Harmful Holiday Germs

When attending a university or college away from home, one might notice that every time that there is a break, there tends to be different illnesses going around. This can very easily be explained by the fact that we all go home and then pick up germs that we then carry back with us to school. These germs might lay dormant in our systems and then infect others at school. Because of this one might need to take certain precautions in order to ensure that you do not pick anything up or spread anything once you get back to school.

Rule #1- Wash your hands! Your parents and teachers have over-stressed this all throughout your childhood and the fact is that even though you are older that does not mean that you are immune from basic hygiene.
Rule #2- Start to drink a lot of vitamin C. This does boost your immune system and you really should be consuming enough to keep your immune system active. If you really do not want to drink it (as in orange juice or other fruit juice) then you should take tablets such as emergen-C or other such vitamin C products.

Rule #3- do not drink from other peoples cups. Seriously, this shouldn't even be an issue. People have germs and if you drink from someone else's cup, then you are increasing your risk to pick up all kinds of viruses and bacteria.

Just following these basic rules of hygiene, you should be able to avoid picking up unwanted illnesses.

Top five Breakfast Cereals

There are many different cereal brands out there and for some reason when one starts to go to college, they eat more cereal than they ever have in their life. I have tried more cereal in this past year than I have ever had in my entire life. I feel that I am now much more aware of the different types of cereals out there and have formed a list of the best cereals for your benefit

1. Coco Puffs- these are the best because they are chocolate. This is not the only reason, they are the best though, Coco Puffs are also fairly nutritious for you ( although they do have more calories than other healthier cereals)

2. Special K- Special K comes in various flavors including chocolate and strawberry. It is one of the healthier cereals out there and it tastes pretty good.

3. Fruit Loops- delicious and i eat them like candy. Fortunately these are much healthier than candy and it is not a big deal if you do not pace yourself.

4. Mini Wheats- These too are tasty and are not unhealthy. Like fruit loops, i like to eat mini wheats when I am just vegging out.

5. Lucky Charms- Lucky charms are on the bottom of this list because of the fact that they are not very healthy, although they are much healthier than many snack foods that are out there. These are still frosted and sugary.

Rainy Day Fun

To me the term "rainy day" means a day in which you are trapped indoors because the weather outside is really awful. The winter provides many of these rainy days- I suppose that really they are snowy days. Anyways, it just so happens that a day trapped indoors can either be fun-tastic or really boring. When in the dorms, a day trapped indoors can really be a blessing instead of a curse. There are several games, competitions, and activities taht one can organize in order to make a day trapped indoors really awesome.
1. Movie Marathon
Some movies that I personally find to be the best when it comes to a rainy day are:
- Monty Python and the Holy Grail (comedy)
- V for Vendetta (Action)
- How to Lose a Guy In 10 Days (chick flick)
- Two Weeks Notice (romantic comedy)
- Stardust
- Dodgeball (Comedy)
- Secondhand Lions (Comedy)
- Chicago (Musical)
Of course a movie marathon also entails the basic neccessties (meaning popcorn and fattening snacks). Just grab a few friends and pop in a couple of movies. It doesn't really matter what you watch as long as you have fun watching it. I personally feel that everyone needs to have some time to just sit and veg out.

2. Along the lines of Movie Marathon is to watch a season of some show, it does not matter what show, but some that I really like to watch are:
- The Office Season 1-4
- Desperate Housewives
- Grey's Anatomy
- Just Shoot Me
- How I Met Your Mother
- The Big Bang Theory
I personally prefer to watch funny shows, but some show, like Grey's Anatomy are perfect to watch in one day because you do not have to wait on any of the cliffhangers that the show is so notorious for. I personally do not have the patience or attention span to wait an entire week to find out what is happening in someones fictional life, which is why I like to watch the dramatic series all at once.

3. You can have a friendly competition
Some events that are fun and intersting are
- Eat something very spicy and then wait to see who reaches for their water last.
- Who can squat against a wall the longest
- Who can eat a bowl of ice cream, or saltines the longest
- Set up an obstacle course, and race through
- who can army crawl the fastest
These events require creativity and can be very easy or very hard- its your choice, just think something up.

4. You could always clean your room, too. When do you have a better time to do it?

5. Start a friendly poker game :)

6. One more option is Board Games, I like:
- Clue
- Monopoly
- Card Games (speed, war, solitaire)
- sorry
the list goes on and on...

