My Love Affair with the First Floor Dryer

I am convinced that college laundry machines were once part of a diabolical scheme aimed toward building the confidence of the average dorm-dweller. Now, however, these “Frankensteinian” creations have evolved beyond any controllable means. This being said, it is with great pride that I announce my hostile takeover of university laundry. Yes, I have beaten the system and discovered the loop-hole of residence hall (note: the word “dormitory” is no longer politically acceptable) laundry that does not involve piling clothes in Everest-sized mountains for the next school break.

The first floor dryer.

Ok, so it may not necessarily be the first floor in every residence hall in the country but the idea is universal all the same.

Before I begin in my accolades of my newest lover, let me enlighten you to my prior laundry experience. Favorite shirts, damp and fresh-smelling from the washer, were placed in the old dryer only to come out perhaps more wet than their former state. Jeans, simply looking for the fabric-softener, worn ideal, were hung forlornly over armoire doors and desk chairs. It was as if they were weeping, crying for their master (me, of course) to save them from the furnace of doom (aka the old dryer). And all I could do was stand naked (like all respectable college students, I waited until I had absolutely no clean clothes before attempting to do laundry), helpless at the sight of their soggy misery as I awaited more arid days.

But then… a light at the end of the tunnel.

“The first floor dryer,” a friend whispered to me in passing. “The first floor dryer does just the trick.”

With hope lifting my heart and no clean pairs of underwear, I ventured forth to an unknown world: the first floor laundry room (aka a small closet with a washer and dryer stuffed into it). I placed my beloved clothes into the dryer and pressed the button: Permanent Press, Medium Heat, it read. One hour later, anxious and excited, I retraced my steps and opened the dryer. Oh, what a sight to behold! My sheets, crisp and smooth; my shirts, looking as good as freshly pressed; my jeans, completely pocket-wetness free.

And thus, my love affair with the first floor dryer began: an affair which, to this day, I relish with the lightest of hearts. I trek down the stairs, push the button, and 60 minutes later… GLORY!

Ingenuity with a Sock and a Headband

Before you immediately close this window thinking you have happened upon some type of pornographic novelty idea, let me reassure you that this particular idea is completely innocent and is in no way related to experimental sex. That being said, let me continue with the explanation of my brilliance.

College fosters a sense of ingenuity. You may be thinking that of course college fosters a sense of ingenuity - college is all about learning new things and thinking critically in methods one has not thought before. And yes, while college hones certain skills such as thinking outside the box and relating theory to practice, this particular ingenuity is not academic. This ingenuity cites its brilliance back to a very simple fact: college students are all too often broke. With this ever-present lack of money, college students are forced to improvise. Improvising is where this afternoon's ingenuity in my dorm room began...

After three hours of pharmacology (a brief overview of insulin, glucagon, antibiotics, antivirals, antifungals, and antiemetics), my eyes were rolling back into my head with the sheer amount of information I was being forced to memorize. Exhausted and rather disheartened, I knew there was only one thing to cheer me up: food. So, using the "travelling money" my mother had "secretly" slipped into my purse on my way back to school this weekend, I toted myself to the local Panera Bread for my ever-favorite comfort food of French Onion soup and a sourdough baguette. Arriving back at my dorm, I glanced at my bed and it called out to me. Oh yes, it really called out to me (or perhaps that was the gingerbread man I ate for breakfast this morning...). And, never one to ignore a cry of need, I went over to my bed, laid down on its ever-so-lonely pillows, closed my eyes, and waited for sleep to overtake me... and waited... and waited.

Aha! I knew what the problem was; the blinds were open. So, I sat up and pulled them down, twisting the thingamajiger attached to them to close them. I laid back down and waited... and waited... and waited. I still couldn't sleep. Even with the blinds closed, the room was still too light. Oh, how I wish I had one of those eye masks right about now, I thought to myself. And then, out of nowhere, that little light bulb appeared over my head (if you squinted real hard and kind of crossed your eyes a little). There on my desk was a headband (not the plastic kind but the elastic kind of course).... right next to my desk was my sock drawer... you can put two and two together. Thus, after what seemed like hours of willing sleep to come (but was probably only five minutes or so since time goes so slow when one is lying in bed doing nothing), I got my nap, headband attached to my sock attached to my head.

And the moral of my story is: college has no motivator like an empty back account.

