Dear College,
Fuck you.
For so many reasons.

I am eight weeks from graduation and what do I really have?
I will have a piece of paper that says I read a lot and wrote a lot and had deep thoughts that someone might never require of me again because I'll probably be working fucking minimum wage somewhere, trying to pay off loans for the next ten years.

I majored in history, almost minored in sociology. And you know what's in store for me for paying thousands of dollars to head out to do what I want to do? Volunteer work because the agencies I am interested in are all having their fucking funding cut. Or I didn't pick the right major to begin with because, fuck, I didn't have my life planned out after high school. I knew that. Yet because I was "smart" I needed to go right away, to make my family proud, to get into the track, to make a better life for myself through education.
And I'm supposed to make it even better by heading to grad school NOW when I still don't know what I'm doing with me, because I have been in school for over three fourths of my life. At least homeschooling gave me a better chance than most people get. I have barely had the chance to "live" and yet I need to know what I'm doing with my life.

I have friends, who I'm supposed to network with to get me somewhere, that are or most likely will be in the same boat as me. Otherwise they're headed off to grad school to keep feeding the machine for years more.

Matt has STILL not found work and he has been hunting for a YEAR, sending out applications every day.

As it is when you do work, that's your whole fucking life. I just heard some thing like that the workplace is becoming your family and your religion. Isn't that fucking crazy? No wonder why people don't want to leave college- they can't face that.

It's so frustrating. Colleges are a business. It's clear every day that I walk my campus that I'm in a business center, because Wells is a failing business. They're afloat but they're swimming hard to stay that way. And I'm supposed to make the money to keep them there...
The money that Wells does get is from their older classes, where they didn't necessarily come from the lower middle class, before college was more accessible. The tuition has gone up and you know what that means? Targeting a higher class or the part of the middle class that is still surviving.

Class....business....hell, it's what everything is about. And in that essence it is power.

I would be fine being "poor." Let me go live in a commune working the soil, living simply, not really needing the things I am brainwashed to. I will be happy living with less and paying my loans. Really, I'll be fine that way. It's not like I don't know life without the internet and a cellphone. It's not like I have never gardened or milked a goat.
Sometimes I HATE my "dependency." Being in Vermont last summer...there was a wonderful freedom from that. Let me go try living that again.

Ugh. I'm just...so tired of the impending hopelessness. I'm usually an optimistic but hell, it's everywhere, like the fact that women are not doing well with job hunting and have an even smaller chance than men of getting work...and yet universities are increasingly filled with women.
It makes my head hurt.

And here I am, fortunate history major with almost-soc minor and I have all the reasons and answers of "why" and "how" and "when" in my head...yet I have no answers on how to fix it, at least no answers that will fix everything. I can start small but I'm still connected to everything, still subject to change even when I cause it myself.

-sigh- Hard times and anger.

Alright, I'm going to pull my face away from this dependency and go take a walk, a luxury. Funny how the terms have flipped, huh? (Computers were a luxury, now having the time to take a walk is one.)

Peace.
~Lo