Oh, humanity. Why have you forsaken me?

I do honestly believe that there is still some good in humanity. I believe every person has at least one good quality about them. Sometimes you just have to search extra hard to find it. These positive attributes can be something as simple as “they have nice handwriting” or “they have nice hair.” Having pretty attributes isn’t a crime. It’s also not an excuse for stupidity.

I have been noticing lately how some people do not understand what is and is not appropriate to talk about in public. By public, I mean a place where others are forced to listen to your conversation.

I do not want to hear about how many times you have sex in a given week. I especially do not want to hear about every detail of the event. I really don’t want to hear about this at all. I could care less. I am more focused on eating my ice cream or getting back to my dorm.

I do not want to hear about how much you want to have sex with someone. I do not want to hear every detail about what you want to do to this person.

I do not want to hear about your financial problems. I do not want to hear about how Jimmy owes you money or visa versa.

I do not want to hear about your relationship issues. I do not care that your significant other of 3 days slept with your best friend. I do not want to hear about how many people you are dating at this time.

I do not want to hear about your medical problems. I do not care if you have 11 toes and that’s your claim to fame.

I do not want to hear about how macho you think you are. I do not want to hear about how you beat someone up, evaded the cops, or participated in some other activity that would give you street cred. If I do over hear this topic again, I will act flirtatious, get your name and phone number, and turn you into the police.

Now, there are times and places to talk about such things, although I cannot honestly think of one. All I ask is that you stop ruining my meal time or my walk home.

A tip for the guys: bragging about how many girls you’ve done or any topic mentioned above is a major turn off. I don’t care how hot you think you are. I don’t care how hot you wish you were. Stop talking crap. If you think a girl is cute, go up and (*gasp*) talk to her. Hold a conversation. Stop being a pansy and hiding behind your delusions of manliness. Stop making me want to punch you for ruining my perfectly good meal. Start talking about something of relevance that doesn’t make me want to hurl. Who knows, you might get on my good list. I buy those people chocolates and other candy.

DiNiNg HaLL HO-dOwN!!!

To be honest, I have no way of telling who you are (unless you later comment my blog and let me know). I will assume that you are a college student, particularly a freshman this year since this blog of ours is about surviving college and what to expect there. Either that, or you’re a student in high school getting ready to apply or go to college in the next year or so. Or maybe you’re even a parent of a potential college student. I have no idea. But I do know that IF you ARE like me, you’re a freshman in college and you’re struggling between your class schedule, and trying to find time to eat every once in a while, and once you do find time, you get sick of eating the same thing over and over again. Chances are it will get better and you will adjust…eventually. I have gotten used to it, and if I can do it, anybody can, including you.

Most people go to college knowing that there will be dining halls where they can access somewhat decent meals three times a day (unless you go to Purdue where they do not serve dinner on Sunday nights and then the students starve, but that’s beside the point….). If you go to the same dining hall two or three times without making an appearance at a different one, you will probably notice that the hall you’ve been going to has the same food every day. DO NOT ASSUME EVERY DINING HALL SERVES THE EXACT SAME THING ON THE SAME DAY. I made that mistake and after three weeks, I just found now found out that the dining halls serve different food even though each one has the same kind of food every day. So there IS a variety to choose from… the only obstacle standing in your way now is the walk from “starting point A” to “ending point B”.

The other problem I would like to pose a solution for today has to do with schedules and dining hall operating hours. Most of us average students are up until 2 or 3 o’clock in the morning and have a 7:30 AM class. The dining halls open at 6:30 AM for breakfast until 9:30 AM, but those of us up late don’t always have time to go to breakfast, and WE NEED FOOD! Ask people around campus about any possible solutions if you find yourself in the same boat. I just found out 4 days ago that Purdue has a system called “On The Go”. Instead of buying a meal and sitting down to eat (like in the dining halls…usually), we can just go in, pick the food we want, pay, and be on our way. This works great because you can just eat while walking to class. I would assume since I did not hear about this system, not many other people knew either, and maybe still don’t. The same thing goes for lunchtime. If you have classes around dining lunch hours, there has to be something at your school that will get you by for a few hours. Think about it. They can’t just let you starve. They have to feed you somehow! So just take my advice, and ask questions because there is always an answer, even if the answer is a simple “no”. At least you know you tried right?

