advice

I guess it's bound to happen working with high school kids, but I was woefully unprepared the first time. And the second time. What do you say when someone asks you for advice about...you know...life and stuff? How do you avoid sermonizing or just plain condescending?

It's not like I don't like giving advice. Especially unsolicited advice. Those who know me can attest to the fact that I'm like a fucking battering ram with that sometimes. It's the solicitation, I guess, that throws me. I don't think it's intended as one at all, but I feel like I'm walking into a trap every time. I approach such situations with extreme trepidation.

My reluctance can be attributed to a couple things:

1. My utter uncertainty that I'm really any kind of role model in a broader sense than my standardized test skills.
2. The unshakable notion that I'm going to end up sounding like that sunscreen song. Seriously, what can you say to young people that hasn't already been set to inspirational electro-pop?

Still, after it happened twice, I started to really think about it. What do I wish someone had told me?

It probably would have been nice to hear that although you're going to meet a lot of the same kind of people in college that you knew in high school, they aren't going to be the same people, so they don't know you. You finally get to become the person you've been changing into slowly in the last years of high school while everyone you've known your whole life continued to see you the way they always had. I mean, I figured it out pretty quick, but I bet the last few weeks of the summer leading up to college would have been a lot less nerve-wracking if someone had just sat me down and told me for sure that nobody would know I puked in the cafeteria twice in elementary school.

Other things I've been saying are the kinda dumb things that I really feel like college should be all about. Take as many classes as possible and actually attend them. Go to protests. Join clubs. That kind of thing.

I guess the last thing I should remember to say going forward is not to be intimidated by the kind of people you end up with as classmates and roommates. Invariably they'll be smarter or richer or better looking than you. But you're funnier and a better guitar player than they are. And none of them hold their elementary school's cafeteria barfing record.

(I really wish there was a way to set a song on MySpace to repeat, because I've been clicking every 3 minutes for about an hour to hear Jaymay's "Sycamore Down" again. Listen here.)