If You Don’t Understand Your College Children, Here’s Why

(I did not write this; but I thought it was worth passing on. Good for a laugh. Or a cry.)

Each year the staff at Beloit College in Wisconsin puts together a list to  try to give the faculty a sense of the mindset of this year’s incoming freshmen. Here’s this year’s list:

The people who are starting college this fall across the nation were born in 1989.

They are too young to remember the 1st space shuttle blowing up.

Their lifetime has always included AIDS.

Bottle caps have always been screw off and plastic.

The CD was introduced the year they were born.

They have always had an answering machine.

They have always had cable.

They cannot fathom not having a remote control.

Jay Leno has always been on the Tonight Show.

Popcorn has always been cooked in the microwave.

They never took a swim and thought about Jaws.

They can’t imagine what hard contact lenses are.

They don’t know who Mork was or where he was from.

They never heard: “Where’s the Beef?”, “I’d walk a mile for a Camel”, or “de plane, Boss, de plane.”

They do not care who shot J. R. and have no idea who J. R. even is.

McDonald’s never came in Styrofoam containers.

They don’t have a clue how to use a typewriter.

No No NaNo

Almost everyone I know is doing National Novel Writing Month. It seems odd to me, perhaps because even if my life depended on it, I couldn’t write 50,000 words in a month. In six months, perhaps, but even that is stretching it. Where do all those words come from? If writers have such a well of words in them, why haven’t they been pouring out all year?

And why the push to write a novel? I could understand if all those thousands of people were setting November aside for something important — volunteer work in free clinics, perhaps. But a novel? The world is already awash in novels that don’t sell. Almost two million novels are written every year. Every single year. Two hundred thousand are published (which means that at any given moment, two million books might be on the market) and half of those are self-published. Seventy percent of all published novels sell less than 500 copies. Eighty-five percent sell less than 1000 copies. Sure, a few people who do NaNoWriMo manage to get their novel published, but if they needed NaNoWriMo to give them the impetus, what kind of writer are they?

Perhaps it’s the challenge. I do understand challenge, but like Gregory Peck in The Big Country, I prefer to keep my challenges private.

But still, for whatever reason, people by the thousands are churning out words by the thousands. I planned on writing this month, but I’ve never have liked going along with the crowd. I know a clinic that needs help. You can find me there. 

Eat a Rainbow

Now that cooler temperatures are here, I can’t help thinking of the coming winter. I dread the frigid temperatures, but I no longer have to worry about the depressions I used to get, because I discovered a way to minimize the effects. I steep myself in color, using bright comforters and afghans, set out large bouquets of silk flowers, and spend time outside to get the benefit of the natural full spectrum light. But mostly I eat a rainbow every day.

Eat a rainbow? Impossible, you’re thinking. But what is a rainbow? Refracted light. Color. Energy. Color is energy, so by eating color we eat the color’s energy. And the best way to eat a rainbow to eat a salad. Not a few wimpy iceberg lettuce leaves with a few croutons sprinkled on top, but a robust salad full of color and life and energy.

Edible Rainbow:

Red: tomatoes, radishes, red bell pepper
Orange: carrots, orange bell pepper
Yellow: yellow squash, yellow bell pepper
Green: leaf lettuce, zucchini, broccoli, green bell pepper, olives, celery, avocado
Purple: red cabbage

Blue is missing, but if you serve your rainbow on a sky blue plate, you will have your rainbow, a rainbow that nourishes the body, nourishes the mind, nourishes the soul.