"Typical College Student"

So the other day I'm sitting at Jitters doing homework with my usual turtle mocha in hand. The whip cream wasn't melting so I decided to stir it up with my fingers. Some lady sitting near by chuckled and mimicked me. I smiled to humor her. Some man met her there and sat with her (I'm guessing it was her husband.) They were an older couple, they were probably old enough to be my grandparents if my parents would have had me at least 7 years earlier.

As I sit and do my homework, they have their own conversation. I'm still doing my homework as they leave. The lady who had mimicked me stirring my mocha came up to me and said in an ironic way,
"Typical college student with your coffee, you remind me of my granddaughter, she does the same thing."
Meaning she sits and does homework at a coffee place, I'm only guessing.
I replied with a smile, "Well this is a good place to come and do homework," just to humor her again. She smiled, followed her husband, and left. As I sat there I thought about what she had called me.

"A typical college student." The only reason she had known I was a college student was because I had my College Algebra book with me so she was just assuming.

Anyway...typical college student? What the hell does that mean? If she means "typical" as:
a girl who really hasn't found a purpose in life yet, who struggles with how she's going to afford to live in Iowa City next year, procrastinates on homework, sings and dances in front of the mirror when no one is home, enjoys listening to almost every kind of music, blogs about her feelings, enjoys going to coffee joints with her friends, eats cookies on a daily basis, ponders how giraffes survive a 6 foot drop when they're born, has an odd fascination with Jack the Ripper, is deathly afraid of semis, and uses facebook for hours on end...the YES! I am a typical college student.

But is there such thing? When I think of a typical college student, the 90's are a big part of my visual aid. Shows like Dawson's Creek, Undressed, Popular and movies like She's All That pop into my head. More so Undressed. Yeah I used to watch that show when I was younger. It made me feel like a rebel when my parents weren't around.

College students were depicted as horny 24/7 and did nothing but have sex. Did they ever show them attending class? Maybe leaving class to get ready for a party or "the big date" that usually always led to the bedroom.
Typical college student defined as: "You're hot, let's go do it in my dorm."

I also have this mental image (don't ask me why, I just do), of people dressed in all black with berets, attending poetry readings, drinking black coffee, and wearing 80's blues brothers sun glasses.

But there are all sorts of college students, like the sort of college students surrounding me as I write this. So...we're sitting at Java Joe's in Des Moines talking about random things that have no connection whatsoever...Like bongs and banana men, while taking obscure photos of eating cupcakes. Ahhh...the life of a journalism major.

There is also your typical journalism student. Not.
Take a look at the staff of the NIACC Logos. None of us are typical. Derek sits and laughs at his DS while Kevin and Kristy talk about the DM music scene. Misty sits with her iPod Touch exploring the Internet as I sit here writing down what is happening around me and interject with the conversation between Kristy and Kevin. Other people at the journalism convention we're down here for were different in their ways too. There were people who were primped and proper looking, while I noticed one guy with gauges, Weezer-esque glasses and shaggy hair that was rather attractive.

So now that I think about it, should I be offended that this woman at Jitters called me a typical college student? Is she that ignorant or was she just recognizing the fact that I am in college and I was simply doing my homework at a coffee joint? Whatever she meant by that comment, it gave me an excuse to contemplate.

No one is the same. Everyone in college and everywhere else is different and unique to who and what they are. No one is typical.