Well, actually, the moral of my story is do not go out and buy a frilly eye mask with money better spent on Twizzlers and Reeses when a sock and a headband will suffice (although I wouldn't advise use for extended periods of time as the headband tends to leave a bit of an indent over your forehead). So, while some of my self-named ingenious plans are not as brilliant as I originally think (such as the giving the pop rocks to the fish when we were out of fish food...), some of these ideas are downright patentable...

A Sorrowful Awakening

In the past, my entries have always revolved around funny anecdotes of common college experiences. They are humorous, ridiculous, and sometimes crazy. This is the type of writing that I love. I love making people laugh so hard they fall out of their chairs and I love it when people relate to what I’m saying. My life is a joyous one and I love spreading that joy around.

Today, however, my entry is far from being funny or happy. Today, while I write about a subject affecting everyone young and old, the story is tragic and hard to hear. Still, I find great healing in writing and hope to touch all of your hearts with some sorrowful food for thought. So, for those of you looking for the jump start to your day that I am usually able to give, read no further. But, for those of you who read on, I hope the story I tell makes you reflect upon your own life as I have reflected upon mine.

Early this morning, my roommate awoke me with the television blaring. When I normally would have been annoyed, I found myself in shock. There, on the bottom of the TV screen, was this headline: Newborn body found dead on [college] campus. The name of my school glared at me from the bright lights. I couldn’t speak.

When I finally found my voice, I looked at my roommate. “How could this happen?” I asked her. She shrugged, her face as distraught as my own. We flipped through the channels and news station after news station gave us the facts. In the early hours of the morning, a student had called 911 reporting finding the body of a newborn baby in the trash. Police swarmed the dormitory and news teams camped out around the campus. Every picture displayed on the screen was familiar to us, places on campus that we frequented and loved. It all seemed so unreal.

As the day went on, rumors flew rampant. Students and teachers alike chattered about every last detail. People from all over the area called in and wrote blog articles on news websites about the sanctity of life and the area’s law about giving babies over to proper officials without being prosecuted. Nobody seemed to give a thought to the hell this young lady has to be going through and had to be going through for some time before this. Nobody seemed to care that she must be so troubled to go through something like this. And me, I just wanted to give her a hug. I just wanted to let her know that we are here for her, that we are praying for her, and that we want to help in any way possible.

I am not writing this to say that I am better than everyone else because I didn’t immediately judge the young woman. I have often found myself judging people without cause. I am writing this to raise awareness; I want everyone to be aware of the effect their words can have. We are so quick to find fault in others without putting ourselves in their shoes. Few of us understand the pain this young woman experienced, the pressure she was under and the fear she must have felt having this baby on her own. However, all of us understand the anguish of rumors and the agony of being faced with the harsh consequences of our actions. At times when one innocent child is dead and another child (because 19 is still a child) is going through pure torture because of this death, we must hang on to this common thread.

Sorrow is a time of support and joining together in healing. Though we may not understand and agree with the choice this young woman made, we all see the ache she must have felt: the torment and terror she must have experienced and is still experiencing at this very moment. So we must pray; we must pray for the young mother, for her infant child, and for all those affected by this tragic death. We must pray for each other that we are able to give our unending support to the person(s) hurting so much more than we are. We must take heart in the fact that this baby is in a better place. Mostly, we must withhold our judgment and reach out with outstretched arms to comfort this panicked and troubled young woman. Only through shutting our minds to bitter attacking can we heal our hearts as a community.

The Nursing "Itch"

Nurses are a special breed of student. While other majors spend class time texting on their cell phones, nursing students entrance themselves in the study of the right techniques in finding pulse, taking respiration rates, and finding the always difficult measured blood pressure. As families gets together on holidays, talk of football scores and recent politics are put on the back burner while the nursing student educates parents and siblings on proper exercise and eating habits. When other students cringe over less-than-appropriate dinner table conversation, the nursing student finds satisfaction over the understanding of the antagonistic relationship between allergy medications and benign prostatic hypertrophy (BPH).

These situations put forth, it is not difficult to see why nursing students isolate themselves from other majors in order to adhere to their fellow nursing students. Few accounting majors are anxious to hear about the successes of a student nurse in giving her first bed bath or administering her first rectal suppository. Likewise, those squeamishly inclined tend to shy away from conversations regarding the packing of a tunneled wound or treatment of a newly discovered parasite.

