Sleeping Beauty

I am burned out.  I don't want to go to college anymore.  I'm tired of the meaningless papers and the professors who don't give a shit, yet expect me to care.  Every year that I remain enrolled, more first-rate, dedicated professors retire, and in their places come poorly-educated dolts with delusions of importance. 

When I was a freshman in 1996, emphasis was on individual performance, and papers were submitted in person.  Now, in 2007, it's all about group work, and papers are submitted digitally.  Each student must come to college equipped with a Wifi-enabled laptop, and computer labs are being phased out to ease the budget crunch.  Never mind the starving scholarship student who's hanging on by a fingernail as it is.

I no longer care about the degree because I've realized it is ultimately worthless.  Excellence in your field no longer guarantees job security.  In fact, get too good and you'll be downsized in favor of someone with none of your experience and a third of your salary. 

I want to stop.  I want to rest.  I've been going to school-including summers-for 26 years.  I want one year that is mine.  Just one.  I'm tired of proving myself over and over again while everyone around me says it's not enough, that I have an obligation to make the family proud.

My life has never been mine.  My accomplishments have been appropriated by my mother and grandmother, as has my pain.  The only thing I have ever been allowed to keep is the blame.

I'm tired.  I want to sleep for a thousand years.