Tell me lies...sweet little lies...

I've come to realize that honesty isn't accepted very readily in these modern times. I've been thinking about this the last few days (after a weekend with nieces and nephews), and this thought was brought to startling reality today in my Media Studies class. We had a candidate for the Television professor position come and give a guest lecture during class. I'd met the man a few hours before, and found him to be a pretentious ass, so I was nonplussed to learn he would be telling our class all about his Doctoral thesis. When a presentation about a thesis is combined with a poor PowerPoint presentation complete with tacky animated gif clipart, I find myself hating life, and Microsoft for providing instruments of terror.

Anyways...the candidate asked how many of us in the class wanted to work in television when we graduated. Even though my emphasis is television production, my department has squashed any desire that might have lurked in my mind of working in tv. So, I said exactly that out loud. Gasp! Shock! Horror! I'm surprised the room didn't erupt into a black hole as all of the air was suddenly sucked into everyone's mouths. One girl made a point of stating, "How rude can you be!" after she had recovered. I'm sorry...I was just being honest.

I now again reference my nieces and nephews. Kids can be simply amazing at times. My niece informed me this weekend that I have gotten fat. Not exactly the nicest statement of the year, but at least she wasn't denying the truth. Just cold, refreshing honesty (at least it was after the ego had recovered.) Later, I heard my sister repeating the mantra of "you can be whatever you want when you grow up" to my nephew. Maybe I'm just jaded, but I don't believe that anymore. When was the last time you saw an astronaut/ballerina/veterinarian/President? Sure, we could blame that on any number of things, but isn't the truth that you just can't always be what you want when you grow up...no matter how many times the mantra of modern American society is stated to you?