To a nursing student, illness and its corresponding ailments are much like the car wreck passerby phenomenon. While clinical may introduce sights and sounds that disgust the nursing student as much as any other person, there is an inherent need to see more. With craning necks and little thought to the aftermath of such an action, a nursing student will do anything to catch the slightest glimpse at the gaping gunshot wound in room 4. Like traffic passing a car accident, something within itches to see what is going on and what is being done to fix it.

I blame my own nursing “itch” on skinned knees. If knee, elbow, and wrist pads had been used on bicycle riders when I was a child, there is a large possibility I would not be studying nursing. My skinned knees, as painful and bloody as they often presented, were the most fascinating wounds. Watching the blood clot and seeing the layers of skin from a birds-eye view… no anatomy or physiology book could inspire such a passion. In the later days of a skinned knee, there was further enthrallment in the scab forming and disappearing before one’s eyes. The scars on my knees today are proof of my early research and experimentation (aka scab picking).

Now, as I lose myself for hours in my pharmacology textbook rather than my skinned knees, the passion of my younger years is ever-present. Only a fellow nurse can understand the thrill of seeing oneself in a pair of scrubs for the first time or the exhilaration of hitting the blood vessel at just the right angle so the blood comes pouring into the test vile. There is no feeling to match the satisfaction a nursing student experiences as a coding patient pulls through the nosedive and their vitals stabilize. While the cry of an infant during a spinal tap eats at a nurse’s compassion, seeing that same infant released healthy after antibiotic treatment erases all the pain. There is no equivalent sensation to the one a nursing student feels when his/her actions improve the life of a patient. One time of seeing a patient smile at you and there is no turning back. You are a nurse for life.

Ode to the Banana Twinkie

The college years are times of great sacrifice. In order to achieve the academic status necessary for our dream jobs, we students sacrifice our social lives, our workout regimens, sleep, and most importantly, good food. The days of eating cereal while reading the daily paper are long gone, not to mention those luscious Saturday morning brunches. Too often the stomach is put on the backburner for that extra hour of sleep after an all-night cram session or fifteen more minutes of study time for that brutal anatomy exam later in the day.



This morning, however, after months of skipping meals, I discovered the secret to the college breakfast: the Banana Twinkie. A Twinkie, you ask? How does that delicious spongecake Hostess treat even begin to provide a balanced diet? And sure, a regular everyday Twinkie would have a difficult time justifying its role as a breakfast food nutrition-wise (and there's also that small detail that a Twinkie cannot talk). But, the Banana Twinkie... the Banana Twinkie surpasses the regular Twinkie in one very significant way.



Examine its name: B-A-N-A-N-A T-W-I-N-K-I-E... B-A-N-A-N-A... banana! Bananas are shown in every self-respecting breakfast commercial on TV. They are a core breakfast component, an integral part of the breakfast of champions. Who can argue that anything with the word banana in it cannot be considered a breakfast food when such glaring evidence proves the contrary? (for the sake of this article's integrity, I ask you to ignore the fact that the Banana Twinkie is most probably made with artificial banana flavoring rather than real bananas).



Okay, so the spongecake portion of the Banana Twinkie may not exactly meet the quota of the American Association of Nutritionists. And I suppose that the gregarious amount of preservatives within the Twinkie are not the epitome of health either. Plus, one could argue that if the issue of eating is ease and speed of consumption, a cereal bar would suffice to solve that problem better than a Banana Twinkie.



However, in the realm of college logic, the word and taste of banana (and do not forget that the creamy texture is made with none other than milk and eggs, two other top rate breakfast items) automatically idealizes the Banana Twinkie as a perfect munchable to "break the fast". Thus, until someone comes up with a more desirable and more reasonable morning edible (or else my Banana Twinkies start making their presence known on the lower posterior quadrants of my body), one will likely find me stuffing my face with this delectable sponge rather than foregoing hitting the snooze button that luxurious fourth time before rolling out of bed in the morning.

Shoe Saga

I wore bad shoes today.

This is not a mistake I make very often. Perhaps it is because I own very few pairs of bad shoes. Or maybe it is because once I make the mistake of wearing bad shoes, I am inflicted with several quite painful blisters which prevent me from wearing bad shoes again for a time.

