On Campus
What’s good is still good.
This is a very outdated list but I’m hoping some of this still happens on campuses.
Music, art, film, poetry, drama performances/exhibitions all easily accessible.
Classes that spark enthusiasm rather than boredom (yeah, I know there’s some others too.)
Wrestling with new ideas that you hadn’t seen yet…
Decent sports
Learning how to innovate new cooking strategies when money runs low.
Dances
Love
Examining your own preconcieved notions and deciding what might need to change and what stands up well.
A place that allows some learning for learning’s sake–there are goals and deadlines certainly, some tough ones…but they still don’t show as harsh as “jobs” or even “careers” in the wider world.
Campus life doesn’t lose what’s good when something like this happens.
Midlife And Treachery 
bridgett said,
April 19, 2007 at 9:09 AM
Mostly, these things are true. What is different from when we were in school is, I think, a general pessimism about social change. It is what it is. Shit happens. People don’t cause shit to happen or nuthin…
There’s also not much learning for learning’s sake. With college running $30k a year, parents want to see outcomes. Kids feel like they need to get out with jobs that they can pay back student loans immediately and so they lean towards professional degrees. Arts programs are mostly art ed. Music? Mostly music ed. The idea we had that we’d go to school to learn a lot of cool shit and then do something with it (maybe law school, maybe grad school, maybe just sitting on a sunny rock and thinking) has largely disappeared. It seems to me that college is a lot less fun because of that. And of course, because of the costs, the students at my school each have to work a couple of jobs. The long evenings full of discussion and speculation and writing to Jean-Luc Ponty that we had (or going to a play someone wrote or taking turns reading Milton aloud) are instead spent in washing glasses in some restaurant. An educational experience, to be sure, but not the same.
Bobby McGee said,
April 19, 2007 at 4:35 PM
Hey.
Just came by to say hey, and show you how to add the Blogging against disablism day image since yours doesn’t show up.
1. Login to your site (midlifeandtreachery.wordpress.com/wp-admin)
2. Once logged in, click My Dashboard at the top of the page.
3. Click Presentation in the nav bar (dark navy blue)
4. Click Sidebar Widgets
5. Add a Text Widget (you might need to scroll down for that)
6. Click on the image next to Text 1
7. A pop up should appear with a Text Box. Add the image code to that, close it, and click the Save Changes button.
If you need help, e-mail me: bobby.mcgee[@]purple-anger.org (take the square brackets out). Or IM me on Yahoo: iaskedalice09.
imfunny2 said,
April 22, 2007 at 2:23 PM
Thanks Bobby. Silly me. I thought text widgets were for actual ‘text” not HTML code, I am going off to try and figure it out again….