7. Internet Shopping is also pretty awesome



Your options really are endless and just require a little bit of creativity

RA's can be pretty cool

Seriously, RA's are really not that bad... I mean some are just awful, but that is more of an unfortunate occureance. Mostly all of the RA's that I have met have been helpful and social. Every now and then, though, an RA will slip through who really like power. That does not happen very often though.

RA's, or residential assistants, actually have to interview for the job. I am lucky enough to have an RA who has had several years of experience. This makes her a great source of advice on pretty much everything dorm related.

One of the really big reasons to be nice to your RA is that they are there to help you and eventually you may need help. Do not treat them like someone who is only there to be a parent replacement. Plus, if you get in good with your RA then you tend to get away with more stuff than the other people on your floor do. Be careful with this because it can get you hated really easily. Do not suck up to your RA- this is very see through and will just make them hate you and see you as a suck up.

The #1 reason to be nice to your RA is that they are a person, and quite frankly one of your floormates.

THE ROOMMATE FROM HELL!!!

All who currently or who have lived in a dorm know that at one time or another your roommate does something that is really annoying or out of line. sometimes this is something so small that later on we look back at it and realize how petty it was, but other times it is a story that we continue to tell long after we have popped out a couple of kids and are putting money away for retirement.

On my floor, there are several roommates who, through lack of social skills or maturity, have done completely disgusting or unforgivable acts.

One of these people is Melanie. Melanie is the roommate of Dana. Melanie unfortunatly is the type that lacks social maturity. For the first few weeks that Melanie and Dana began to room together everything went very smoothly. This is because Dana had a boyfriend with whom she spent the majority of her time with. Dana rarely came back to the dorm room that she and Melanie shared, and typically it was for a change of clothes.

This gave Melanie the freedom to do whatever she wanted in their room. Unfortunately, the whirlwind romance eventually died out, as many do. This meant that Dana now had the time, well really the necessity, to live in the dorm full time. This meant that she would sleep in the room, shower in the community showers, and eat at the dining courts.

However, this did not sit well with Melanie, who, due most likely to a poor up-bringing, had never really learned to share. This made the adjustment that many are naturally able to do very difficult. This lead to many back-handed sabotages committed by Melanie.

At first they started out very small. A dry-erase board wiped clean so that Melanie could inform the world of her plans for the day, a snooze button pushed nine times, and even a broken lamp was thrown into the fire as fuel.

Eventually, though, Dana began to retaliate which made matters much worse.

The fight, that is currently still raging, has reached its peak, when one day Dana went to take a shower. She then came back to the room and de-robed in order to change. At this point Melanie had just gotten back and saw an oppurtunity. As people were passing by in the hallway she decided to hold the door open so that all could see the very upset Dana- naked.

The moral of this is that some roommates are just spoiled little brats and really need a wake up call. As of yet, Dana has not retaliated and I hope that she does not. If you happen to be one of the people who are so unlucky as to be faced with a roommate like Melanie, all I can suggest is to put in for a room change immediately, some people just will not change.

How to stream line your shower stuff

When it comes to the showers in the dorms, the less time spent in them the better. I quickly learned this in the first few weeks of school. In order to ensure that you get in and out what i suggest is to do the really obvious thing and get a shower caddy.
However obvious this is, it is very important to get the right shower caddy. You want one that if it gets wet- its not going to start to smell. This means no fabric. I have seen girls heading to the shower with cloth totes all the time, and I just do not know how they manage with them. You would have to pop your head in and out of the shower every time that you need some soap or shampoo, which can get awkward very fast. When it comes to shower caddies, I suggest getting a plastic one with plenty of holes for draining. Bed Bath and Beyond has a very nice selection of plastic totes that are both cute and functional.

Before heading off to the showers, make sure that you have everything that you need, such as shampoo, razor, soap, etc. This may sound simple but I cannot count the number of times that I have begun to head off to the showers, had to stop and go back to my room because I forgot some small thing. The amount of time that I have spent turning around and going back and forth from my room is definitely not worth it. Take ten seconds and look around. Also, you do not want to overload your caddy, because it is not fun when you have to stop in a robe or towel and pick everything up. Try to keep it balanced and you probably want to keep all of your basic necessities in it at all times.

One very important thing to have- and by important I mean the number one item that you need- is a robe. Not a towel wrap. Towel wraps are cute and convenient, but when it comes down to it a bath robe is much more functional and comfortable. When its cold in the morning and you want something to toss on really quickly before you head to the bathroom, a robe is ideal. It's kinda difficult to toss a towel wrap on over your pajamas. Trust me, I have tried and you just wind up looking ridiculous.