This particular pair of bad shoes are brown and have a heel (my first mistake). They are dress shoes and have the most adorable gold buckle across the toe. I remember I used to wear them with my uniform skirt and navy blue knee socks. I thought I looked so cool (no comment please).

So, maybe, I put these shoes on for their sentimental value. Outwardly, I remember choosing them because they were tall and prevented my too long jeans (heaven forbid I find jeans to fit my short stature) from dragging on the wet ground. But perhaps there was something more.

A girl lives by her shoes. Sure, she makes everyone think it's her clothes or her body shape, but really, it is her shoes. I don't own many bad shoes for this reason. Sadly, the bad shoes are usually the cutest shoes but since we've already determined that I am not the most fashion conscious of persons, I have come to terms with this sad fact.

Bad shoes, adorable as they may be, cause my current predicament of sitting shoeless in the library (the offending shoes have long since been kicked under the table), dreading walking to lunch as the blister on my heel will begin to bleed again on my white sock. But, alas, my stomach wins the fight and I search with my injured foot for the cruel heel, painfully slip it on and begin the arduous journey across campus.

Moral of my sad tale - shoes are overrated. Stick with bare feet.

My Life as a Nineteen-Year Old Mother of Five

Okay, so the title may have led you to believe some untrue ideas about my nineteen-year old college sophomore life. I have not, as is implied, birthed five children in the last five years since my menstrual cycle began (I was a bit of a late bloomer). In fact, though I have been dating the same man for 1 1/3 years (I keep close track of these things), I am still very much a virgin, not for lack of temptation. And, considering my sassy tongue and unbridled love of semi-dirty country music, I’m thinking the Virgin Mary storyline would not apply to me either. No, I’m not a literal mother of five. The five beings I am talking of mothering are my two one-year old brothers and my three dogs (all boys as well).

To clear up any other questions, my mother is not dead or out-of-the-picture, etc. My mother is up every morning at 6:30 (sometimes earlier if one of the trouble twins decides he just has to eat at five a.m.), getting babies changed and fed, letting dogs out and feeding them, and playing mediator between the five at all times. She is a saint.

Continuing along my story, this summer I decided Mom could use a little extra helping (okay, so that may be a bit of an understatement) and took on the job of mother’s helper for her about 15 hours each week. How lucky I would have it, I thought to myself, sitting on my butt all day, holding one dog on my lap, watching the babies play nicely as of course they would, while the other two dogs were off on their own being the little angels I knew they were.

The weathered mothers, those who have gone through or are going through the toddling stages with multiple children at the same time, are right now shaking their heads and laughing at my naïveté. For the rest of the people reading this who have not yet had the experience of motherhood, let me fill you in on an average morning in my household.

6:37: Alarm bleeps deafeningly loud in my ear and I hit snooze (my alarm clock is seven minutes behind the clock downstairs and I have yet to figure out how to change the time and thus I set everything for seven minutes before I would set any other clock).

6:40: I am rudely awaken from my snooze by the wet nose of a puppy who desperately has to go potty. As he does his little potty dance (kind of a spinning in circles thing with a few jumps here and there), I drag myself out of bed, throw on a sweatshirt and slippers and groggily follow his perky bound down the stairs. He does his business and comes back, only to beg at my feet for breakfast. We head for the laundry room where Mom has already fixed his breakfast (hard dog food with a few soft treats because otherwise he won’t eat) where I proceed to sit on the dryer for the next ten minutes as the puppy will only eat if someone is in the room with him. With that last bite of food, I cheer for the puppy and head to the pantry for my own breakfast.

6:55: On my way to the pantry, I hear a thump, thump coming from the ceiling above me. Bam-Bam is awake. My stomach complains loudly as I turn from my journey to sustenance and head back up the stairs. Opening the door to my brother’s room, I am greeted by a huge grin as he runs to the other side of the crib so I can’t reach him to take him out. I smile because we play this same game every morning I get him up. Finally, after bunny and blankie have been thrown into the clothes basket more times than I can count, my brother is ready to get out.

7:05: I place my brother on the changing table for a clean diaper and he starts to wail. This part I have never quite understood since we have the same routine every morning. I hand him the diaper to hold and keep him quiet as I dispose of the soiled one. I then fight him to get it back and securely fastened before he decides to wet the wall.

7:10: Down the stairs I go, breaking up a fight between two dogs on the middle of the stairs by placing one in the gated play area and the other in my sister’s room.

