St. Patrick’s Day is a college student’s dream come true.  Well, I feel like any excuse to drink green beer and wear a “Kiss Me I’m Irish” pin is a dream come true.  I’m not Irish at all, and can respect St. Patrick’s Day and all it has to offer.  Especially since last year, I managed to sport a neon green wig in public all day long and closed the night out ordering hash browns at Perkins at 3AM.

The only issue I’m having is that St.Patty’s day lands on a Wednesday this year.  You know what that means: time to figure out how to party and go to class.  Ultimately, you can’t let a little thing called “your education/future” ruin your St. Patty’s Day experience, so I’m here to help you get it all. Because if I can do the Irish Jig with a leprechaun on top of a bar (true story) anything is possible, people. Read More »

[Everyone's got a morning-after story and we wanna hear yours! Send it over to us and we'll post it - anonymously, of course - right here!]

My night began like most others: taking shots to the beat of some Lady Gaga song (gimme a break – it was last fall), followed by endless rounds of pong (and probably some trash talking about how I once made a behind-the-back shot). To say the least, my texting abilities slowly declined with each game, and soon my night went from “hey what’s good?” to “meet pu laterrrrrrr???”

Eventually, I was kicked off the pong table and headed out to meet up with my “friend,” Mark. We headed back to his room where his roommate (and one of my best friends), Jack, was apparently entertaining a girl. Mark informed me that we’d have to hang out for a bit before heading upstairs, so we sat outside and I relived my awesome beer pong shots while Mark rubbed my thigh. Soon enough, Jack came outside for his post-coital cigarette and started telling me about how he already prefaced my arrival by telling his girl about how great I am and how I’m his best friend how much I matter to him. Read More »

For some reason, sugar cookies make me think of Spring. Maybe because they’re light, sweet, and I could eat about seven. Alright. So that last thing has no coloration to Spring, but I can eat my own weight in sugar cookies.

So imagine my delight when I saw a recipe for them that was simple enough to do in a dorm kitchen!

What You Need:

* 2 3/4 cups all-purpose flour
* 1 teaspoon baking soda
* 1/2 teaspoon baking powder
* 1 cup butter, softened
* 1 1/2 cups white sugar
* 1 egg
* 1 teaspoon vanilla extract Read More »

It’s 8am and you stumble into your bathroom only to look in the mirror, horrified at how sick you look! You can’t miss any more classes (damn you hangovers for making me take an absence when now I really need it), but you also can’t show your face in public looking like this.

What do you do?

No worries, there are tips to help you sick folk (and those of you who are just really tired and can’t stand the thought of putting on full makeup for an hour lecture). A few makeup tricks will have you looking less contagious and more flirtatious in no time.

Just try not to vom or cough on anyone or you’ll ruin the illusion.

Everyone’s got a vice, a bad habit, something they know they need to change. Unfortunately, everyone also has a million excuses why they just can’t do it. Not anymore. Every month we will be following a different CollegeCandy writer as she takes on a personal challenge. This month we’re following Norah on her quest to bring exercise into her life.

OK, so Week 1 wasn’t entirely unsuccessful. But that’s not saying much.

By the time Wednesday night rolled around, I realized I had yet to do any physical activity whatsoever. I hadn’t even walked to class all week. Sure, I had a busy week – it was midterms time, the week before spring break. And any other week, I would have brushed it off as just another week without exercise, no big deal–there’s always next week. But I knew that I had this post hanging over my head, and how the heck was I going to write a blog post if I had nothing to write about?

So off I trekked to our campus rec center with my friend Martha, a triathlete and former competitive swimmer. This girl is way more intense than I could ever be, so I knew she wouldn’t let me slack off. And for going, I offered myself the reward of a Shamrock Shake afterward.

Once we got there, Martha chose her treadmill right away and started running. I wandered around for a few minutes, trying to find the least daunting piece of exercise equipment to start with. I remembered that a reader named Ellen had recommended I start with a cross-trainer (thanks, Ellen!), so I climbed onto the machine and got ready to start. Except there were all these buttons, and that created a problem. Martha came to my rescue, starting the machine and upping the resistance to level 6 (which may or may not be a big deal, but believe me, I was just fine with no resistance). Read More »

I have a dirty, sick, twisted infatuation with Craigslist personals. I am someone who has an innate curiosity regarding all things taboo, and really, is there anything more shameful than searching for love and sexy time on one of the slummiest websites the great Interwebs has to offer?

My affair with Craigslist started fairly innocuously – laughing and mocking the lameness that is inherent once you forget about being yourself and present the sanitized, most palatable version of who you are. Then I ventured into the infamous “casual encounters” section and was immediately assaulted with the most vulgar pleas for sexy time with strangers. “Who actually responds to these?” I wondered. Naturally, the only way to find out was to post my own ad. And thus began a new adventure.

