i was a sophomore in college when the two towers came down in new york.

(bare with me -- this blog isn't necessarily funny. but in an effort to live up to the "devilishy witty, heart-warming and smart" endorsement quote i aim to get from oprah or dave sedaris, i'm going to try to be poignant. we'll return to our regularly scheduled sarcasm tomorrow.)

i had a psych of adolescence class that morning at 10am (midwestern "we're just a little slow" time). i went to class even though i knew about both plane crashes, because that's just what debbie does -- she goes to school come hell or high water. or terrorist attack.

in the first five minutes, someone raised his hand and asked if we could watch the news instead of listening to a lecture. the professor replied, "you'll be hearing about what happened this morning for the rest of your life. you only get psych of adolescence once." so we had class.

and in all four years of college, it is the only time i regret not playing hookie.

i would venture to guess that nearly every graduation keynote address since 9/11 has been about the repercussions and meaning of that day -- especially because we were all in college and away from home when the world as we knew it changed.

but what strikes me is that beginning this year, the graduating university students won't have even been in college when the attacks happened. most of them went home from school that day to be in the company of family. most of them couldn't even vote yet.

don't get me wrong: today's twenty-somethings are the 9/11 generation. all of us -- whether or not we were actually in some sort of institution of higher learning or not. but certainly for those of us who were away from home, it was a defining moment of our adulthood. we found family among our peers. we felt a surge of patriotism. we were scared. we were angry. we put up disgusted away messages (because really, that's how our generation expresses itself best). we promised to never forget.

here we are 4 years later. and in the words of gabe, "i'm kinda over it."

disclaimer: no, i don't think either of us is over 9/11; i'm not sure we'll ever be. but what i mean is that i think i'd rather be remembered in history as the pro-active generation, not as the reactive generation.

thomas friedman (who gave our commencement address) notes two dates in history that have changed the political, social and cultural landscapes: 11/9 and 9/11. on 11/9/89, the berlin wall came down. on 9/11/01, the two towers came down. he argues that both events required great amounts of creativity and imagination. but the sources of creativity came from very different ideals: one from great hope and one from great hatred.

and that's why we can't let 9/11 be the defining moment of our generation. surely, it has changed us. but so has rap. and instant messenger. and steve madden. and music piracy. and tivo. and dawson's creek.

i'd like to think that we are not a creative generation of great hatred. we are an imaginative generation of great hope.

we feel a strong pull to be connected to each other: whether through im, email or cell phone. our generation has been given unprecedented means to connect with each other and the world.

for us, knowledge is power. and it's cool to be smart.

(which might be the only basis on which i could be considered cool.)

granted, we are lazy as all hell, and we think that using a thesaurus means shift+f7 and that writing in cursive means changing the font to monotype corsiva. and we have short attentio...

... but we are curious. we are smart. we are efficient. we are confident (albeit sometimes cocky). we are self-reliant. we are self-sufficient. we are passionate. we are innovators. we are driven.

we don't want to know what; we want to know how. we shouldn't be known as "generation y" but rather "generation why?"

we are a generation of enormous imagination and creativity, and it's in the way that we choose to use it that will ultimately define us. but we should never be defined by the moment in which our pride was destroyed and our sense of immortality was shattered. (that does not include the moments we've been rejected at a bar).

we are a generation of so much more than that. we are the generation of facebook and mozilla. of hybrid cars and ipods. of napster and digital cable. of ebonics and lol, omg and ttyl. of flip flops and jonathan safran foer.

don't doubt what we are capable of.

but don't judge us based on "the real world" or "the bachelor." hey, no one's perfect.