Gone to Texas

It’s the night before school starts, and there are thousands of incoming freshmen milling around the main mall. They have half-confused, half-cool expressions on their faces and stacks of useless Texas paraphernalia in their hands. They’ve been caught attending UT’s annual crapshoot of an introduction to college, a gigantic pseudo-ceremony known as “Gone to Texas.”

Actually, the event would be more accurately referred to as a sampling of the money flowing from the inner workings of this campus. The University Co-op, the only behemoth with any staying power on the drag, shelled out $19,000 for “Gone
to Texas” according to the Daily Texan. Furthermore, the trusty old Office of Relationship Management and University Events went ahead and gave out 4000 crappy t-shirts at a cost approaching $10,000. These paltry sums pale in comparison to the record $8.2 million the University made last year in licensing royalties alone, so don’t think we’re going broke over here. This is Texas, after all.

Yet, the bright-eyed freshmen present for the festivities did not look at the event this way. They probably did think it was the opening foray of their college careers. I know I got fooled into thinking that two years ago while I sat through hours of tradition manufacturing and speech mongering.

The real significance of the event is much different from all that. It’s the first place you learn that, despite the enormity of UT’s student population, you don’t have to follow a crowd. Each student should realize at some point during this ridiculous display that they don’t have to be present. Everyone can just get up and leave whenever the hell they want to these days.

And you, the individual, are not the only anonymous member of this horde of students. All the annoying types from your high school are here, but you aren’t stuck with them anymore. The only people who don’t make any new friends, the
annoying hometown high school sweethearts, are content to wear sweatpants and watch Old School and just generally do nothing at all. Of course, they themselves will tire with that cycle soon anyways.

Really, then, “Gone to Texas” is more of an end than a beginning. It’s the end of that high-stress weekend where you have to go around with your parents to all the superstores to get all the crap that we think of as necessities these
days.

First of all, that time period should be confusing as hell for all of us middle to upper classers. On the one hand, your parents are always acting worried about how much this or that is, and they pretend to look for deals (look, there’s an area rug for only $29.99!). Yet, they insist on buying way more shit than you would even ask for. And that brings on the inevitable feelings of liberal guilt at the cash register with the poor Target employee. And, of course, you know in the back of your mind that the world gets slightly worse every time you shop at one of these annoying places. So you got all this bouncing around in your mind to go with the anxiety associated with a new start in a new place.

Your parents aren’t doing anything to help, either. They have to be led around like drunken hippos, and they think they’re actually in control. They start panicking after one wrong SUV turn or one unforeseen delay, and their sizeable
parental asses have a tendency to block narrow hallways and paths. But you better bite your tongue this weekend, dammit, cause their paying for this whole thing and you damn well better appreciate it. Also, it’s the last time they’re going to see their baby, and you know they’re going to be upset that they won’t be around to annoy you constantly anymore.

Finally, though, all of this comes to an end. Once college starts, all this bullshit of University marketing, incessant hometown issues, and mindless pseudo-events should end forever. And you know that you’ll never go back.

The Life Track

What are you doing this summer? It’s the adult question we students come into contact with so often this time of year. After a semester of the independent life here at college, you will invariably find yourself trying to make conversation with grownups, the strangest of specimens. Their conversation style is exactly the same as it has always been-they demand answers. It’s just, instead of inquiring about your grade level, your sports teams or your extracurricular activities, the adults in your life would like your summer plans formally announced. Looks like you just realized why you’re having such a hell of a good time in college.

You shouldn’t despair, though. The white adult power structure handbook authorizes several different types of acceptable summer activities. You can take classes, travel, or work in any capacity at all without incurring any loss of status, just as long as you don’t give yourself enough time to read all the books on your list, listen to good music, or enjoy a cool drink. Of course, you still do all these things this summer, but you should never disclose that at the declaration of summer plans ceremony itself.

No, if you want to truly impress adults, you only need to say one word: internship. Grownups’ eyes light up like Sixth Street when you tell them you are voluntarily placing yourself at the bottom of some company’s ladder. You try to tell them this, emphasizing the fact that you just sit in front of a computer all day, sometimes performing menial tasks, but mostly surfing the Internet and chortling about how hot it is. You can’t reason with them, though. They chalk your job description up to your typical modesty, making a mental note to later annoy their own son or daughter with news of how accomplished you are.

They gush because you are becoming one of them. Previously, you had time to enjoy the present without constantly checking your watch, but now it’s time to start thinking about the future. College will be over soon, and you will want to be able to find a job so quickly after you graduate that you will be able to make your post-graduation job ceremony announcement right when you come back home for that summer. Your participation in an internship signals to the adult that you are right on The Track To A Successful Life. Once you have completed The Track, they know, you will be leading a worthwhile existence, just like them.

When you settle down with a family in a brand-new suburban home in the boring part of town, you will have made it. You’ll have a respectable career that gives you the ability to support a healthy, American household, and you’ll have reason to be damn proud of yourself. Though you will have to be constantly thinking about money to make sure your house is equipped with as many brand-new consumer products as possible, you won’t have to think about other, more complex issues. You won’t be worried anymore about the world’s poor health, its horrific inequalities, or its humanity. You’ll be simply watching out for yourself, like every other successful adult. Not only that, you just might start stocking your refrigerator with humongous vats of mayonnaise.

It’s ridiculous to discourage anyone from earning money this summer (although so many internships these days are unpaid), and I believe very much in the dignity of work. Your duty is not to save the world. The point is that nobody has a duty to do anything. Our only job is to do something we like with our lives. Otherwise, in a few years, we’ll all start acting like grownups.