I am currently in Washington DC, home of thousands upon thousands of very important people who are doing their part to sustain and shape American democracy. They are lawyers, congressional staffers, consultants, and defense contractors. They work long hours and are well-versed in all things related to current events. They are less hot/funny Jon Stewarts, their entire public existences completely, intrinsically linked to All Things Political.

And they are kinky. Oh boy, are they kinky.

Read More »

We are constantly surrounded by the epic American battle to lose weight. It’s all over the media, all the time. From TV shows to magazines to movies and more, it just won’t get out of our faces! Sure, there’s always been a pressure to be thin, but could being skinny actually save you money?

The answer is yes. In a bold new move, Whole Foods is offering a discount to employees (and maybe soon to customers?) based on BMI. Basically, the lower your BMI (body mass index) the better the discount.

The government has been trying to slim us down for years now. They’ve implemented taxes, such as the “junk food tax” in New Jersey and New York has banned trans fats in order to slim down our nation. I know these things are all for my own good, but how does this new discount measure up?

Is it a good idea to help those who are already skinny to stay skinny? Is it a better idea to help the overweight population slim down? Is it fair to discriminate based on weight at all? Read More »

When I was younger, I was obsessed with Japanese culture. I tried to learn Japanese, read every book set in Japan I could manage and even made my mom take me out for sushi in the cultured city of Winnipeg, Manitoba, years before sushi was “hip.” Since then the obsession has died off considerably, but I still feel something for Japan. I had heard that  “Memoirs of a Geisha” by Arthur Golden was a fantastic read from just about everyone, including my mom and hair-dresser, but never managed to pick it up. Finally last week I decided to stop procrastinating and re-visit my childhood obsession.

“Memoirs of a Geisha” is set in Japan in the 1930s and ’40s. It tells the story of Chiyo Sakumoto who becomes Sayuri Nitta, one of the most famous geisha of her day. Chiyo is sold by her ailing parents to an okiya (essentially a geisha house) in the Gion area of Japan. She works for the Nitta “family” – Granny, Mother, Auntie and the house’s sole geisha, Hatsumomo. In an okiya, the “family” isn’t a real family at all; Granny, Mother and Auntie are all former geisha who now live and work together in the okiya. Chiyo is chosen by Granny because of her unusual eyes, which are a strange mix of blue-grey.

Hatsumomo immediately realizes that Chiyo will grow up to be a very famous and successful geisha because of these unique eyes and her natural beauty and sets out to ruin Chiyo’s chances of becoming a geisha. For years Hatusumomo tortures Chiyo while she works as a maid in the okiya and even convinces the Nitta’s to pull Chiyo out of geisha school, cementing her future as a maid. Chiyo hates living in the okiya and feels trapped in her life as a maid until she meets the Chairman. She meets him when she is only a girl, but she is completely infatuated with the Chairman and this infatuation drives her to become a great geisha. Perhaps if she becomes well-known enough, the Chairman will one day take her as a his mistress, which is the most a geisha can ever hope for. Read More »

[The following post is courtesy of our most fashionable friends over at CollegeFashion.net.]

Fashion is commonly considered glamorous and carefree. The phrase “a day of shopping” instantly triggers images of lazy Sundays, shopping bags in one hand and an iced latte in the other. Well, I’ll admit to the occasional lazy Sunday, but just as often as I’m strolling around like Holly Golightly at Tiffany’s, I’m also frowning with the stress of tactical financial decisions à la Barack Obama regarding healthcare.

The financial side of fashion is tricky – and every girl, with her individual budget, figures out her own strategy to deal with it. A common move is to choose a cheaper alternative over the expensive, upscale original. There are a myriad of reasons for doing this. Maybe in a particular situation, it’s very, very important to save money, but simultaneously very, very important to own those boots. Or the boots are nice but not nice enough to buy as an investment, since they’re trendy and will be gone with the season. Or maybe you love a pair of expensive leather boots but want to save animals, and money, by buying the faux version.

Whatever your motivation, going for a cheaper alternative instead of a high-end item can be very effective when done right. Here are five tips on shopping for substitutes: Read More »

St.Patrick’s Day week has officially begun its course, and I am looking forward to it (since I just discovered everyone celebrates before, after and during the holiday).  Even though I do not have a lick of Irish in me, you better believe I am sporting my neon green wig and the rest of my green ensemble. From now through the end of March. And since everyone is sure to be consuming lots of green beer this weekend, it’s good to know that we’ll all be better off for it.

But, let’s try for just a few minutes before diving into the luck o’ the Irish, to look at the week that was:

- We learned Lindsay Lohan is clearly running out of the “revenue” she gained from her leggings line, because she has resorted to suing an innocent T.V. commercial. Milk-a-wha?

- We discovered jobs after college, are indeed possible! Yet another reason to celebrate this weekend.

- We welcomed back our favorite cast from the Upper East Side this week on Gossip Girl. Thank goodness, I needed a little Chuck Bass in my life…now if only I could get him in my bed.

- We looked at all of the awkward elements Facebook has to offer. Read More »