ME ME ME

In the past week, I have come across two articles describing how insufferable those Americans born between 1980 and 2000 are.  They are often referred to as the Millenials or, as Time put it:

That cover pretty much sums up both the Time article and the other article I read:  "Millenials are lazy, entitled narcissists."

As the parent of two Millenials and teacher of hundreds more, and as a baby boomer, let me just say, "Compared to whom, jerk-face?"

The sense of entitlement, the demands for special treatment, the lack of a work ethic?  Hey, my generation perfected all that.  And all the things we baby boomers get credit for--the peace movement, the civil rights movement, women's liberation, the environmental movement?  At most, five percent of the baby boomers were actively involved in furthering any of those ideals.  Many of my generation were--and still are--as self-centered, bigoted and aggressively ignorant as the worst members of any other generation.  (Though these same folks are ready to claim credit for causing the social achievements that the five percent accomplished.  When, 180 years ago, Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr. wrote the words, "Nothing is so common-place as the wish to be exceptional," he was clearly foretelling the coming of the baby boomers.)

So, with that preface, let me turn my attention to   .   .   .   you guessed it   .   .   .   ME  ME  ME!

I am close to having everything in order for my 2 1/2 months in Tanzania.  I just got the 6 passport photos I will need for my visa and work permit.  As so frequently happens when I have my picture taken, a disaster occurred.  In that the photos look just like me.  As opposed to the dashing, handsome man I am firmly convinced is the real me.  Those damned cameras and their objective reality.

I have my letter from the Dean of the School of Liberal Arts and Sciences confirming that I am required to return to Ivy Tech in the fall.  It seems that Tanzania is wary of letting people in the country that might overstay their visa.  Apparently they don't appreciate our willingness to do a job that Tanzanians refuse to do.  That unpleasant job being  "to pay ridiculous amounts of money to be subjected to 6 days of misery on the slopes of Mount Kilimanjaro and/or on the plains of the Serengeti."  Oh, I forgot the rest of the job description: "while wearing clothing with the colors and styles of circus clowns."  Ah, that is a form of "exceptional" that many of my countrymen and women have actually achieved.  My pride is limitless!

  I have the bulk of my stuff packed already and still have some room left in the suitcase.  I'm debating whether to take both my Real Analysis and my Complex Analysis textbooks (along with my Topology textbook, of course--what sensible person would ever travel without one of those?), but I keep reminding myself, "Jim, this is a working vacation, not a pleasure trip.  Mathematical Analysis may have to wait."  So I may just leave both books behind.  It's probably time for me to give up some of my freewheeling, fun-loving ways, anyway.  (At least, that's my story for leaving my suitcase half empty.  And it that leaves me room, at the end of my trip, to smuggle into the U.S. a dik-dik to be my pet antelope, well, no one can prove that that was my plan all along.)

There's no doubt that this is a pet that would only belong to a dashing and handsome, yet deep and sensitive, man, is there?    ME   ME   ME