Also, make sure that you have a towel, and if necessary, a change of clothes. This is VERY important because you will be soaking and have to walk back to your room freezing and dripping. If you do not want to change in front of your roommate or if you or your roommate has company then you could always change in the bathroom. In my experience the best place to change is in the stall that has the bathtub in it. No one ever uses the tub (well almost no one) so the stall is pretty much always open. However, this tub is safer and cleaner to use than people realize. Every one is so disgusted by the thought that other people bathe in it that no one does, so it is a lot cleaner than people think.

Calendars: not just for the date

For a very long time, calendars have been used solely for telling the date, and while this is the main intent behind having a calendar, it does not have to stop there.
There are many kinds of calendars for pretty much every single hobby, belief system, or childhood icon that there is out there, and I mean every- one time I even found a calendar for witchcraft. The sad thing is that every year we typically throw out our old calendars so that we can get a new one that has the actual date on it. This means that whatever pictures are on the calendar get thrown out too. However, if you really like the pictures that are on your calendar, then you can save them and incorporate them into your dorm room decor.

In order to do this i suggest pulling the pages out of the old calendar and fixing them onto the wall with masking tape, ticky-tac, command strips, or old chewing gum. In doing this you can cover more of the wall and put your taste into the room. Even if you do not have a calendar on hand that is old and has out-lived its purpose, then you can wait until calendars go on sale and purchase them at a reduced price.
If just sticking them onto the wall is not appealing to you, then you could always find picture frames and put the calendar pages- picture side up- in the frames and then either adhere them to the wall or hang them on the wall.

College and the Multi-Vitamin

While living in a dorm room, ones health may begin to slip due to poor eating habits. One can avoid this by taking a multi-vitamin. Anyone who was ever a college student living away from home should know that you don't exactly eat right when away from home. Having the new freedom of there being no parents around to tell you what to eat can sometimes lead to dessert for breakfast, lunch, and dinner (and in-between snacks). This behavior makes our vitamin intake slip a little. This is why taking a multi-vitamin can really help you recover from this deficit and not interrupt your celebratory dessert feast.

I personally take one-a-day as my vitamin supplement. However, there are many different vitamins out there, if you really wanted to you could take Flintstones Chewables. While I sometimes go for the name brands, the generic brands put the same basic vitamins into your body. You should look around for what the best vitamin for you is.

Covering White Walls

One of the really lame things about living in a dorm is that you cannot paint the walls. This leaves you with stark white walls that make your room not quite so inviting. There are several ways to counter the plain white wall effect. The number one way is to cover them with something removable.

To accomplish this, one could do several things. One could buy posters and put them on the walls. However, when it comes to this method of wall decoration, one should always remember that posters cost money. While you can use posters, another problem with this method is that it would take an awful lot of posters to cover the whole wall. Posters may or may not be the way to go for you, it depends on how much white you want to be on the walls.

Another method is to get pictures and stick them to your walls. This method is kind of like your bulletin board did not stop at the edges, but kept on going. I like this idea because it shows pictures of your friends and family, so people who come into your room can get a good idea of what you are like as a person. The problems with this are that your pictures can get damaged, destroyed, or lost (also if you have a cute sister every guy who comes into the room is going to make a comment). This means that you need to at least have copies of them. This method can be more expensive than the poster method as a result. Also, if you run out of pictures then you will have a space with a lot of pictures and then a space with no pictures, which will look very odd.

Other than using posters and pictures you could also use pictures from magazines, and stick them on the walls. This method is really good because it also allows people who come into the room to get a feeling for what your personality is by what magagzines you have up. It is also really cheap because several magazines could cover all of the walls. Many college dorms have free magazines in them, and typically are found near or in the mail room. If your dorm does not have free magazines then you could petition the dorm for free magazines.

One last option is to get blankets, tapestries, or sheets and hang them on your walls. This can be very cheap or very expensive. Going the expensive route is easy because if you want to find something thats over-priced then you will find it, but the cheap route can be just as easy. For example you could go to salvation army and purchase sheets that are cheap and then tie dye them. I would personally make sure that they were washed though. You can also buy tapestries and blankets very easily online. Most campuses have shops that sell things with the campus logo on them. This means that they will most likely sell blankets, which can then be hung up on the walls.

One very important thing to remember when putting anything on the walls of your dorm room is that whatever you damage, you will have to pay for. This is why is suggest using wall putty or masking tape to put things on the walls. This way you will not have to pay big for something minor.