Eighteen forever
Everything is fine. i was just saving you all from a major bitch fest with that last post.
I will just say that there are a few teeny tiny design flaws with the female body. Those of you who believe in a supreme being, please address this oversight with your maker and get back to me when it's fixed.
Onward....
When the going gets tough, the tough do a meme.
This one is from WNG, i think.
I am to list six things that i think everyone should accomplish before they are 18. But i have, as is my nature, changed it into advice i would give to an 18 year old from my perspective of thousands of years later.
1.) Learn math. Don't give me that whiny-ass shit about how you are not good at math. That's what i used to say, and i was WRONG. I am good at math. Math is interesting, and useful and it will change the way you think forever. So get over yourself and get into it. Don't stop there either, get some basic chemistry and go on to calculus. I don't want to see your face again until you can do a line integral on a plane.
2.) There's no need to head straight for college after high school, despite what everyone tells you. Go out and get a crappy job for a few years and see how that works. It will motivate you more than anything else to be serious when/if you do go to college. This advice would have saved me the thousands of dollars that were wasted on my first college degree.
3.) Take the stairs. I want you off that elevator unless you are handicapped or it's more than 10 floors.
4.) Don't be mean to the people who are "beneath" you. (Minds out of the gutter people.) Oh how fast that situation can change, and they will remember.
5.) Embrace new technology, but not indiscriminately. Try that button. What does undo do? Be curious. It might cause a few sad situations, but you will learn much from it, grasshopper. This will make people think you are smart when you can answer random questions about Excel or the data base or your ipod or whatever. Conversely, you don't need every new gadget that comes along. Wait until all your friends have wasted their money and then decide if you must have _________.
6.) Listen with scepticism, including to advice, especially from older people. Although i have to say that most 18 year old people have this one down.
46 comments:
Great advice!!!
I love the stairs one. We all need more exercise. Take the stairs. Park you car further away. Walk.
I get soooo irritated at work when people take the elevator for one freakin floor!!! (It's ok if it is a patient, but not a healthy individual!!!)
Darlin', you need to repeat the college one. A lot. I did the Same. Damned. Thing. Wasted a lot of my parent's money and a lot of my time that I needed to spend either face down in the dirt in the military learning to be a man or in a crappy job learning how the real world was, so I'd appreciate college.
*sigh* Who was it said that youth is wasted on the young? *lol*
I might could have explained limits at infinity or calculated the area under a curve 25 years ago........
#5 got me all my jobs, which were completely unrelated to my college degree.
You know what they say about when you don't have anything nice to say?
Come sit by me :)
Also? Your advice can be used by people over 18, too.
I was hearing the voice of Baz Luhrman as I read this.
These are fantastic where in the world were you when I needed you? Come to think of it, maybe I'll just take all your advice anyways. Ha! We can pretend I'm 18, only hopefully less stupid.
Yep, excellent advice for teenagers of all ages.
Oh yeah, numeros uno y dos, darlin'. The money my folks spent on college could have gone for my sexual education on a European backpacking trip....
alli, move that ass of ours! I used to give the stink eye to people at work who took the elevator for 1 floor.
irrelephant, i know, i know. God i was such a twit when i went off to college the first time. McDonalds would have done me good.
bob, it's not so much that i could do it now, but i know that these things exist.
de, mine too. I worked in accounting for 11 years and i have never taken an accounting class in my life.
flutter, i hope it's advice we could all use, like the stairs.
maggie, i wish i knew who Baz Luhrman was, sounds like a smart person. :)
gordo, i could still use some of this advice.
nancy, and that would have been WAY more fun, and useful.
one of those days huh?
1) i wish i had learned math. then i wouldn't be 30 years old, 7 classes shy of a bachelor's degree with one of the remaining classes as college algebra which i have already failed twice. (sigh)
2) agreed, and i should point out that it's possible to make a good salary without college. (this wins me no friends with parents)
3) yes, i concur.
4) we are better than nobody.
5) what's excel?
6) did you say something?
I really like most of your advice, only for me it was a good thing to go to university straight on. What helped me tremendously though was that fact that I had to work part-time all through college. Somehow that got me quite motivated.
And, as De said, #5 got me all my jobs apart from the one I'm doing now that I learned how to do in university.
Amen to all of the above! I took a year off to work for a local am radio station before college, and despite the fact that it might sound glamorous, it was still a crappy job. But you know what? I found my career path because of it and never wrestled with what I should major in or what I should do.
Oh, and as for the female form having a design flaw? Never! Bite your tongue, woman! (Or bite mine, your call. *g*) The female form is exquisite in it's perfection, flawless in it's design and a damned fine playground.
You've been roaming around my grape again haven't you.. :)
i agree with everything!
will you be my Mom for a while?? ;)
I think learn some history and geography, too, which it seems none of the people in the White House ever did. As for college, I sure noticed the older students when I was in college. They were so happy, and they did their work with such ease, because it sure beat flippin' burgers or humping a pack in the army, which is what many had done before enrolling.
Ooh I'll see if I can post up a clip of his famous sunscreen speech - if in fact it was his. (this is probably one of those things when you hear it you'll go "oh that!")
7) Do not eat the yellow snow
No matter where your drinking buddy tells you he got snocones at midnight in January
This is some mighty fine advice. I wish that someone had told me this when I was eighteen. sigh.
Good advice, of course.. particularly about the skepticism. :)
Excellent advice, every one. I especially like number 4...that's why I'm a fantastic tipper and don't get snarky with CS reps. When you've been on both sides of the table, it's prolly easier to let go of that "I'm better than them" thing.