7:15: I sit down on a stool in front of my brother’s high chair to feed him his morning oatmeal and fruit. With the spoon almost to his mouth, my brother decides he simply must feed himself and grabs the spoon. The oatmeal flies, my brother giggles, and I find myself going up the stairs again for a new shirt. In the meantime, he manages to tip over his sippy cup of milk on one dog’s head and feed the rest of his Cheerios to another. Of course, much yelling has ensued throughout all this and Brother #2 is now awake.

7:25: I walk into Brother #2’s room as Mom takes over with Brother #1. One of the dogs follows me. Walking in, I am greeted by yet another grin and I think that this morning can’t be too bad after all. I go to pick him up and turn around to see the dog making off with a teddy bear. I leave it be for a few minutes as I change Brother #2’s diaper (I later find the bear on the floor in the hallway… nose-less).

7:45: Both babies have now been fed and Mom and I join them in the playroom for a few minutes of drinking coffee and watching the Today Show. No sooner have we sat down than one of the dogs starts whining at the door telling us that his morning drink of water has made it through his system and he has to go. I get up and let him out, accidentally leaving the gate open. When I return, Mom is herding two toddling babies from the kitchen back to the playroom.

8:00: I sit for the second time, looking forward to eating my breakfast, a savory Toaster Strudel. I bring the pastry up to my mouth and am about to take a bite when I hear a shrill “EAT!” I look down to see two pairs of eyes gazing longingly at my breakfast. I make the mistake of giving each boy a piece. Soon, not only are the boys signing “more, please” but one of the dogs has decided to join me on the couch and is making suggestive lunges at my plate.

8:15: My stomach growling, I lay on the floor as my brothers use me as the personal jungle gym. Soon I’m breaking up a wrestling match between them over who gets to sit on my face. Luckily, no one was harmed, although I doubt my nose will ever be the same.

8:30: All walkers/tricycles/wagons are removed from the playroom due to reckless driving.

8:45: Wooden blocks are removed from playroom due to their use as assault weapons.

8:50: Set of stacking toys is removed due to lack of sharing.

8:52: Toy cars are removed due to fact that one brother has moved on from crashing the cars into each other to crashing them into his brother’s head.

8:53: One dog is removed due to battery to baby by means of dragging around the floor by a sweatshirt sleeve (let it be noted that the baby was giggling and no evidence of bodily harm was found).

8:55: One baby is removed due to continuous breaking and entering into the stereo cabinet.

9:00: Everything is calm for the time being, marking a peaceful end to my mother’s helper work for the day. As I head up to take a shower, I take one more look at the playroom. My little brother is looking straight at me. I know I should stop making eye contact and get out while I can but something in his eyes beckons me to stay. I kneel down and hold out my arms and his little chubby legs waddle quickly toward me. He flings his sausage arms around my neck, grabs my ears, and brings my face down so he can kiss my lips. Wet and sloppy as the kiss is, I smile and shower him with return kisses. Suddenly, the whole crazy morning is forgotten and my heart is warmed by the loving, cuddly baby in my arms. All the trouble is worth this one simple moment. As I stand up and my brother breaks the tranquility with a scream at the gate because he is left in the playroom alone, I retreat into my happy place (a.k.a. my bedroom with the door shut and the music drowning out all sound). Though still early in the morning, my day is now complete.

Science Center Shenanigans

My mother once told me that in order to sustain a healthy relationship with my boyfriend, he and I would have to constantly be engaging in relationship-building activities. In other words, no more spending every Friday night making out while watching movies in the basement.

Being a poor college student, some days it is difficult to find cheap “relationship-building” activities. For many months, my boyfriend would come down to visit me and we’d go sit at the coffee shop and read the paper for hours on end or walk the mall (my idea of relationship building: him buying me new clothes). When I was at home for a weekend, we’d spend time hanging out with my one-year old brothers and I’d make "relationship-building" experiences out of everything. Like baking banana bread and deciding to put the Crisco into the liquid ingredients rather than reading the directions and adding the Crisco into dry ingredients only. Of course I did this on purpose so that my boyfriend could learn how to handle such culinary mistakes ;) .

This weekend, however, bored with our mundane routine of coffee, the mall, dinner at the school café, and then watching a movie, we switched it up. We switched it up and I let my inner third grader (I vehemently deny my boyfriend’s claim that I am all third grader) take over my mind as we took on the Louisville Science Center.

