Long times away and long travels

I have been traveling and sick recently (those are unrelated I am pretty sure).  I have to say 4 hours on a plane is getting pretty painful.  I did find someone to talk to on the way back.  He was studying C++ on the plane and I asked him why he was learning that (C++ is way more painful than Java for object oriented programming and C is way better for learning the internals of a computer).  So I got to talk to him for quite a while.  He is looking for a job as a quant after spending the last 5 years teaching as an assistant professor in math.  It was an interesting conversation, made me remember how good of a job I actually have most days.

I had a couple of interesting experiences while doing my usual green commute back home.  On the light rail (which is brand-new BTW) I watch 3 girls get on who had the biggest potty mouths and the poorest grasp of the english language I have seen in a long time.  We are talking bad language.  I can remember being that age and having  the same pointless conversations about who did what to whom and whose cousin could help in a fight (for reference none of my cousins could help).  But this made me feel really old.  All I could think was how uneducated they sounded and how much they will be disadvantaged in life.  Additionally, they had poor attitudes.  One girl was picking the decals off the window for the train.  The older lady behind them asked them not to do that because her tax dollars paid for that and someone would have to replace it.  Then I heard a conversation I could not believe where these young girls just dismissed and insulted this lady.  Incredible, their parents should get out the spanking paddle for this conversation.  The girl continued to do it insisting that the lady couldn't tell her what to do.  Then the lady mentioned something about her tax dollars paying for their education and the girls were like 'no, my mom pays'.  It was obvious the girls did not go to any private school because no private school would ever let their children act like that.  It was pretty amazing how disjoint from reality their perceptions of the world are.  Even if they went to a private school the state still sends tax payer dollars their way for a wealth of programs (that aren't helping these girls obviously).  It was just amazing, I really want to do something.  I know older people always complain about the younger generation but this was quite incredible.  These girls, if they continue on their course, will never amount to anything, no one with the attitude and language that they showed could ever go anywhere.  It just made me feel very old and sad for them.

Then when I was walking around downtown there was this kid on a skateboard who almost ran into me while he was trying to run a red walk signal (for reference he was completely wrong to even try).  To which I was of course at fault and he called me a 'fucking idiot'.  A completely ridiculous statement.  I wasn't the asshole who fell off my skateboard nor the idiot who thought I had the right of way when I didn't.

It was just a couple of incidents that made me feel old because I was complaining about the younger people, sad because I had acted similar though to a significantly smaller extent in my youth, and angry that these kids are acting this way.  The future is going to be full of a few smart people and a lot of dumb people and unfortunately the difference will be larger than it is today and these kids I saw will be on the wrong side of that with a high probability.  Just sad, parents should raise their kids better.