High Hopes

So, to add to the annals of things I've discovered while trying to kill time in the student center, here's this. Today I had to pick up the finally finalized and approved copies of my thesis for binding. While waiting for someone to help me, I picked up the latest copy of The UAB Reporter. On the front page, it featured a snippet about UAB's housing goals. UAB is on a new campaign to try and actually become an accredited university. (I am not exaggerating this point. Accredited is not a euphemism for anything. My master's is printed on a grocery sack and wrapped in old Sunday comics.) This campaign includes crazy measures like making sure all of the T.A.'s really did take as many classes as they claimed and not allowing guns in the classrooms without permits. (Another statement that is not exaggerated.) And, part of this plan is to get more students in on-campus housing. Most UAB students rent apartment off-campus or still live at home. Anyways, the paper said that 1,395 students lived in on-campus housing in 2004. It was then reported that the housing goal for 2005 was...drum roll please...1,400 students. Wow. I mean, really, wow. With goals like increasing the number of students living on campus by 5 whole people each year, UAB might increase it's revenue by all of $35 in 2005. And, possibly more perplexing than this goal that I'm not sure can really be called a goal (it seems more like an estimate or small inflation), is the fact that the UAB Reporter had so little going on that it devoted time and space to mentioning this. I failed more students last semester than the University hopes to move in to its dorms in the next year. (Maybe the failing thing isn't really related, but I thought I'd mention it.) So, I've decided that the lesson here is simple: having small, incredibly attainable dreams means that one can never be disappointed and will always feel good about oneself. This is probably why people on MTV's Road Rules/Real World Challenge seem relatively content and confident - as long as they don't get evicted and only have to regurgitate worms while wearing a chicken suit once every few months, life is good. And, in light of that, my goal for the coming months is to have a paying job. (See? I don't even have to say well-paying job. I don't have to think about benefits. I don't even have to say legal job.) Right now I have an internship, which my grandmother calls volunteering, so anything with a paycheck is a step up. I can work at Hooter's and feel that I met a goal. This is fabulous, and I invite you all to take a little lesson from UAB's administration - aim low.