Shout out to my Arabic teacher that looked at us yesterday mid-lesson and said, “I’m worried. You all look exhausted and depressed.”
Of course we were all like, “Oh yeah we’re dead inside, you haven’t noticed?”
And he snapped shut the textbook, threw up his hands and said, “That’s not healthy! No more vocab! Time for dancing!”
And he taught us a dance from Iraq and we danced instead of doing vocab. We didn’t stop dancing until he saw all of us laughing and was satisfied that we were all feeling better. It was perhaps the coolest, most kind-hearted thing I’ve ever seen a college instructor do.
This is why baby boomers think we can pay for school while having a part time job
If you were curious, that’s $714.33 in 2018 numbers.
It’s also approximately what I make for two weeks’ Labor.
If you only make 714.33 every two weeks, sorry for your luck. Strive to be better.
How much tap water do you drink?
Also by making loans and grants for college easier they basically made it so colleges could charge more. Take them away and colleges won’t have a market, so they’d have to charge less or close down. Simple fucking economics.
Nearly all student loans in the US are federally guaranteed. This means the banks have zero liability, as if you default, the govt will pay them, and act as collector to come after you for the balance.
If the banks have no liability, they’ll happily hand out cash for whatever you want, many times knowing full well that your degree in sixth century ornithologists feminist theory won’t ever in any way lead to a financially stable career.
Because the universities know you have large sums of cash, given easily, and that you’ll pay whatever they charge, they hike tuition and book rates astronomically (lots of cash supply, and even more college demand).
Like nearly all problems in this country, it stems from banks, government, and private industry (for profit schools) conspiring to fleece entire generations while selling them effectively nothing.
It’s sad that toxic game culture is so prevalent cuz like. As someone who has ended up in random matches with kids before, I can attest to how fucking easy it is to reverse and un-teach shitty attitudes in kids.
Example: I downloaded Friday the 13th because it’s free on psn. I dunno how to play, so I just enter quick play and I’m matched with 3-4 kids on mic. Immediately on mic they’re shitty and disparaging to each other. They laugh at each others deaths, they actively work against team mates and self sabotage, they call each other “fags”, etc. From the sounds of the voices they cannot be older than 13-14.
I put on my mic and just decide I ain’t havin it. I am nice. I thank them for barricading doors or leaving me items. When they break free from Jason’s grasp I say “good job!” or I try to help them. One kid survived for most of the match by himself. When he dies, I tell him he did a fantastic job.
The mood shift is practically INSTANT. These kids almost immediately stop being dick heads. They start encouraging each other and being kind. After the match all of them try to friend request me. Which should tell you a couple of things:
A) kids want to be kind, and they want to have a nice time playing games. But encounters with adults like me or so rare that they’ve trained themselves to instantly put on a toxic, shitty, defensive veneer when encountering any new person online. It’s literally just THAT EASY to not groom a horrible gaming community, it’s just that NO ONE does it.
B) the speed of which they all tried to friend me was cute, but paints for me such a sad picture? Like these kids are SO desperate to find people to play with who aren’t crappy jerks. They played with me for 10 minutes TOPS and all instantly tried to reach out to me.
tl;dr: The kids are alright. Adults are shit heads.
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