10 Ways to Survive Your First Month at College, by Michael Shirzadian

Hi.

So you’re going to college. You’re a little bit nervous—that’s to be expected—and more than nervous, you’re excited, excited to meet new people, to learn new things, to expand your life in thousand different, random directions. You’ve heard from those who have made the journey before you how you should be excited, how the next four years will be the most vibrant and riveting years of your life. You’re skeptical at this sort of comment because you’ve heard it so often, because like Bob Seger, the quintessential ‘been-there’ adults are always regretting the past, how it’s gone, how things trend forward. Ain’t it funny how the night moves?

Before you trek—maybe alone—through the first year of your college experience, check out the following 10 suggestions designed to get you through those first few weeks. It’s cakewalk after that (although number 7 is atemporal and universally applicable and you should never forget that one).

1. Learn the way. You’re gonna get there before classes start, obviously, so spend a day walking your route from dorm to class to class to class to dorm. 7am at Cedarville University, August 26, 2006, I sat down in Fundamentals of Beekeeping looking for Fundamentals of Speech. That’s the sort of mistake you can’t admit, so I sat through syllabus day counting the minutes and learning the jejune, mundane reproductive habits of bees. I did hear that before he published the most significant post-1945 American novel, Catcher in the Rye, author JD Salinger had studied beekeeping in college, before he dropped out. That’s the most significant thing I learned that morning (I hope it’s true), and that one should plan her or his route.
2. Pay attention on syllabus day. First day of class is always syllabus day, and it’s the closest your professor will come to giving you the answers (unless you’re headed to Boston U, or any other school notorious for significant grade inflation). When your prof goes through the due dates and deadlines, write them down (a week or so before they’re due so you’re not cramming the night before). Buy one of those trendy school calendars from your bookstore and write the assignments—at least the big ones—in the calendar as your prof drones on.
3. Be bold. I’m lacking in this category. I was too proud, or too embarrassed, or too something anyway, to interact with the other Cedarville students when I first arrived on campus back in ’06. I felt that way for four years, and it was a lonely time because of it. On your first day, even if it’s not your personality, be outgoing. That’ll go a long way in the vibrant-and-diverse-group-of-friends department. It’s important, in life more generally, to be social. That’s the most important lesson I learned in college, a lesson I’m still learning, still trying to pin down, to reify. (Look it up! It’s an SAT word, I swear!)
4. Meal plan. Look, I know what you’re thinking. It’s really dumb that the school forces us to buy meal plans. Yeah. It is. I’m a Boulder Marxist like the rest of us beneath the mountain, and I too recognize how the bourgeois dogs on the tip-top of the Superstructure trap us in their webs of financial networks. One hand washes the other. But it doesn’t matter, because the meal plan really is the cheapest way to live, on and off campus, and when you don’t have it you’re spending 8 bucks a day on Chipotle (of course) and another $15 on whatever else you need to eat. It adds up. If you’re disciplined enough to cook despite your busy workload, good for you. Next step is to buy local and then you’re really sticking it to those capitalist/futurist neocons running the country from Silicon Valley through lobbyists and corporate personhood.
5. Call your parents. They’re gonna look after you. When you’re lonely or anxious or out of money … or whatever, call your parents. You’re beginning a phase in your life where your parents aren’t the authoritative figures anymore. You stand in a unique position to launch and foster a deep and long-lasting friendship with your parents. When I was lonely at Cedarville on a Friday night, I called my mom. Or she’d call me. That was the start of different kind of relationship, one which I still depend on to sustain me through the lonely days of a new environment.
6. Try new things. Do things you’ve never done before. Skydive.
7. Don’t get married. Yeah. Same old cynicism. I knew seven different girls at Cedarville who dropped out when they got engaged. Admittedly, that sort of sensibility is much more prevalent throughout Cedarville’s Evangelical Christian community, but it’s worth mentioning. The most important thing you can take from your college experience is, first, your degree, and second, your education (another confusing value hierarchy inscribed in our collective consciousness by the bourgeoisie and its institutions; education is free; a degree costs something). On that parenthetical note, marriage is another institution used by the Superstructure to maintain passivity. Rebel! Don’t marry! Viva la revolución!
8. Enjoy the little things. Watch Zombieland, also.
9. Overwork. I can’t stand it when people say ‘don’t push yourself too hard; you’ll burn out’. You might burn out. Fine. That’s educational too. Push yourself too hard and see what you’re capable of. I burned out 1^st semester senior year, which was great. My GPA reflects it. Start strong and coast to the finish. It’s better to burn out than to fade away. Listen to Neil Young.
10. Visit home. Remind yourself where you came from, what you used to know, who you used to be. This is important to navigating the mire of the future, too. Read Joyce Carol Oates’ short story “Where Are You Going, Where Have You Been” (only the title, not the content, is applicable here, but it’s a blow-away short story and you’d be missing out should you neglect to read it).