Our first adventure was finding the building. This time, unlike the others, I had remembered to look up directions and write them down, rather than relying on my not-so-trustworthy sense of direction and memory. Still, a wrong turn was made somewhere and we were rather lost. Then, out of no where, we ended up on the right street though neither of us is quite sure how it happened. This being lost and then unknowingly finding my way seems to be a recurring theme to my life.

Of course, as soon as we arrived, I had to use the restroom (we were in the car for a long time and I had two glasses of sweet tea right before leaving). After that, the first exhibit we experienced was the “Grossology of Animals.” Standing before me at the entrance to the exhibit was a life size plastic cow. Then, as if a life size plastic cow wasn’t weird enough, the cow farted. Oh yes, it farted. And I, staying true to my role of the immature third grader that day, burst out laughing.

After recovering from my “play-acting” outburst, we treaded onward to one of the many quiz/game show stations throughout the center. There, competing enthusiastically against my boyfriend and two other “contestants” (two girls who were about 1/3 of my biological age), I eyed my worthy adversaries and set out to win “What Color is My Blood?” The spider appeared and I hit the red paint splatter in front of me. Wrong. Next, a grasshopper flashed across the big screen and I scrambled to press the blue paint splatter. Wrong again. As everyone else’s vial of “blood” filled up showing numerous correct answers, mine stayed mostly empty. I ended the game in last place with a 45%. One of the little girls got first but it really wasn’t fair because her mom was helping her.

Throughout the rest of our journey through the science center, I learned many other interesting things: like how a men’s penis is like a pipeline and his testes a manufacturing center. The woman’s vagina is the reservoir which the pipeline empties into and her uterus processes the reservoir’s contents. If only my Anatomy and Physiology professor had explained the reproductive system that way rather than going through the entire reproductive process in such great detail. Who needs to know the hormones behind the reproductive system anyway or just what the clitoris really is? Yes, my day at the science center was a quite educational, to say the very least.

And yes, this was a “relationship-building” activity. For instance, I learned through the genetic lottery game that if my boyfriend and I were ever to have children together, they would always be fraternal twins. No matter what we did, the slot machine always threw out fraternal twins. Or, my personal favorite, that while the male’s skull is actually larger than the female’s, the female brain contains more neurons than that of a male. Neurons are the functional units of intelligence. But mostly, my boyfriend and I experienced “relationship building” through being the minority – the outsiders of the science museum. Me in my so-stylish pink trench coat and my boyfriend in his zip-up blue jog jacket, were the only two participating visitors (thus, parents not included) without stinky fingers, a bag of cheerios in hand, or a pacifier clipped onto our shirts.

The Ultimate College Crush

I have a crush…

On my boyfriend.

As it turns out, crushes are not only for junior high girls in the heat of puberty. No, in actuality, crushes can hit women of any age, even my very independent, very sophisticated college self.

I admit it. Every time I see him coming towards me, I get butterflies in my stomach like I did that one time I sang a solo about Santa being stuck in a chimney during the fourth grade Christmas pageant. My hands start to sweat (gross, I know) and my insides go all gooey.

I can’t believe it. One year and he still has this affect on me? Honestly, can’t I grow up a little? Thank goodness we’ve gotten over the flirting stage of our relationship or every time I see him would be this terrible performance of bumbling sentences and misused words. It’s bad enough he makes my knees go weak – the whole speaking thing would reduce my age level about seven years.

I start to play this game where I try to look like I’m doing something so he won’t think I’ve been watching him saunter towards me. Heaven forbid I get caught watching him – that would simply ruin my James Bond moment. (This is where he tells me years later that he knew I was watching him all along but gave me the benefit of the doubt and pretended to catch my attention from whatever most “important” task I was completing.)

Then – oh, then – worst of all, I start to giggle. It’s a nervous/non-nervous habit. I try to hold my breath to stop the obnoxious noise from escaping my mouth but it’s no use. I giggle like the naïve Catholic-school girl I have always been.

And yet, through it all, he still likes me. He still sticks around. I don’t get it. Any normal guy would have high-tailed it with the flood of water seeping from the pores on my hands, but not mine. No, my guy stays through the sweat, through the gooey insides, the weak knees (turns out he’s very good at carrying me), the silly games and the giggling. Not only does he stay, but he has the gall to fall in love with me and coax me into falling in love with him (secret: not much coaxing was needed).

