Sounds like Georgia has a really good lottery program. Illinois implemented the same deal with the lottery, but we never experienced many benefits like you guys seem to get. I think most of the money gets lost in corruption or jacuzzi’s for the postmaster general or something like that.
Anyway, regarding Sorc’s post, I’m all about living life to the fullest, but I don’t see why you can’t live life to the fullest and pursue an education at the same time. The main problem I have with stuff like this is that there is the impression that once you go to college, you somehow enter this void in which life starts passing you by and suddenly you’re eighty years old and you wonder where it’s all gone. Personally, I feel like I’ve lived life more fully since I started attending college. I’ve certainly had the opportunity to see much more of the world around me. I’ve gone to New York to compete in jujitsu tournaments, toured the Wild West and Canada in my car during one summer, went to visit a friend of mine in Scotland a couple of years ago and went around some other parts of the UK. And now, of course, I’m living in Paris, and have been around to see places like Amsterdam, Brussels, the Riviera, and going to see Infected Mushroom in Cologne this month, as well as heading down to Prague and other places in Germany. And I’ve done this all, and more, while attending in College. It might leave me a bit more in debt than i would like to be, but to be honest, I feel like having a debt and a degree leaves many more options than having no debt and no degree.
Speaking just from the statistics, it’s about twice as hard to earn a living these days without a college degree (averaged for the sexes, it’s actually even harded as a male) than with a college degree. Now, I don’t want to boil life chances and the aspect of “living” down to just monetary issues. Sure, doing things like backpacking across Europe or America or whatever before school is totally cool, and I’ve certainly run into my fair share of people like that over here. I can buy into the whole philosophy that shit like that is easier to do while young, so do it now. But I just wonder how long you’ll be considering yourself as “truly living” like that. Once you’re truly out on your own, totally responsible for yourself, I feel like you might change your mind. It doesn’t mean you have to rush off and do something now, but i think part of truly living is also keeping your options open to an extent. How much can you really be living if you’ve only got one path you follow like a subway car? After you’ve passed by the same stop so many times, you might start to rethink.
Anyway, I just want to help dispel the myth that college = can’t live or experience life to its fullest.
Well, for a while, Georgia had like the only lottery program in the Southeast. So people from Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, and Florida all came to Georgia to play the lottery. These states have since witnessed the popularity of the lottery and saw $ before their eyes, and they have started implementing their own lotteries and programs like ahkeeyuu’s Bright Futures. Tennessee is also getting its own. In fact, Tennessee and Georgia were trying to get a joint program going that would pay for tuition to Georgia and Tennessee schools, but that fell through for some reason. So now HOPE is experiencing some money troubles, hence my mentioning of Georgia trying to fix it.
Sorc. : \ Do what makes you happy. Do what WILL make you happy. If you do go get a job at Arby’s, and do the things you talk about… I hope that 20 years from now, you won’t be looking back and wishing you had gone to college. From the sounds of the things you want to do, I hope you CAN look back.
Just realize that your current, Fight Club-esque understanding of life’s purpose may not be the same understanding you have twenty years from now, after twenty years of “near-life experiences”.
984, people from my state STILL go other places to play the lottery, but the evils of gambling and the thought of “stealing” money from stupid people seems to bother too many people in the government even to allow a referendum for it. Oh well, I guess we’ll just keep paying for college educations for kids in other states! =)