And of course I love you all,

Michael

Fresh Looks for Fall, By Elizabeth Hernandez

When it comes to the word “slacker,” it could be my middle name in reference to the limited amount of blogging I did this summer. Yes, I could throw out a long list of excuses, but all I am going to say is… “I’m back and I’m sorry.”

Unfortunately my favorite season is over. RIP Summer 2011, you will be dearly missed.

As one season changes into another so do fashion trends. Hopefully everyone has been working hard this summer and was able to save up some extra cash for their new Fall 2011 wardrobe because this season there are some new and exciting colors, trends and accessories in store.

1. Mustard

No not the condiment, the color. The hours I spend all summer long perfecting my sun-kissed glow disappears completely when the weather starts to get cold. So if I were to wear this mustard color, I feel like people would start to think I was sick. However, if you are someone who keeps your tan or cheats and goes to the tanning beds, maybe you could give this color a try. Here are some affordable and trendy items: Figure 1 (Lyra mustard dress from Etsy), figure 2 (mustard yellow lace sweater from Etsy).

2. Lace

Move over Victoria Secret lingerie apparel. You aren’t the only one wearing lace this year. This is one trend you have to be careful with because if you overdo it with the “froufrou,” the joke ends up on you. If there is one thing to say about fashion designer Jason Wu, it would be that he loves him some lace. Take a look at his RTW 2011 Fall collection: Figure 1, Figure 2. (Images by: NewYorker)

P.S.- Yes, figure 2 is a mustard colored skirt paired with lace – two trends in one. Notice how Wu pairs one lace garment with a solid color, avoiding too much pattern clash. Another tip to picking out your lace item is to avoid wearing too much to the color cream because then you just look like your grandma’s curtain/tablecloth and who wants that? Not me. Unfortunately, we college students can’t always afford to buy Wu’s eclectic taste in lace, but there are some affordable, trendy solutions: Figure 1 (Lace Book Shorts), figure 2 (Leave It to Me Dress), figure 3 (Twenty Years Bold Skirt), figure 4(Look Like a Dream Dress). All items can be found at ModCloth.

3. Vintage Chokers

Dresses from the 60’s and 70’s have yet to fall out of style this year and with that being said, add a choker necklace and you have the very next trend. And this is no joke when I say the bigger and bulkier the choker, the more of a statement you are going to make. Here’s a few I really liked: Figure 1, figure 2. (Choker necklaces found on Etsy).

4. Bright Colors

This is one trend I never get tired of seeing from season to season, and this Fall color is one thing that is not lacking. Just because it isn’t summer anymore doesn’t mean you should trade in your reds, yellows and oranges for browns, grays and blacks. Much like lace color should be worn in moderation. Take a look at some of the bold and bright colors incorporated in DKNY’s Fall 2011 collection: Figure 1, figure 2. (DKNY Collection- Photo Credit).

Where to buy your bright colored clothes to stand out this Fall 2011?

Figure 1, figure 2, figure 3, figure 4, figure 5! (All items can be found at TopShop).

