Those Kids Entering College

Our babysitter of the last 5 years is going off to college this week. It’s strange because in some odd way it feels as if my own kid is going off to school; we’ve known her and her family for years.

My daughter was pretty upset about it for a few weeks but finally moved into the “acceptance” phase when she created some artwork for our college-bound sitter this past weekend for her to display in her new dorm room.
I wished I had taken a picture of it, as I do with most of her artwork, but it’s basically a picture of a dolphin with an ice cream cone waving with its friends saying, “See you at Thanksgiving!” And they’re all wearing pink pilgrim hats and necklaces.
The dolphin is supposed to be a self-portrait as my daughter is still planning on becoming a dolphin when she grows up. In fact, when I ask her what college has a dolphin major she just answers matter-of-factually with, “(duh!) Any college in Hawaii.”

At our sitters going away to college party with a few of her friends and family, the adults started talking about how strange it is that these kids were all born in 1992, which is a bit disturbing because that doesn’t seem that long ago at all.
In fact, I still have perfectly usable clothes in my closet that are from circa 1992. My wife might find the term “usable” debatable, but I beg to differ.

This time of year I always find that the annual Beliot Mindset list highly informative. Basically that’s the yearly list reminding adults how young these kids actually are and how old we have gotten in such a short amount of time. Here are some interesting tidbits from it, with of course some of my own commentary added here and there.

A Few Interesting Facts About the Class of 2014

1. Korean made Hyundai cars actually work now as opposed to being broken down on the side of the road. I still wouldn’t buy one as I use to own a 1989 Excel that loved to break down.
   
2. Yugo? What’s that?
3. They’ve never written in cursive. I just tried now and still remember. Now I trying to think when they last time I've actually used it...
   
4. Email is just too slow, and they seldom if ever use snail mail.
   
5. They use cell phones to tell them the time, no need for a wristwatch.
6. They have never worried about a Russian missile strike on the U.S.
7. Kurt Cobain is now on the classic oldies station.
   
8. Fergie is a pop singer, not a princess.
9. They never twisted the coiled handset wire aimlessly around their wrists while chatting on the phone.
10. Computers have never lacked a CD-ROM disk drive.
11. Their parents’ favorite TV sitcoms have always been showing up as horrible movies. The only exemption: the Brady Bunch movie.

Some Sourced from Beloit College Mindset List

What other things can you think of?