By the wayside

 For the second installment of “By the Wayside,” Chelci and I have decided to focus on a period of our lives that most people wish they could relive – their middle school years.

     Ok, so maybe I lied.

     Nobody really wants to relive these times. I’m sure that most of us have blocked out these awkward years and never want to see them again. Hell; acne, school dances and algebra still scare the crap out of me. And I’m 22 years old.

     As I was researching fads, I had a realization. This past decade was unlike any other; we don’t have any stupid toys or ridiculous fashions. 

     The slinky and bell-bottoms have been replaced by camera phones and low-rise jeans. But I guess that’s technology for you.

     I remember three things from our middle school years: media sharing, instant messaging and Jared, the Subway guy. 

     No one wants to admit they’ve downloaded from a media sharing service, but everyone has. No matter which one you used – Napster, KaZaA, WinMX, Morpheus or LimeWire – each song added another virus to your computer.

     Good thing our parents didn’t know much about computers, because those three hard drives you crashed definitely would have come out of your allowance.

     I remember spending hours on AOL Instant Messenger. Everybody would rush home, hop on the Internet and spend hours chatting away. 

     “Why didn’t we just hang out together?” you might ask. Because “Buddy Icons” and AIM profiles were much cooler than the people we were actually talking to. Except for the Subway guy – he’s legit. t&c

Tom Hough is a senior broadcasting and public relations major and is a columnist for the t&c.

This week’s article puts you back to the days where you had braces, acne and your awkward first kiss. Welcome back to your middle school years. 

     I can remember sprinting up my driveway as the bus pulled away, to beat my little brother to our computer. AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM.

     I had at least four different screen names and would sit and talk to people for hours. It was cool to write things in your profile, and have funny away statuses.  

     Did any of you have an I-Zone camera? I must have gone through a whole pack of film the first day I had one. It was (to us) a revelation in technology that made our lives so much better.

     Girls my age will always remember the first time we got to put on makeup, or, when we were actually allowed to. 

     Middle school is the time when we experimented making ourselves much better looking with pastel eyeshadows, colored mascara and neon nail polish. 

     It worked for us at the time, but looking back, we looked ridiculous. Now we know that crazy colored makeup makes us look like Mimi from the “Drew Carey Show.” 

     We have grown up, at least a little anyway. These things have all gone by the wayside. t&c

Chelci Fauss-Johnson is a senior broadcasting and Spanish major and is a columnist for the t&c.