Someone once told me

that the definition of insanity is the process of repeating the same actions and expecting different results each time.

Example 1: Not reading or doing your homework and then expecting to get better grades just because that was your New Year's resolution.

Example 2: Dressing like a skank and dancing like a whore while intoxicated in public, and then expecting to meet Mr. Right, or at least a better guy than the last schmuck you dated (who you also happened to meet in a bar. . . go figure).

Example 3: Voting far-right Republicans into office and then expecting the country to be a better place each time. Ha! Only if you want to redefine "better" to mean a conservative Christian empire ready to go around the world, pulling out its rifles when someone fails to worship democracy as we've defined it, playing cowboy abroad and then flat-out ignoring the people who need help here at home. . . but that's a different issue than what I meant to be writing about. (Yes, I see the hanging preposition. I just lack the will to edit the sentence right now.)

So now let's turn to the ever-popular rhetorical question: What's my point? And let's add a new rhetorical question to the repertoire: Is it sad that we have to ask the previous question almost every time I write? Perhaps I should begin each post with a thesis statement so that we avoid this problem. But, alas, I'm off track again.

My point is that most college students, by the aforementioned definition, are truly insane. We do the same things every day, we follow the same routines, we see the same people, we say the same things, and yet we expect different, new, exciting happenings each day. Just once, I'd like to see someone look at the alarm clock and admit, "Every day is exactly the same. I know what's going to happen today. And I know I'm not going to like it. . . . Here we go."

Let's just get over this notion that some day it's all going to change. It's not. You're going to let the art building suck the life out of you; you're going to watch as a law journal drains your blood from your veins; you're going to find it as no surprise when a physics lab has your brain in a jar; and I can't even feign shock when the Mock Trial doc[ument] box contains my vital organs.

This is the way it happens. This is what we do. And until we learn to deal with it and embrace the mediocrity that is slowly sapping away our zest for life, let's just admit we're insane.

If you guys need a role model, I'll be the first. Let's call it Nuts Anonymous. Our own version of NA.

Welcome to today's meeting of NA. My name is Allison, and I am insane. I do the same things every week--I go to classes that don't mean a thing, I go to a job that doesn't pay enough, I go to meetings that are truly pointless, and I spend what little free time I have worrying about an extra-curricular activity that will have escaped my mind in two years anyway. The grand result: I whine and whimper and wonder why I even bother, only to remind myself: Hey! You stupid bitch! You're insane!

And then we begin the process of moving on.

Who wants to go next?