Never Gonna Give You Up
Update to update- The problem for IE users (those who care anyway) *seems* to be stemming from the Flooble drop down boxes. The only problem is when I get rid of them, I don't know how to change the font so that it matches the rest of the site. It's showing up red instead of grey. The alignment is also weird on both the main page and the archived post. The main page you can't see right now since I took it down, but you can see what I'm talking about in the archives if you check out this link. Of course I have to write about it here because someone out there might be able to help me solve this. If not, please proceed to the post.
Before I dive into today's post, I want to ask all of you to consider voting for my friend's baby in the Baby You're A Star, Evenflo Modeling Contest. If he wins, he gets a $10,000 scholarship and a modeling contract with Evenflo. The picture of her son, Andrew can be found here. The winner will be determined by whomever has the most votes. Voting went live today and you can vote once a day for two weeks. Considering y'all don't know him though, throwing him one vote is one vote more than he had. After all, ya gotta belive the children are our future. Thanks!
Oddly enough this announcement actually is a great companion piece for today's actual post. I swear this was not planned at all.
If you've ever gone to college, paid for someone to go to college, or even watched a movie about going to college, you'll agree with me on one simple fact.
Going to college costs a lot of money.
I don't care if you went to a community college, a state school or a private institution. It takes big bucks to make...big bucks. So families get loans and second mortgages and pawn their second youngest child who, to be honest, was never going to amount to much anyway.
In the end, four, seven, or even ten years later you finally have your degree in hand. If you're from my generation you probably quickly realized one degree was not enough. So sometimes you save up only to go back. Going college is a lot like what I would imagine it would be like working with the mob. Everytime you think you're getting out, they pull ya back in.
One day you wake up. You're in your late twenties, early thirties, mid fifties...whatever. Anyway it is on this day that you suddenly realize. Your college loans are finally paid off. You are no longer in debt to the money sucking machine, the golddigger of higher learning, so to speak. It is on this day that you rejoice over your newfound freedom and find new means of money suckage like Plasma screen tvs and satellite radio. But you're making progress. Kinda.
And then it happens. The phone calls begin. They begin slowly at first, like the first cautious call you may get from that guy you met at the bar last week. He wants to hang out again, but you've been there, done that and you're ready to move on. He's not so ready to let go though. So he calls. And he calls some more. He tries the clever tactic of calling at different times. Sometimes he even writes notes and mails them or emails them. He is relentless.
Now in real life this is when you might figure you have a stalker on your hands. If it continues, you'd contact authorities and eliminate the fruitcake from your life. But the only problem is the guy in this scenario isn't really your ex-boyfriend, he's your ex-...college.
After college it's cool to don our gay alumni apparel and perhaps attend a homecoming game or two. But the relationship is meant to be casual. You've served your time and paid your dime. But colleges everywhere don't see it that way. They somehow think you are really interested in contributing to the greater good. And so they are hoping that you will donate money to keep their college running. Perhaps your donation will go to the fountain out in the quad or it may end up in the hands of frat boy's toga fund. No one really knows.
Oh sure they don't say they are looking for donations and this is where the initial frustration begins. They call up under the guise of wanting to "update their databases". They want to see if they still have the right address, find out if you got married, moved etc, etc. But here's the thing. If I wanted YOU to know any of that, I know YOU haven't moved. In fact, I know exactly where to find YOU should something pressing occur in my life that I feel the thousands of people I didn't know when I graduated in the first place should need to be updated on.
Not to mention the pressure that is involved in this line of questioning. If you can still reach me at the same address, phone number and maiden name, that should tell you enough about what's going on in my life. Asking someone to update the obvious is like kicking them when they're down.
From there, however, the line of questioning quickly shifts. Suddenly they want to know if you want a super exclusive, alumni credit card that they only offer to everyone who has ever graduated from their college, ever. In fact, these are the same people who use to try and accost you to apply for your very first credit card when trying to get into the dining hall all those years ago. Funny how things come full circle like that.
A few years ago I was getting a lot of phone calls asking me if I wanted to get an alumni, Glassboro State credit card. I politely declined telling the person on the other end of the line that I never attended Glassboro State. There was an uncomfortable pause. It was then that I told them I went to Rowan University. Sure it used to be called Glassboro State, but not the four years while I was there. The girl got snippy that I got so technical, but I mean really. If you're gonna try to sell someone something, these are the kinds of details you might want to iron out ahead of time.
