The Real Senioritis

If you are a senior in high school, I am sure that you have already become your own boss. You have skipped class due to your adult status, and grade school life is below you. To that dear, senior student, your experiences with life so far are as meaningless as the earth‘s size in comparison to the sun. Your social status does not dictate your life, and soon you may not care what your peers think of you. Once your 22^nd birthday approaches, you reminisce about being nursed by your mother and then grab that teat for all its worth.
           
My first year at Western Michigan University, I was all about getting drunk and looking cute. Men became my academic. After all, what good were you if you were not attractive to the opposite sex? My grades did not diminish my freshman year in college, but my elegance sure did. Looking back at my 19-year-old self, I cry more than I laugh. A perfected hairstyle meant more than a passing grade. The buzz I felt every weekend was just a bonus and therapeutic to my depressive lifestyle.
          
You think your parents have been nagging you all this time just to get under your skin. The idea to rebel against their word has always been a turn on and the easy way out. Yet, as their words sink into that embryonic head of yours, you think about maturing, but how do students fend for themselves if they have always depended on their parents to wake them up for school? My college grade point average exceeds my high school grade point average because back then, my progress in school did not add to my character. Nowadays, teachers smile at my perfect attendance and applaud my effort. If I concentrated in high school like I do now, I probably would have applied to a few Ivy League universities.
           
Senioritis has a new definition when it comes to my behavior. My 22^nd birthday is a third nipple disguised as an ingrown hair on my back. On Friday nights, I would much rather catch a good flick than lick my toilet seat with glazed over eyes. I know it was never easy being 19 years old, but I still think I had a cleaner, wild self than these idiots who were born after MC Hammer went bankrupt. Education is what I came here for in the beginning. These days, being stereotyped as a bookworm would be a compliment. I am no prude, nor a complete loner.
  

The older I get the more I appreciate company and healthy sleep cycles. If I want to get trashed, there are designated areas where I can do so: bars. However, buying a six-pack or a bottle of wine and staying in with a few people suits me well. During the holidays, I am not a ghost to society. Celebrating special events with my friends has always been something I have enjoyed. I never exclude myself completely; I just stop sharing my time as much. My days feel incomplete if I don’t have to go to work or school. This is the first time where I don’t want to sit around all day and have my parents pay my rent for the rest of my life. Is it possible that the corrupted youth is teaching me to become a responsible adult instead of sucking me into their obscenities? Maybe those shows like Teen Mom, My Super Sweet Sixteen, and Jersey Shore serve a purpose. I watch and quickly change the channel, it is horrifying and I feel dumb for watching it. These reality stars are proof that if we do not value our education, we may become as reckless as they are.
 
I feel like a senior citizen stuck in Cancun, Mexico for spring break. Who knew a 22-year-old would patronize an 18-year-old in such an extreme manner?  I don’t stand on tables at crowded house parties to make public announcements about how drunk I am. I also don’t have my friends take a picture of me with a half empty vodka bottle in my left hand. Of course, my right hand would have to be giving a peace sign and the global web must know my motto is, “Peace, love, and vodka.” “OMG,” I am so cool. Am I being too critical or is there a post-millennium disease of senioritis infecting college students?
           
I have lived in the same college farm for the last three years. A college farm, this one at least, is an apartment complex that is located near a particular university. They are expensive and never for quality, nor quantity. Convenience makes a $250 apartment priced $384.99. The management teams for college farms usually incorporate my peers, which is refreshing, but more than half the time, I feel like I could be doing a better job sitting there and consulting pissed off parents that are demanding maintenance for the small, overpriced apartment they are paying for. All I have to do is walk across the street to be in my school‘s parking lot.
 
My dilemma is that I don’t technically live on campus, making this the shortest distance away for the freshman to drink and devour. The regrets of resigning my lease pour through my open window every night with young adults in skimpy clothing and backpacks full of beer are walking by and screaming to people on their balconies, “Hey, screw you, man!” Of course, the people simply smoking a cigarette on their balconies have to maintain their dignity by saying, “What? Screw you! Come over here and say that crap!”
 
If senioritis is a disease, should I fight it or embrace it? Since the moment I stopped hanging out with my “party friends” and started focusing on my future, I have made the Dean’s List consistently. Is there something I can do to help the youth grow? Do I even care about the image that the youth portrays on every college campus in America? Of course not! I am not an environmental activist; I’m an undergrad that wants to grow up and make a living. I can’t stop evolution by turning the human race into tan-dipped, self-proclaimed whores that think Justin Bieber, Miley Cyrus, and the entire Twilight cast are gods and goddesses, but when I earn my degree, I can run far and fast.