My Apartment is not that Clean
Mad in Theory
The post below turned out more rant-like than funny. But the educational system in this country has only gotten worse since I wrote it. My college experience was actually pretty painless, and I don't owe much, so I guess I'm just theoretically mad.
There's a certain consequence to having a good friend: You tend to hang out with that friend a lot. Normally this is great. You have friends for the purpose of having someone to hang out with when you're bored, or when you need someone to buy you a drink. There arises a challenge though, when you and your friend have substantially divergent schedules. I work 40 hours a week. OJ, I believe, sleeps through a class or two a week, and he's only there in the first place because they check attendance.
This brings me to a pet peeve of mine. The educational system in the U.S. is a joke, and by "a joke", I really mean "fucking retarded". It used to be that you could get a job out of high school. Now you need a Masters just to work at McDonalds. I can just imagine a McD's manager saying, "I see you have a Masters in Food Service and a Ph.D. in Management.... I'm sorry but you're under-qualified." Why the hell is that? Well, for one, kids don't actually learn anything in high school, except maybe how to download incredibly annoying ringtones. You have this bullshit No-Child-Left-Behind law, which basically gives money for schools to dumb down their curriculum so that everyone of their brain-dead kids can pass. You have parents who aren't doing their job to raise smart and disciplined kids. Oh, right, it's the school's job to raise your children, that and the television. This is all because the parents don't have any time, since they have to get a second job, because the dream job they expected to get out of college turned out to barely cover the massive loans they accrued going there. Next time you go to the post office, ask the cashier what his or her degree is in. It'll be funny and sad all at the same time.
We're brainwashed with a false set of expectations. We are programmed to believe that we graduate high school, go to college, get a good job upon graduation, marry a gorgeous woman, have three kids, two nice cars, and one big house, and that we live happily ever after. In reality, we graduate high school and realize that we have no idea what we want to do. We go to an expensive college, flounder there for a year, transfer to a community college when we realize we can't afford a "real" college anymore, bullshit there for a couple more years, transfer to a nice college when we've finally figured out what we want to do, lose another year because none of our credits transfer, and then spend another 3 or so years. We graduate with over a hundred grand in debt (god forbid you want to continue on in school) with the expectation that we've suffered for a piece of paper and now we're guaranteed a place in the workforce. The only job we find though pays us maybe 30K if we're lucky. We live with a girl who has just as much debt and has to work just as much (and she gets fat the second you marry her, but that's a topic for another day). Then you spend all your paltry free time writing verbose diatribes against the American educational system.
There are places in the world were people are paid to go to school. There are places where people are encouraged to take some time to figure out what they want, and when they go to school, they go because they want to. I give props to people in this country who break free of the stereotyped expectations and go for what they want in life. The best rebellion I've managed to put forth against "the system" is to start a webcomic with a buddy. It's cool though; I have a post-doctorate in stupid.
~Fuzzy