since you insist on a title...

so here's some food for thought (i know, leave it to me, rigiht!): i began doing my research for the miscue project today at the junior high and was pleased to be greeted by a classroom full of apathetic and fidgety eighth graders. i picked a kid to observe and will commence the more rigorous portions of the project later on in the week...BUT, i noticed the weirdest thing...we all know how kids dress, right? i mean, nothing really out of the ordinary was going on down in northridge: cargo shorts, flip flops, the shaggy hair--no big deal...i found myself reflecting on what nick said the other day about forgetting just how small the little tykes are...they were all quite tiny...but alas, i did my work then left...when i got back to campus, though, and walked through the union, it really hit me: the union was full of junior high kids! well, actually college students who looked conspicuously like enlarged versions of the tweeners i just left thirty minutes before...the college kids were dressed the same as their tweener counterparts and, for the most part, were engaged in the same range of activities found down in north ridge: people were sleeping, flirting, gossipping, zoning out, texting, testing, and a few were actually reading...okay...so no big deal, we all know how we dress and act too...but it reminded me of what tom wolfe says in his book I AM CHARLOTTE SIMMONS about how college kids today are really grown-up versions of fifth graders in their bevavior and dress...certainly that isn't how it used to be...college kids used to dress differently than kids...EVERYONE DID...but indeed something has changed...now, of course, shorts on a game day are a whole lot more comfy than slacks and a blazer, but i'm wondering if there's anything else to this idea of dressing, essentially, the way little kids do...is this a manifestation of arrested development or merely a cultural shifting in style? or both? or neither?