her high school. An open campus for lunch, the ability to do whatever you wanted during a free period. These are not freedoms granted to most of today’s high school students. She also admitted that the world isn’t the place it used to be. When my mother graduated from high school and moved onto college, she wasn’t looking at amounting $40,000 in debt even while going to an instate public school. The competition wasn’t nearly as stiff. You didn’t have to be a strait A student to be confident with a graduate school application. The world wasn’t the same, it wasn’t such a harsh and unforgiving place where one miss-step could literally cost your tens of thousands of dollars. So in a world where we are called to be adults in a greater and different sense then many generations before us, where in many cases our parents are just as blind and confused about what we are, when our country and educational system should be turning us into more responsible adults at a younger age so we can cope with what’s to come why is it the opposite. At a time when we need to be responsible for so much more, so much more quickly why is our public school system babying us even more?

I suppose what this all comes down to is that we weren’t prepared. We weren’t prepared to be carrying a hall pass one day and taking out $50,000 loans the next. To jump into school and immediately be forced to pick a major or come to terms with the idea of spending an extra one, two, or three years in school amounting a further frighteningly large amount of debt. To truly be treated as an adult for the first time with such high stakes is frightening and for all the prep work that was done carefully crafting us from age five it would have been nice to get a little bit of a heads up.

DFTBA

Brittany

P.S. I had an absolutely wonderful birthday! I saw the Beach Boys! My music is oldies music and I absolutely worship the beach boys. So you all can imagine…dream come true!

Th-Th-Th-Thursday!

Hey, everyone!  This week was not very exciting for me.  The weekend was uneventful and I mostly worked this week.  OH, I take that back – I baby sat on Friday and that was, of course eventful.  So basically, the written portion of my post will be sort of dull.  Maybe I can think of something to write as I brainstorm or maybe I will talk about something serious!  *gasp*

I just saw a commercial for the new Mummy movie and the Beijing olympics.  In the same commercial.  Videos blended together to show both.  Someone could become confused by seeing people running from mummies and thinking it’s a new event……No, that’s not logical or funny.  Sorry.

Baby Borrowers makes me laugh.  I know it is a controversial show but it is really interesting.  The teenagers are all stuck up and self centered and they are not good at taking care of kids.  I don’t want to promote teenage marriage and families but there are some teenagers/young people that are actually good with children.  Then again, they have sense enough to wait until they are older…  ’Nuff said.

My friend, Elisabeth, found this shirt online.  I love it!  But…. it’s sold out…
 

 

I already showed Katie this next link, but it made me laugh regardless.  It’s from Friends and it’s the time where Joey goes on the Pyramid show and he says, “Paper!  Snow!  A Ghost!!!”  And the way he says it cracks me up!  Well, here it is.

Here’s my video…

Mae, you don’t have to do the challenge because you requested off but you can later if you want…

Birthdays!  My last two birthdays were spent on Wind Symphony tour with my band geek buddies.  It was the first day of tour and I was going to make rice crispy treats but ran out of time.  So, instead they just sang to me at dinner, lol.  My best birthday was probably either age six or sixteen, haha!  For age six I had a costume party (because my birthday is in October) and it SNOWED!  We had it in my church basement and it was a good time.  My entire kindergarten class came!  My next favorite birthday was my sixteenth.  My mom planned a surprise party for me and invited a bunch of my good friends over to my cousin Marty’s town house in the city and we had a big party with family and my friends!  It was a lot of fun and I was completely surprised.  I’m such an idiot for not figuring it out, haha!

This next birthday will be my 21st and it’ll be on a Sunday (October 26).  I’ll also be on band tour AGAIN.  We’re not technically allowed to drink on tour but the host families offer so sometimes you accept (I am not at liberty to proclaim whether or not I have partaken…)  We had a 21st birthday last tour and their host family shared a beer with them so I assume that my host family will be pleasant about it.  That is, unless I get a sweet old couple.  ^^;  I also assume that my friends will take me out that evening once we get back and possibly skip class Monday morning.  However, my professors will be impressed with me if I show up regardless, haha.  I do not anticipate getting drunk.  I’m not stupid.  End of discussion!

I’ve been so out of it this week that I can’t remember any of the other challenges or questions from you guys.  *dies*  I’m also too lazy to go back and check for them.  Request for all of you – please add your challenges and questions to their respected pages after you post your video.  I didn’t do it last week either and so I’m a little frustrated with myself ><;  I can’t even remember what I asked or told, lol.

Loves!

~Megan/Th-Th-Th-Thursday

PS: So much for something serious, haha!

PPS:  Thoughts of Twilight:
Yes, I do seem to be an obsessive fan.  Ugh.  I agree with your Bella feelings.  She is SO behind the plot.  For that reason, Edward can be pretty ditzy too.  Oh well – I still think they are romantic…  *swoons*