And so in the end, here I’ll stay, crushing like a teenager on the man who changed my life the day he picked the chubby-cheeked girl-next-door.

A Nineteen-Year Old's Temper Tantrum

A few months ago, I threw a royal temper tantrum.

For those of you who thought temper tantrums ended at age three or so, you were wrong.

Here's how it went:

Since school started in August, I've had a very small group of really close friends. We're an interesting mix of girls: a blond, a redhead, a brunette, a Spaniard, a native Kentuckian, and me. We were pretty much inseparable first semester, despite our many differences.

However, as anyone who has lived in a dorm will probably attest to, people you spend all your time with start to get on your nerves after a while. A few of these particular friends do something every weekend that I absolutely promised I would never do: drink. I let it go for a while, thinking that they weren't hurting me so I really didn't need to say something. But after some months of the same routine and one particular bad night with three drunken friends passed out on my floor, I sort of lost it.

Let me tell you, while it may have been effective at the time, throwing a temper tantrum may not have been the best mode of communication I could have chosen to get my point across. Not only did it make me look like a petty toddler (honestly, this temper tantrum had everything but throwing myself on the floor kicking and screaming), but the long-term effects... well, there weren't any. The only thing my friends really learned from my "confrontation" was that I was a terrible communicator.

As I sat in church this Sunday night, all of this suddenly made sense to me: the ridiculousness of my fit and more importantly, the truth in the old Sunday school song "They'll Know We Are Christians By Our Love." Sure, it was important that my friends understand how wrong I thought their behavior was. Still, maybe the better way to show them that would have been through action - by showing them how much fun we can have when they aren't getting drunk.

So, my biggest lesson of my freshman year of college was learned.

Learning a Lesson… through a Starbucks Card

Okay, I’ll admit it, I’m a coffee snob. I’ve seen all the comics with the coffee baristas exclaiming “Do you want any coffee in your coffee?” and yet I’m the first one to step up to that counter and say “I’d like a tall vanilla latte, skim, no foam, please.” Sure, I probably wouldn’t notice the difference if I were to accidentally receive a tall vanilla latte with whole milk and the normal ½ inch of foam topping but the power is in deciding not to be ordinary. A latte with whole milk and foam is just a normal latte and ordering it would make me the same as every other tall vanilla latte customer; the skim, no foam specification sets me apart. And, in comes my inspiration.

College, for the most part, is a melting pot of people of all identities, whether it is age, ethnicity, religion, or appearance. The room across the hall from me, for example, consists of a blonde, a brunette, and a red-head. Coincidentally, their drink orders are as diverse as their hair color: a tall Cinnamon Dolce Latte with no whip and skim milk, a tall hot green tea, and a tall black coffee, respectively. Week after week of Starbucks visits has wired these facts into my brain as my Starbucks card balance slowly declines. All the while I’m feeling grown up in going to study at Starbucks in the afternoon with a bunch of friends, a vacation Bible school sing-along from my childhood plays like a broken record in my head: “Jesus loves the little children, all the children of the world. Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in his sight…” My Sunday school teachers would be glad to know that even now, the circuitous teaching of “everyone is unique” catches up with me in the form of a tall vanilla latte, skim, no foam and a coveted Starbucks card.

Alarm Clock War

Beep beep beep beep beeeeeeeeep! WHACK! These are the sounds many people hear in those wee hours of the morning when the bliss of bedtime disappears in the anarchy of alarm clocks. While college students may not experience this particular series of unfortunate events as early as those in the work force, we know better than most the tyrannical rule.

Scenario: Roommate #1 has a class at eight a.m. while I do not have one until noon. Before going to bed at a scandalously late hour the night before, I look forward to the one day of sleeping in on the one morning absent of eight a.m. classes. It’s a luxury I simply can’t deny. I settle into my bed, which seems so much more comfortable this night than those other nights which always seem dreadfully short as that alarm begins its business of making my hair stand on end with the constant buzzing.