Oooh, yours are much better than what I would have come up with. Although I do think going straight to college is a good idea for some people. It depends on your maturity level, and what you want to do, afterwards. (If the answer is "dunno" and/or "bartend" and/or "snowboard" then I do believe your advice is dead-on.)
I wish someone had sat me down and really talked me through 1 & 2. I let my fear of math and my bad attitude toward it cripple me in college. And I think if I'd waited a year or two to go/been a little more mature when I hit college, I would have handled it a little better.
#2 is my mantra to high school kids too. I wasted an education at a very good school, studying something that nearly killed me, only because I was too young/naive to know what I really wanted.
Well done.
crazymumma, a few to many of those days in a row.
liv, if you lived closer, i would be your algebra tutor. And don't you worry your pretty little head about Excel sweetie. :)
susanne, i wouldn't say that NO one should go straight into university, just that it's not the only, or even the best path for everyone.
diane, you were smarter than i was. As a communications major (the first time), i am aware of just how crappy a radio station job can be.
irrelephant, i said that the issues were teeny tiny didn't i? And let me just say that while i appreciate your appreciation, i also HATE YOUR GUTS because you are a man. X:(
tt, it was kind of dusty in there too! :)
gary, of course, but it seems like they do a resonable job of that, but too many people (esp. women) are math phobes.
maggie, i hope you find it.
furious? I thought that was just a lemon flavored icee?
lynn, me too. Wonder if i would have listened.
chani, i'm not listening to me!
mona, i forget who this quote is from, but i like it. "A person who is not nice to the waiter is not a nice person." So true.
princess, well why don't you try it and see what you come up with? You might surprise yourself.
fiwa, i wish someone had done that for me too. I was NOT ready to go to college at 17.
wng, oh good, i got it right! :) Too bad we can't get that money back.
mignon, i think the pressure to go off to college right away is even greater now than when i was a kid. Makes me ill. I try to tell my kid this, but she doesn't want to hear it. Thanks!
I'm working on a new release, God 3.0. It will cut down on menstration issues in women and staring issues that plague men.
Don't fall for God 3.0. Dot zeros are always premature versions. Always, but always wait for version point one before upgrading. See I believe in #5 too....Actually I believe in all six.
This list is awesome and I embrace it wholeheartedly. Thank you!
I would have to add...take outstanding care of your teeth...save yourself pain and $$$ later!
To start press any key. Hey! Where's the any key?
**sigh** it's next to the undo button.
That is a good list and as others have said, it can also apply to those over the age of 18. There seems to be some sort of a magic age that varies child to child where they suddenly realize that maybe their parents do know more than they thought and they do not know as much as they thought they did. THEN is when they can really start to benefit from your list.
I like. I think everyone should wait tables when they're young, it makes one more appreciative of the hospitality of others.
of course, I also think everyone should learn how to drive a straight gear, but what do I know?
and the stairs thing? it kills me when I'm trying to finesse a baby buggy into the elevator at the mall, and a group of people are trying to get in there, as well. I just want to 'accidentally' run into them...each one of them. I reckon that makes me sound bad.
We have a great TV commercial in the UK relating to number 2.
Well, similar, if not exactly the same idea.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xvnfm5R50aU
I like what you've done with it (the meme). Great advice. Sigh. If only the young were capable of taking it to heart. I fear they have some sort of force field which deflects it.
I believe in time well waisted before starting university or college or whatever will provide specialized skills.
I believe that math is something I can still try to overcome, however I babysat to pay for tutoring in math, chemistry and physics in high school. Why didn't someone tell me to stop torturing myself? because I really was that bad at it. so much so that I would never have been in a course in university requiring those skills to any great degree.
That being said, my neighbor is a retired math teacher and at some point when I have more time she has agreed to tutor me in math.
Also; men especially need to learn where the start/on button is!
I resent able bodied people crowding elevators to get to the second floor of the mall (unless they have a child with them).
Meno-could you write a book on parenting 101? I would buy it.
egan, you're funny. Get busy on that new release, dammit!
patches, i'm holding out until 3.2 or later.
anne, what would your advice be?
pat, that is the truth. But getting a kid to floss has been pretty much impossible for me.
ttq, i've had that conversation!
dick, it's amazing how much my dad learned between the time i was 20 and 30!
holly, i'm with you on the manual transmission. Go ahead and clip a few ankles with that baby buggy.
helena, oh thanks! that is great! i cringed and laughed.
peevish, i know i had that force field in full effect.
daphne, you can do it! The math i mean. Thanks for the confidence, but i am probably too lazy to write a book. We'll see.
I think I will do this meme for the weekend.
The best ones are #2, and #4. Oh how I wish I had gone out and got a job before college.
I was only home with my daughter for about ten minutes before she was so pissed off with me that she didn't talk to me for another hour or two. But she really missed us.
Great! Where were you when I was under 18?
Please come see me at my new site. I went underground and you don't have an email address. (Pool)
Ooooh! Just...barely...made...it!
February 29!
melanie, i look forward to seeing your answers.
deb, ah, the joy of the teenager. But she missed you.
say it. I DO have e-mail. It's over on the side. menoblog@gmail.com. I'll see you at the new place. I need the story about you going underground.
princess, thank god i'm in a later timezone! :)
Great advice, but i dont think at 18 i would have listened!!
Oh woman - the wisdom...you rock
Good advice. Somebody should have told me that about math when I was that age.
No. 5 is my motto for new stuff you think you need but you don't really, and in two years it will be smaller, cheaper, more sophisticated and cost half as much. (Having said that, I think my husband and I could finally get that flat screen and dump the old TV.) ;-)
Brilliant. I would add, "Wear a condom." :)
Meno, your hate I can stand. Just so long as it's not permanent nor aimed at me personally. *grin*
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