Trying Not to Be a Cliché

One of my favorite weblogs in the history of this fine genre is Christian Lander's Stuff White People Like (although, I think the population this blog describes is much wider than young white people. I think it is about young hipsters, who are not always white, and which white people are not always). It is very, very funny and sarcastic. I fell in love with it in February of 2008 when my older brother pointed me to #70, Difficult Breakups, because at that point, I was whining all the time about getting dumped. Reading this entry, and realizing that it was basically about me (minus the poetry/music writing. I was more of an angry diary-filler), almost immediately shamed me into getting over my ex.

Recently, I was trawling Stuff and I found this upsetting entry. Am I this person? I really hope not. This person, a year-off-person, is spoiled and lazy, and Lander mocks him/her as he mocks all white people/young hipsters, sarcastically naming "working for eleven months straight with only two weeks of vacation" as a stressful burden that necessitates time off. This year-off person whom Lander describes grows more and more annoying, deciding to write a book that nobody will ever read and harassing his/her friends at home with email updates about his/her travels. Becoming this person was the reason I almost chose to go directly to college. Convincing myself that I would not become this person was the most difficult part of deferring.

Maybe I am more afraid that I will seem like one of these people than I am that I will actually become one. I know exactly why I took a year off, and it wasn't because I wanted to become more interesting to others or because I was burnt out. It was because, quite frankly, I was not ready to go to college and I didn't want to waste my freshman year with flare-ups of immaturity and separation anxiety. Maybe this motivation is equally as shameful as the desire to appear more interesting.

Whatever. On a completely separate note, I am attending a fundraiser tonight for the school at which I volunteer. We are raffling off an Amazon Kindle, which I really hope to win, but probably will not win, because raffles hate me. Anyway, my three darling readers, keep your fingers crossed because, since you are all my family members/BFFs, we will all probably share the prize if I do win.