7:15 a.m.- I am rudely awaken by the buzzing again. Forgetting this is my “sleep-in morning,” I sit up and hit the snooze button on my own alarm. The buzzing persists. I hit the snooze button again, thinking perhaps I have missed in my still sleepy aim but again, the buzzing continues. Wide awake at this point, I realize the buzzing is not coming from my own alarm, but that of Roommate #1, still sound asleep. “Roommate #1,” I whisper, “it’s yours.” Still no movement. “Roommate #1!” I raise my voice a tad, amazed that she is still asleep. Finally, she sits up and hits the snooze button, to my extreme relief. By now, I realize falling asleep again is an impossibility. I lie there in bed, glaring at the ceiling I imagine is my roommate’s face.

These wars occur just about every week as I play “Mom” making sure everyone gets up in time for their first class while rarely sleeping myself. My mother tells me it’s good practice, that I’ll be much more prepared for life as a mother by dealing with this kind of thing now. Me, I just follow the same routine every night before “sleep-in day,” with the hope that this time I’ll get it, this time Roommate #1 will wake up to her alarm, this time I’ll be able to fall back asleep if she doesn’t. Me, I just lie here glaring at the ceiling, watching despairingly as every “sleep-in day” disappears into the abyss of the other unknown pleasures in my life as I heave myself out of bed and to the bathroom where I‘m sure the toilet paper roll will be empty.

The Second Law of Thermodynamics vs. the Bathroom Sink

Recently in my Introduction to Philosophy class, we covered a chapter titled “Darwin or Genesis: Which One Should I Believe?” One of the articles we read cited the Second Law of Thermodynamics as one of the reasons for which the evolutionary theory is not plausible. For those of you not familiar with this law, it states, in simple terms, that all matter tends towards a state of disorder, entropy, if left alone. Now, I’m not here to argue Evolutionism or Creationism. However, I am here to argue the validity of the Second Law of Thermodynamics and its evidence in the ecosphere of my bathroom sink.

I was prepared for many things arriving in college: doing my own laundry, cleaning my room, changing the linens on my bed, and buying my own groceries for the meals I didn’t eat at the school cafeteria. The one thing I was not equipped for was cleaning my own bathroom. Sure, I consider myself quite fortunate to have gotten a three-person suite with a private bathroom. But, more times than not, this convenient private bathroom seems not so convenient at all.

Four days ago, I took my special “Eucalyptus Mint” scented bathroom wipes (if you have to clean the bathroom, of course you have to have the right materials) to the plethora of growing things in my sink. From one roommate's coffee splashes to the other’s leaking face wash bottle, all with my toothpaste droppings intermixed, the once pristine white sink had started to look like the laboratory petri dish I had wiped my spit swab on during a ninth-grade biology experiment. Still, I swallowed my gag reflex and got to work. Two days later, I headed home for a weekend with my family. Upon my return yesterday, I walked into the bathroom to replace my shampoo and face wash only to be greeted by the remnants of the battle between the Second Law of Thermodynamics and my bathroom sink. Let me give you a hint: the Second Law of Thermodynamics won.

I can’t deny my anal retentive personality as a look in my impeccably organized closet would quell any protests I could possibly offer. And yet, I can’t hide my astonishment at the seemingly complete ignorance of my roommates regarding the biochemical hazard waste area overtaking the bathroom sink. Thus, I tread on in my uphill battle with the Second Law of Thermodynamics, still searching for the upper hand all while rolling up my sleeves and diving into the grotesque reality that is a college dorm bathroom sink.

The Beginning...

I was recently introduced to the world of blogging through a very good friend of mine who sent me the link to the website of a talented stay-at-home-mom blogger. The instant I read one of her pieces, I was hooked and spent the next three hours reading each of her subsequent pieces, more than twenty columns in total.

Her being a wife and stay-at-home-mother of two and me being a nineteen year-old college freshman, we had very little in common. Still, I couldn’t help but be captivated by her tales of laundry fairies and a son who is very picky about his shoes. Even though I couldn’t relate, I still had to keep reading. I wrote an email back to the friend who had sent me the link to tell him I had fallen in love with the writer and hoped that I could one day write the way she did: this crazy combination of real-life anecdotes and lessons for life that sucks in people of every age. Thus, “Tales of a College Freshman” was born.

I really have no long-term view for this collection, only to put into words the humorous experiences that I have dealt with being a first-time-away-from-home-on-my-own college girl. Sure, there have been a lot of serious and not-so-fun times as well. As a whole, however, I have no complaints and college has treated me well. So, before I forget it all and become the stay-at-home-mom and wife I hope to someday be, here’s my little view of the world.