LeBuhn: Hope within doom, gloom of real world

Things aren't looking good, Northwestern.

I'm not kidding — they're really not. Look at this weather! The sky has grown increasingly cloudy as the temperature falls week after week. Before you know it, we're all going to be like George Clooney scrambling around in "The Perfect Storm," dodging hail and trying to get to Kresge before succumbing to exposure. Freshmen from California and Florida will be found frozen in the walk between Elder and Parkes. It will be bad.

What could there even be to look forward to? I, for one, am ready to give it all up, to sit in Evanston's impending freezing rain and wait to die.

Don't do it, say the optimists. Things aren't bad at all for NU students! Just look at NU football — we beat Wisconsin, a top-25 athletic program! That's something to get excited about.

And A&O! A&O is about to celebrate its 40th anniversary! Those are students, mind you, who organize those shows — how awesome is it that they've been this good at putting on bands for four decades now?!

To which I respond with a yawn: I'm not convinced. So, sure, NU has had a good run at things lately. But this is the Northwestern bubble, you myopic undergrads. The real world will be cold and heartless and unwelcoming to us as we leave these privileged confines.
Oh, God. I hear the optimists chattering in disagreement already. They tell me with perky and misguided enthusiasm to perk up because things are looking up in post-NU life. Hah!
Everyone knows the economy is still about to collapse. We're a bank failure away from total catastrophe, jobs are absent, home sales are — wait, what's that? Well, it turns out things might not be looking all that bad after all:

Home sales in Chicago are up 33 percent from October, according to the Chicago Tribune. That's, well, unexpected. So I guess there's a beam or two of sunshine poking out from behind the mushroom cloud.

Employers are cautiously beginning to hire again? That's good news as well. It sounds like there have been better times to graduate, that's true, but things could be worse. Seniors willing to do the legwork should be able to get a job, or, at the least, wait it out with a stint in the Peace Corps. Becoming a highly educated indigent looks like less and less of a possibility.

Maybe things really aren't looking all that bad. Things are moving along at NU — strong athletics, a popular new president — and the larger world's not looking bad either. Just so long as Sarah Palin doesn't somehow stumble into the presidency in 2012, things really are looking good.

Things weren't guaranteed to turn out this way at all. As you head home for Thanksgiving, try to remember how well things panned out.

But let's be real here: The weather is still going to blow.

Weinberg senior Mac LeBuhn can be reached at mac.lebuhn@gmail.com.