Your Dorm Comes With A Light and Mirror. Use Them.

If you take a leisurely stroll across my campus, you can see many things. The beautiful foliage, the fascinating buildings and of course, the terrible outfit choices...Yes, the various new and original ways students can make themselves look foolish are the most striking part of a walk around any campus really.

Their outfits are offensive. I am offended.

There is no excuse for this madness. It's not hard to pick up a pair of jeans and match it to a shirt. It doesn't take that long to put on real shoes instead of socks and sandals. And is it too much to ask for people to stop wearing leggings with short shirts. No one wants to see that much of anyone on a sunny day.

So dear random stranger girl, take off your extra tank top, thick leggings and boots. It's almost 90 degrees outside. When you take off your boots, burn them. It looks like you chopped off the feet of a rabid yeti in the pursuit of fashion. You deserve better. And to young man in the stripes and plaid: shame on you. Go back to room and start over. Don't come back out until you care about how you look or learn how to show it.

When you get dressed, just take two seconds and ask yourself: Do I look like I tried or do I look like a fool? I do it often. It saves lives.

Why People Normally Ask to Be Roommates, Not Make Executive Decisions

The hardest part about college is dealing with the people who never took the time to grow up. When I say grow up, I don't mean giving sugar binges or waking up on Saturdays for work and not cartoons. Real maturity. The kind that makes you deal with problems and not ignoring them. Especially when I comes to someone you consider your friend. Especially when you're the one that was wrong.

Okay, wrong is a strong word. Let's just say that this person was "misguided and uninformed". And let's just call her Erica. Her name isn't Erica, but I've yet to meet one that I like so it fits. It's not Erica's fault that she believed--for reasons known to her and God alone--that I would be okay with her random decision to write my name as well as my desired roommates on her dorm room application. Without telling either of us. She couldn't have thought about how it wouldn't work out. Maybe Erica overlooked the fact that her sister HATES the girl I actually wanted to room with. Though I think that's quite impossible because Erica's sister hates this girl in a creepy I-would-kill-you-if-I-only-could-get-away-with-it kind of way.

Erica's intentions must have been pure. Misguided but pure.

All of this information came out so suddenly that we could not discuss why this arrangement wouldn't work. Because of limited space, my actual roommate and I needed to find two more people to fill a four-person campus apartment but it was made quite clear that Erica and whoever it was she signed us up with were not being considered.

When the bottom dropped out, Erica shifted the blame on me. Now when she sees me, she relies on the classic "Something is painfully interesting in the opposite direction" stare to avoid acknowledging my existence. You know, instead of just owning up to the mistake or asking why her brilliant secret plan didn't work.

Not that I care. I wasn't really friends with her anyway. We were just polite associates. Which might make a person wonder why I wrote about it in the first place then.

It was just something to do.

A Covert Operation

Assignment One: Be a spy/creeper.

As an avid--but not creepy--people watcher, the fact that my first English assignment is to eavesdrop on other peoples conversation pleases me. When you visit a public place, you can't help but pick up on other people's random conversations. Even when you couldn't care less about a stranger's favorite breakfast or latest sexual conquests. Why not make observations, take notes, write a paper and get a grade for something you do without even realizing? All you need is a pen, paper and newspaper to make yourself look busy and no one will realize that you're paying close attention to their conversation about the best kind of chocolate bar.

Hershey's Symphony with almonds and toffee. Discussion over.

Tasks like this make you realize how disconnected our society is. Most conversations last only a moment and don't have any real substance. How many times has someone answered the question "How are you?" with something other than "Fine/Good. How are you?". Does anyone really want to know how the other person is doing?

Nothing worth noting has come up. The mission continues tomorrow.

The Title is the Hardest Part of Writing Anything

I'm an English major but I don't like to write anymore.

For about nine months of the year, my life is measured by essays and due dates. It is controlled by professors who almost seem to meet secretly and schedule all their assignments days apart so they can laugh at their students' struggles. When one assignment is done, another needs to be started. Holiday breaks are listed on the calendar, but everyone knows they're only good for special projects and research papers. No break for you.

The moments where my head isn't in a required novel and my fingers aren't cranking out a response essay, I'm definitely not scribbling down any prose or poetry. After writing several pages literary theory, the last thing I want to do is explore my own imagination. I write what is necessary and nothing more.

So once again, I face another year of long books, late nights and forced academic brilliance. The courses seem enjoyable but I can already feel the writer's block kicking in. Years ago, I used to write stories on the back of handouts and short poems in my notebook margins. How can I get back to doing that?

Nothing kills the creative spirit like higher education.