Gratuitous Ranting

Exhaustion. You never realize how far you’ve fallen into a rut until you’re at the bottom. Your body feels like you’ve carried an 80 pound backpack up Kilimanjaro. And back down. It’s really made me stop and look back and ask, ‘Is this all really worth it?’.

I’m in a clichéd situation. I’m a poor college kid, attending class full time and working a part time job. I have to have the job to pay my car insurance, phone bill, money to go out, etc. I have to go to school because for some reason law firms look kindly on someone with a degree. I think they’re just being picky.

I realize I’m being whiny. I have student loans to help. And my parents did pay for my beautiful Cutlass Ciera (all jokes aside, while looking like it could be driving Ms. Daisy, Chico is a great car).

But when I look over to Greek Hill and see the glittery Miatas and shimmering Navigators I think, ‘Why not me?’. My parents probably make twice as much as most of their parents. Why is it my parents are so stingy with this money??? They always give me some bull answer about wanting to retire early and experience life or something but this is ME we’re talking about, isn’t MY happiness more important??

I hope to God you were able to translate my irony from there. I do think it’s superfluous to give your kid everything on a silver platter, send them to college without making them get a job, let them join a Greek organization where they’ll probably contract more STDs than Courtney Love, and never ask for anything in return. What does that even teach them?

These kids, in turn, become narcissistic, co-dependent douche bags that can’t see past their noses. Then, because of their ‘fraternal upbringing’ (one of my favorite phrases coined by the Greek organizations to put a pseudo-positive spin on things-I translate it to mean ‘we spank each other and then have orgies but we swear we’re not gay’) they somehow get a job in the ‘real’ world. This blatant act of nepotism was only acceptable in Medieval England or in areas of home repair (and even then Ms. Manners would probably suggest you not hire cousin Vinny to work on your sink).

I had a Greek guy once tell me that his organization teaches him to be a gentleman and respect women. I laughed. He glared. I'm sorry, but when the basis of your social gatherings revolves around a keg with an wet t-shirt contest to follow I hardly find that to be a very respectful activity. If anything, the objectification of women is (or should be) written into their charter. That, and homophobia. More on this subject later....