Thursday, January 26, 2012

Back when I was in college - (Leisel A.)

Back when I was in college a gallon of unleaded gasoline cost roughly $1.50 and I only needed $5.50 to drive on the Pennsylvania Turnpike to get to school (Breezewood to Cranberry.)  I think both cost at least double now, only ten short years later. 

Don't worry I have absolutely no intention of waxing political or even economical on you.  I merely wanted to sound like an old lady.

Not that we have that out of the way, I feel the need to somehow sum up my entire collegiate experience in this one blog post.  Frankly, that is impossible.  Those four years were life changing for me as they are for most people.  I left home for the first time, almost moved back home after the first year, decided to stay after all, bonded with amazing people, changed my major, was "forced" to shop at Wal-Mart, and met my future husband. 

Though, come to think of it, there is one phrase I can employ to sum up college for you: Upper Class White Trash (UCWT.)  Before I elaborate, I must confess I am borrowing this idea from my good friend who coined it (she gave me permission to describe it here.)  I wish I had come up with it on my own.  It is classic.  It is exactly how college students live.  It describes what the inside of a tiny dorm room looks like (one that essentially costs 50 grand a year to live in.)  Maybe it would be more accurate to say middle class, but that's shrinking any way right?  (No politics, please.)

My favorite example is this: you know you are UCWT when you wear your 60 dollar bathing suit bottoms as under wear because you are too cheap to do laundry.  And one for the dudes (this one was not just inspired by my husband but precisely extracted from his college existence):  you know you are UCWT when you adhere a Pop Tart box to your bed post with orange duct tape to store all your various electronics remotes and controllers. 

Which gracefully (maybe) leads me to talk about my early days of video game voyeuring.  Since I did not grow up with video games (save my cousin's original NES and my neighbor's Sega), college was my first experience with their prevalence.  Yes, it was in those formative years that I developed a taste for not playing, but watching video games.  I guess you could call it the geek version of cheering on the jocks from the stands.  Though in my defense (and the gamer guys, too) I also quite enjoyed watching them all play frisbee as well.  With their shirts on, of course.

I just realized while proofreading, that it physically hurts me to read a sentence without a period  I can barely manage to keep on reading when they aren't there  Even when the double space is present and the other punctuation is intact, I highly desire the dot  Ugh, rereading this paragraph is barely short of torture

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