Each Fall an army of eighteen-year-old "adults" floods USF, expecting to finally set foot in the long prophesized "real world." They soon discover that college, and the real world, are whatever these freshmen make of them. In constructing their identities, most are required to take a basic writing course.
Creative Loafing has chosen four of those students to blog for the Daily Loaf.
These are their rants, insights, fears and hopes…
Years ago, I had hope. The Emmy Academy gave me something to hold on to, something to keep me coming back year after year. With hosts like Garry Shandling and Conan O’Brien, how could I not? (That lanky, redheaded geek could make me watch anything. Fox News. The Wiggles. Anything.) Although the Emmy’s were like watching paint dry, you could rely on the host to take some of that paint and get you high with it. He’d give you just enough to hold you over until his next little quip. There was a connection between the host and viewer: he was our crying shoulder. “I know this is rough,” he’d say, “but we’re going to make it through this together.”
That’s what kept me going; I knew that after the commercial break he would say something just funny enough to get me through the Outstanding Made For Television Movie category. But times have changed, my friends. We can’t just get high with the hosts anymore. No longer are they our crying shoulder. They are the tough loving, beer guzzling dads that slap you around and tell you to be a man…
This article appears in Sep 24-30, 2008.