Oh yeah, chances are there are “Grilles” on campus that stay open later than the dining halls for late night snacking if it’s a must! ;-)

Tricky Buses

If you are anything like me, you would have trouble riding the bus. It sounds like an easy task but let me tell you, it is pretty tricky and I still have not completely conquered it. I thought that you could just hop on the bus and it would take you where you wanted to go, needless to say that did not work out to well. I never thought this would be one of my problems when I came down to college. You just do not think of these small menial things that can add up and take a toll on you.

The simple idea of riding the bus never crossed my mind that it would be so difficult. I had this idea in my head I would get on one and just tell them where I wanted to stop and they would take me straight there. When I would leave in the morning for classes, I would always see everyone just waiting at the corner for the bus to pick them up. I did not think it would be a big deal until I saw 3 buses all of a sudden lined up and they were all going different directions. How are you supposed to know which one to get on and where it is going to take you? Well, I got on the bus that said Ross-ade and I knew that Ross-ade had something to do with Purdue so logically thinking I thought it would just take me to different spots on campus that I needed to go. I boarded the bus and then my first hint was no one else followed me. There were just five of us on the bus so I knew something fishy was up. I kept riding the bus just looking around and I knew we kept getting farther and farther away from where I wanted to go. All of a sudden, the bus stops and I ended up in some deserted parking lot with a big stadium beside me. This would have been perfect if it was game day but it definitely was not. My first ride on the bus was a failure. I was just glad that I left plenty of time to be able to walk to class and I was just experimenting to see what it was like. After my complete failure, I decided to talk to people around me and see what I did wrong. I learned that there were three different loops that take you different places. I would have never guessed that.

For the future, I found a pamphlet that had a map of campus on it and showed where each bus went and where it stopped. Also, the pickup times and when the bus starts and stops for the day. I was extremely excited to have this and felt like I could finally conquer the daunting task of riding the bus to class. Finally, my one word of advice would be to have a schedule of the buses and make sure you know where it is headed first before you hop on it and end up in a deserted area with no one around.

It's all about me

Or, at least this post is! Welcome to our blog. I hope you enjoy our adventures, and journey with us through our triumphs and tribulations, at least for the semester to come. Who know, we may get such a following that we continue to post our humors tidbits for the rest of our college lives. That could be anywhere from the rest of this semester to the next 4 or more years.

However long this blog lasts, I hope you enjoy.

I figure that it always help to know your authors, so I thought I'd help you out by giving some generic but helpful information about me. I am a freshman in the college of engineering. Yes, I am a female going into one of those "science fields." I don't let a patriarchal society tell me what I can and can't study. I'm just stubborn like that. (My mom would agree. There's this really funny story from when I was 8...but my mom doesn't think it's that funny. I love you, Mommy!) While I've always been stubborn and drawn to the sciences, I love to sing and play the violin. I was apart of a large music group back home; we would play music for people in nursing homes, all the way to representing our state back in the 2002 Winter Olympics.

I will warn you that I do tend to be sarcastic and cynical. If something sounds completely outrageous, I ask that you try thinking about Jon Stewart saying the same thing. If it still sounds completely outrageous and like the most offensive thing that you have ever heard, I apologize in advance.

Oh, and if there's a misspelled word, it is probably missing a 'p', since my 'p' key hasn't been working too well. I'll post about my adventures of how to convince someone to fix your computer later.

Anyway, that's all I can think of right now. If you have any generic question about me, or if you simply want to comment, please do! It makes me feel all warm and gooey inside--in the "I'm so special!" way.

-shoushi

Welcome to College

The goal of this blog is to inform people about college and to give them better insight as to what to expect. Here you will find a blog written by six different college students, each of us with varying perspectives and experiences. We hope that this diversity will give the reader a multi-faced look at college life. You will get perspectives from three guys and three girls, which we feel is a benefit to both genders. We will cover a broad range of everyday college experiences. We hope to include material such as a guide to the best places to eat, dealing with roommates, sports at college, and other academic and social topics. One of our goals is to write about and hopefully help readers to understand and prepare for the transition from high school to college life. Each blog will cover a random topic that pertains to college life. Basically, we will write about any exciting college story or tips that we can come up with. On your first visit, you will see the perspectives of six different students who are currently all in college. We direct this blog towards college-bound high school students and those currently enrolled in college. We hope this site is useful for all types of students and their parents. Our blogs "personality" will be a practical one, with the hopes that people read our material and learn something from it. Each team member will write about something interesting or useful that they learned that week. In conclusion, we hope you will enjoy and learn from the things we write. We apologize if we offend you in our writing, it is not intentional and merely a window into our personal lives and views.