5. Plaids and Polka Dots

Tartan plaid and girly polka dots are two prints that seem to have taken off for Fall/Winter 2011. Take a look at the runway and how designers incorporated both designs in their collections and find out how you can get the look for less: Figure 1.

Look for less? Items all available at ModCloth:

Figure 1, figure 2, figure 3, figure 4, figure 5.

Keep it classy,
<3 Elizabeth

Good Thing I Got A Pell Grant, by Michael Shirzadian

Recent attempts by both Democrat and Republican leadership to brand their opposition as vicious perpetrators of so-called “Class Warfare” do not suggest, as the media might have us believe, an especially polar or divisive era in contemporary Washington politics—where leaders desperately enlist words like “terror” and “war” in the service of disparate political ideologies—but illustrate, instead, the bipartisan and calculated sense of war requisite to maintaining status-quo (economic) politics, which these leaders have achieved, cleverly, by exercising and displaying a purely-fictive, illusory sense of displeasure, discord, or purpose.

Rep. Paul Ryan’s (R-WI) so-called Path to Prosperity (hereafter Path), passed by all but four House Republicans, eliminates funding for Pell Grants, curtails Medicaid, eliminates Medicare, and, according to non-partisan CBO projections, raises the tax burden for 90% of Americans because it so significantly eliminates taxes for those earning over one million dollars (approximately 433,000 Americans). Path cuts the top marginal tax rate for the wealthiest six percent of filers, and brings the corporate income tax to the same rate.

Path so significantly and absurdly harms lower/middle class Americans (and pretty much everyone else) that President Obama nearly betrayed his own important role in the Dem/GOP symbiotic (semiotic) game by commenting on it and its short prehistory so honestly and matter-of-factly. He said: “Middle-class families shouldn’t pay higher taxes than millionaires and billionaires. That’s pretty straightforward. It’s hard to argue against that. Warren Buffett’s secretary shouldn’t pay a higher tax rate than Warren Buffett.”

This of course after Buffett’s Aug. 14 New York Times op-ed Stop Coddling the Superrich, which caught fire on the Internet and locates Buffett as another super-image, an icon representing so broad a camp that his contribution to our political climate—like that of McCain’s endearingly simple Joe the Plumber—amounts to a personal marketing gimmick and, perhaps, the publication of some mundane, broken-record book (also like Joe the Plumber). Apart from these, Buffett’s article has become so significantly removed from any sense of action—refined by the fires of politics and hyperspace—that his contribution to Obama’s long-forgotten campaign slogan Change! is an illusive and elusive one. The core of Buffett’s article, the idea, was lost when the Dems/GOP got hold of it.

Image-Buffett is to Path as Lennon is to McCartney. Or vice versa. What we don’t see, and haven’t as Americans seen, ever, is drastic, radical socioeconomic reform, favoring the lower/middle class, despite our almost-there President and hisc’mon-guys-this-is-obvious rhetoric.

Yes, Mr. President, it’s pretty straightforward.

But healthcare reform (equally straightforward) was a bust because the play’s afoot. What the optimistic Marxist might hope is that our almost-there President will cast off the restrictions of campaign anxiety (an anxiety, chiefly, of donor dollars), and will declare war unequivocally (and this time for real) on our 433,000 American millionaires/billionaires, saying to them something like: Don’t vote for me ‘cause I won’t represent your economic interests; I’ll tax you into the middle class, and saying to everyone else something like: I won’t do that to you. He should disregard all this absurd talk of trickle down and donor dollars and how important it is to placate the bourgeois dogs on the tip-top of the Superstructure.

But it’s a body politic composed of image, boasting diluted entitlement programs and corporate personhood and Bush tax cuts, and anyway the Marxist can’t be too hopeful because she believes capitalism will continue turning its blind, ugly eye to the lower/middle class until it destroys itself, inevitably, and to that end perhaps the Path to Prosperity would indeed function as the best step forward.