The Nine-Year-Old Teenager Gets His First Taste of Campus Life

In November, Ian participated in an elaborate, nerd-maximalist contest with a group from his school, competing against other teams to build the most amazing Lego robot and also, somehow, shed light on solutions to counter a selected threat to the environment. It was hosted at a local college, and although Daniel wasn't interested in the contest - he was far too busy jumping around the campus on his new pogo stick which he had gotten for his birthday - he was, nevertheless, extremely interested in campus life, once we paid a visit to the dorm cafeteria for an all-you-can-eat lunch.

Needless to say, he lost no time eating absolutely everything he could and investigating new prospects in every corner of the cafeteria.  In fact, he was afraid to to the men's room, because he thought that this technical departure from the cafeteria-proper might constitute the legal termination of our all-you-can-eat visit.  Eventually I persuaded him that the bathroom was an extension of the cafeteria, for purposes of devouring everything you can without having to pay for re-entry to the buffet.   But then he posed a very reasonable question, no doubt putting himself in the shoes of all those young people who are faced every day with the question of whether to make the very most of this wonderful place or squander some of that time on less-compelling campus activities:

"Can people just stay here all day and not go to class?"

Certainly, he was having a pretty good time "skipping" the war-of-the-Lego-robots and their super-nerd handlers in favor of Sodexo's famously unusual approximations of pizza and hot dogs and ice cream cones.

I told him that, in fact, campus fun has been the great black hole of many young people's academic careers, and kids are particularly unfortunate to get these freedoms long before they have the discipline to handle them (just guesswork on my part, of course...), and he'll want to bear that in mind when he gets to college himself.

Needless to say, Young Daniel exited the college cafeteria with a stomach nearly stretched to the limit, crammed with two bowls of ice cream, smiley fries, and so much more...

(November 21, 2015)