I am 17 and I am expected to, in the next year, decide what I want to study, where I want to study it and how will I get the money.

This is so unfair. Why?

Well, first, when I ask myself in all honesty what I want to do for the next forty years, the answer is never work. Okay, I’m human. Then I should find what I’m good at and go with that. Thankfully, this has been quite clear in my mind for the last five years:

The summer of 2003 I visited the ‘Candy Unwrapped’ exhibit at the Ontario Science Centre with some friends. The most popular section of the exhibit was a large, clear box full of sour bombs. To get these sour bombs, the visitor had to use an extremely unwieldy and awkward stick to scoop up a candy, lift it, and drop it down a tall narrow pipe. … I don’t want to brag, but I was awesome. Everyone else took over five minutes to get one out: and when I stepped up I tipped three out in under 10 seconds. I kid you not – everyone behind was literally gasping in admiration at the skilful way I balanced and moved the candies. It felt very good to have found my niche in life and now all I have to do is find a career that involves using unwieldy sticks to get Sour Bombs out of plastic boxes. I hope it pays well.

But failing that, with a bit of diligence on my part, I could be literally anything I want to: I could write proverbs found in fortune cookies, test shark armour, sample chocolate flavours or use scuba gear to fix problems at sewage plants. I know a lady who washed bodies at a morgue to pay her way through medical school – believably, its very good money. I could even be a chartered accountant, whatever the heck that is…

Ah, the paradoxical view of me and teenagers in general. True, we can drive, buy houses and vote, yet I suspect people view me as having the social and life skills of an introverted mole rat but with a much larger appetite. I know that teenagers as a group don’t exude responsibility or even basic intelligence – I wouldn’t trust a guy who can’t keep his pants up, either. But how many times have I heard ‘You Are the Leaders of Tomorrow’? (Frankly, whoever today’s leaders are have kind of screwed things up, so I don’t know why they think we can change it, but anyways.) That’s why I was so thankful when, through all the murky clouds of responsibility, there cut a ray of solid, rigid, objectivity. Guess what? There are people out there who really, genuinely want our input and company. I can just feel my walls of cynicism melting away as I receive college ad after college ad, from schools practically screaming “Dude, bring us your money!”

Let’s see; we have so far … limitless options and my inclination towards sour bombs, mixed expectations of me, and universities wanting my money.

Let’s talk about me again: I’ve spent the last few years of high school feeling as astute and quick witted as a stoned walrus*. Perpetually staying up late to do school (whether necessary or not) has degenerated my intelligence to the point where I make lame metaphors and now probably dulls my decision-making ability. I have begun to vizualize the entire issue like this: here’s me, suffering a slight headache and dozing off in a chair. In front of me are all teachers, relatives and older friends personified in a character very similar to Willy Wonka. He’s jumping up and down and blithering something incredibly important about the future, choices of the present, stability and how hard the real world can be.

And I say: Hey, you make chocolate, don’t you?

That, friends, is exactly why, with two months left of grade twelve, I am utterly, totally clueless.

Dutifully I flip through the stacks of college pamphlets, study, and record the numbers. But ultimately it comes down to judging them based on which one had cuter girls in the ‘Campus life’ photos. Three months after visiting Calvin College, I’ve forgotten all the financial information I dug up but frequently muse on their large and well-stocked cafeteria. I don’t intend to base my final, 20-60000$ decision on this sort of thing, but I’ve started to wonder if perhaps major life decisions like this shouldn’t come with a warning label: “Do not take while under the influence of hormones”.

Yes, it’s hard. To all my dear fellow high school seniors out there whom I may be depressing with this drivel: dude, why weren’t you depressed before? … But when in a nonsensical doubt, refer to children’s book, so if I may paraphrase Alice in Wonderland:

Alice: “Excuse me; which road should I take?”
Hare: “That depends where you want to go.”
Alice: “Well, I don’t really know.”
Hare: “Then it doesn’t really matter which one you take, does it?”

Dutifully,
Your Mundu
–taking topics firmly between his erudite sights and missing completely–

*Note: no animals were harmed in the invention of that metaphor

“Something is a serious problem if you cannot deprecate it in a whimsical blog post [or fb note].

If you can deprecate it, it must not be a serious problem.

Theoretically.”

-The (original) mundu blog, ‘A Life Lesson. A Red Herring’. June 07.