Thursday, September 25, 2008

let's talk about freshmen

those 12 year old looking, overstuffed backpack wearing, "where is S&B?" asking, born in 1990, all over everywhere can't escape from freshmen. yeah, you know who i'm talking about...

they don't even have to wear their typical teal t-shirts with the big "ORIENTATION 2008" stamped on their backs to alert us to the fact they are, indeed, first year students. but of course, they do anyway... usually because this early on it's probably the only UNCW-related clothing item they have (unless they're one of the chosen few whose parents bought them a sweatshirt or hat when they came for a tour while they were still in high school or as they were here for orientation in the summer..."here you go, bobby! wear this UNCW shirt and soak up some seahawk pride before you even get accepted!").

you can't NOT notice them even if you wanted to. they walk around shouting "CLASS OF 2012!" while still wearing their "CLASS OF 2008" high school t-shirts. please just go around yelling, "CLASS OF 2012 INFANTS!" it's more accurate and much more amusing for the rest of us. man, 2012... seems light years away. we'll be graduating from grad school by the time these kids make it outta here.
let's hope the mayan end of the world comes before they're set loose into life. they're who'll be running the country with and after us? lord help us all! they'll probably end up with miley cyrus as president. and her alter ego hannah montana as VP. they want the best of both worlds!

it doesn't help matters that UNCW let in an inordinate amount this year, resorting to triple occupancy rooms in certain dorms... that's right... TRIPLE. *flashback to freshman year when you remember being stuffed into that 2x4 over-sized closet with some random person you'd never met before in your life -cringe- now imagining it with a THIRD random person taking up what little closet space you already had, not to mention general breathing room -double cringe-*

there are two kinds of freshmen: the shy, quiet ones who walk to class with their head down and sadly :-( sit alone in wag when not awkwardly going with their roommate, afraid to say something aka anything that would make them come off as the scared and unprepared froshie that they are; and then there is the egotistical, still think they're seniors in high school, know someone who goes to the college already, i'm-in-college-now-and-have-more-freedom-than-i-know-what-to-do-with-so-i-think-i'm-really-cool-and-need-to-let-the-world-know-it-so-they-don't-think-i'm-the-scared-and-unprepared-froshie-that-i-am freshmen.

let's be honest here, kids. both of those just end up screaming "I'M A FRESHMAN! WHAT DO I DO WITH MYSELF?!" to the point that you might as well walk around with "2012" stamped on your forehead, just to make things a little bit clearer. but like i said, we already know you're a freshman anyway, could smell the unmistakable mix of fear, naivete, and angst on ya from all the way down the other end of chancellor's, so don't freak out and lock yourself in your dorm room, we won't actually make you do that.

i mentioned they were born in 1990, right? 1990! i mean, come on! they can't even pretend to the remember the eighties like us 1987 and 1988er's do because they weren't even ALIVE. while we were running off to kindergarten, they were still learning how to walk and use the potty. the Power Rangers weren't even Mighty Morphin' anymore by the time they got around to watching TV besides barney! i don't know if that statement just made me more feel like i'm pushing granny status or that the freshman are even younger than i thought (tell me, is it pampers or huggies that are the better at protecting against diaper rash these days?).

and it's true. i'll admit it. we were all freshmen at one point. in fact, we're freshmen twice counting high school, which was basically the same scenario, except we were big-headed, 13 year old, just 8th graders aka kings and queens of the middle school, so of course we were even more awkward and terrified then. but let's admit this, too...we were never THAT awkward and small and all over the place. i'm barely 5 feet and i feel like at any moment i could step on one of them and that'd be the end of that!

but i digress. my goal here is not to froshie bash. well...ok...maybe a little (don't deny it, you love and do it, too). my point is this: chin up, kids, because we're all essentially awkward. you all just happen to be a lot more awkward than any of us upperclassman are at the moment, but it's really just because we've learned to hide it better. and hey, in less than a year you'll already be sophomores and YOU'LL be the ones froshie bashing, swearing on your lives that you were never that weird and managed to be both a freshman and cool. uh...yeah, keep telling yourselves that...

(but us upperclassmen as freshmen? yeah, sorry, we actually were that cool.)

good luck, class of 2012!

2 comments:

sarawr said...

omg nicole. most amaaaazinnng thing i have ever read in my life!!!! <3 please write a hundred more of these things so i can die laughing. ahahaa, amazing =)=)

nicolioliolio said...

thank you, my dear <33
i was just on a roll...idk what happened. i wish i had that creative energy when writing stuff that might help me in actual life... haha