So now the phone calls keep coming only it's not really my problem, it's become the problem of my parents. That's because they only have my parents phone number, not mine. And I've trained them well. They now say I'm washing my hair, not at home or out of the country. Unfortunately, I can't get them to tell them to stop calling altogether. They're just too nice to break it off completely like that.
You may very well find the School of Communications is named after them one day.
Before I dive into today's post, I want to ask all of you to consider voting for my friend's baby in the Baby You're A Star, Evenflo Modeling Contest. If he wins, he gets a $10,000 scholarship and a modeling contract with Evenflo. The picture of her son, Andrew can be found here. The winner will be determined by whomever has the most votes. Voting went live today and you can vote once a day for two weeks. Considering y'all don't know him though, throwing him one vote is one vote more than he had. After all, ya gotta belive the children are our future. Thanks!
Oddly enough this announcement actually is a great companion piece for today's actual post. I swear this was not planned at all.
If you've ever gone to college, paid for someone to go to college, or even watched a movie about going to college, you'll agree with me on one simple fact.
Going to college costs a lot of money.
I don't care if you went to a community college, a state school or a private institution. It takes big bucks to make...big bucks. So families get loans and second mortgages and pawn their second youngest child who, to be honest, was never going to amount to much anyway.
In the end, four, seven, or even ten years later you finally have your degree in hand. If you're from my generation you probably quickly realized one degree was not enough. So sometimes you save up only to go back. Going college is a lot like what I would imagine it would be like working with the mob. Everytime you think you're getting out, they pull ya back in.
One day you wake up. You're in your late twenties, early thirties, mid fifties...whatever. Anyway it is on this day that you suddenly realize. Your college loans are finally paid off. You are no longer in debt to the money sucking machine, the golddigger of higher learning, so to speak. It is on this day that you rejoice over your newfound freedom and find new means of money suckage like Plasma screen tvs and satellite radio. But you're making progress. Kinda.
And then it happens. The phone calls begin. They begin slowly at first, like the first cautious call you may get from that guy you met at the bar last week. He wants to hang out again, but you've been there, done that and you're ready to move on. He's not so ready to let go though. So he calls. And he calls some more. He tries the clever tactic of calling at different times. Sometimes he even writes notes and mails them or emails them. He is relentless.
Now in real life this is when you might figure you have a stalker on your hands. If it continues, you'd contact authorities and eliminate the fruitcake from your life. But the only problem is the guy in this scenario isn't really your ex-boyfriend, he's your ex-...college.
After college it's cool to don our gay alumni apparel and perhaps attend a homecoming game or two. But the relationship is meant to be casual. You've served your time and paid your dime. But colleges everywhere don't see it that way. They somehow think you are really interested in contributing to the greater good. And so they are hoping that you will donate money to keep their college running. Perhaps your donation will go to the fountain out in the quad or it may end up in the hands of frat boy's toga fund. No one really knows.
Oh sure they don't say they are looking for donations and this is where the initial frustration begins. They call up under the guise of wanting to "update their databases". They want to see if they still have the right address, find out if you got married, moved etc, etc. But here's the thing. If I wanted YOU to know any of that, I know YOU haven't moved. In fact, I know exactly where to find YOU should something pressing occur in my life that I feel the thousands of people I didn't know when I graduated in the first place should need to be updated on.
Not to mention the pressure that is involved in this line of questioning. If you can still reach me at the same address, phone number and maiden name, that should tell you enough about what's going on in my life. Asking someone to update the obvious is like kicking them when they're down.
From there, however, the line of questioning quickly shifts. Suddenly they want to know if you want a super exclusive, alumni credit card that they only offer to everyone who has ever graduated from their college, ever. In fact, these are the same people who use to try and accost you to apply for your very first credit card when trying to get into the dining hall all those years ago. Funny how things come full circle like that.
A few years ago I was getting a lot of phone calls asking me if I wanted to get an alumni, Glassboro State credit card. I politely declined telling the person on the other end of the line that I never attended Glassboro State. There was an uncomfortable pause. It was then that I told them I went to Rowan University. Sure it used to be called Glassboro State, but not the four years while I was there. The girl got snippy that I got so technical, but I mean really. If you're gonna try to sell someone something, these are the kinds of details you might want to iron out ahead of time.
So now the phone calls keep coming only it's not really my problem, it's become the problem of my parents. That's because they only have my parents phone number, not mine. And I've trained them well. They now say I'm washing my hair, not at home or out of the country. Unfortunately, I can't get them to tell them to stop calling altogether. They're just too nice to break it off completely like that.
You may very well find the School of Communications is named after them one day.
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