As a lady whose had a curiosity about sex education since childhood, I think it’s safe to say that I lost my sh*t when I found out that sex expert Sue Johanson, of Talk Sex with Sue fame, was stopping at my school as part of her speaking tour.

As I’m sure I’ve mentioned before, I used to spend nights watching Talk Sex (which was called The Sunday Night Sex Show here in Canada) on the TV in my room with the headphones plugged in. I learned so much from watching this awesome old lady talk frankly and honestly about sex that I often found myself correcting my health teachers on the intricacies of sex ed.

For those of you who don’t know much about her, I highly recommend visiting her site or YouTubing some of her videos. From the “parental advisory” page on her website:

It is our belief that all human beings have a right to honest answers about their reproductive systems, the same way that they have access to information about respiratory systems or any anatomical function. As far as we’re concerned, the more information that one has, the better one is equipped to protect oneself from physical and emotional harm.

She is obviously a woman who has my heart.

During her stop at Sheridan, she covered a variety of topics, focusing mostly on the basic ins-and-outs of sex education — the things they didn’t teach us in school. And here are three things I took away from my evening with Sue: Read More »

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Malcom in the Middle has gone insane

[While most of us are relying on photos and livestreams to get a glimpse of New York Fashion Week, some very lucky CollegeCandy writers were blessed with the opportunity to attend some of the biggest shows at Lincoln Center. Of course, they promised they'd share their experiences with everyone, so here is Melanie's first-hand account of one of the most anticipated shows of the week.]

What better way to spend Valentine’s Day than at New York Fashion Week? When boys fail, fashion rules. In the famous Lincoln Center Theater on February 14th, Mercedes-Benz Fashion Week showcased the fashion show of the season from the iconic Betsey Johnson. Our friends at Rowenta treated us to an extra-special night of floral prints, celebrities galore, crazy kooky hair and catwalk cartwheels.

The show opened with dark eyed, gaunt models strutting their stuff in the “He Loves You Not” portion of the show. The hair was sleek and airbrushed with black lace patterns, and the clothes were deliciously pressed and witchy (thank god for the Rowenta steamers and irons backstage). The music blared, Jill Zarin texted on her Blackberry and Miss Jay silently nodded his approval as the gothic looks stormed down the runway. It was incredibly chic, sleek and dark. My MVPs? A long fur coat and a lace up dress.

It took all my power (and fear of the many security guards standing by) to keep me from jumping on the runway and tearing them off the models. Read More »

Dear Dude,

I’ve got a bit of a dilemma on my hands.  I’ve never had a boyfriend. I’ve come close, but no guy ever wanted to be more than a fling or something other than a friend. I have, not unlike a recent post to you, been perpetually pushed into the friend zone. Something of a specialty of mine.  I suppose in compliment to me, most guys I’ve hooked up with (I mean PG level hookup only..I’m not the type to go all the way without a relationship) in the past have always wanted to maintain an active friendship with me and are usually making the bigger effort. All the while making it clear they want nothing else.

This has been fine and it’s nice to have guys as close friends I can rely on, and feel wanted by in a respected way.  What becomes a problem is my position as not only a friend, but I tend to become a pseudo-girlfriend without any of the actual benefits or titles thereof.  Time and time again I will befriend a guy, we’ll be close and I somehow become the one he calls every Friday or Saturday night to chat. At one point, one of my best guy friends and I were around each other so much most people assumed we were dating.  Normally I’m happy to have close friendships like this; after all it gives me company too and I appreciate the friendship that’s there.

But every time without fail, no matter how long we’ve been friends, as soon as another girl enters the picture as a potential love interest or relationship everything drops off the map. A guy friend I talked to every week or for ages, all of a sudden I don’t hear from for months. No explanation, no real responses to my messages/texts, nothing. At least two of these cases it’s only me that the guy seems to be ignoring more, not his guy friends. Read More »

We’ve all seen the advertisements littered with celebrities’ faces all over our favorite magazines and all up in our face during our favorite TV shows. Makes sense; Hollywood A-Listers gotta get paid, right? I mean, those massive mansions and Botox sessions don’t pay for themselves.

But if you’re gonna sign your name and face (or butt, in Kim Kardashian’s case) away to something, wouldn’t it make sense to do it for a product that actually makes sense? Something you’d actually use? Like, instead of tooling around in a Buick Rendezvous, it would be more believable if Tiger Woods was doing voice-overs for a good divorce lawyer. And I know I’d be much more interested if Lilo stopped hawking self-tanner and started doing infomercials for Betty Ford.

But those are obvious suggestions; everyone knows that. Hell, even my mom makes LiLo jokes. So today we wanted to share some of the not-so-obvious endorsements that celebrities should be doing.

If you’re a PR agent, please take notes!

Read More »

[Sarabeth here, back with some more jams to add to your iTunes library! Every Wednesday, I'm bringing you music suggestions - could be something new, old, hugely popular or fairly unknown -  to awesome-ify your  collection.]

Some of you will be happy to know that this week’s album is actually new for a change. Yay! Woo! Celebration!

Rarely do I get albums based off a random review I find on the internet. Ironic? Yes, but I usually wait until one of my friends has the album and I can listen to it or hear good things from them before I buy. Well, last Tuesday that all changed. While I was perusing the interwebs I came across a review for Cut Copy’s Zonoscope that piqued my curiosity. I gave it a little listen and let me tell you, I’ve changed my tune. No pun intended. (OK, so maybe the bad pun was totally intended, but whatever.)

About the Band:
Cut Copy is a synthpop band from Melbourne, Australia that’s been around since 2001. They currently consist of Dan Whitford, Tim Hoey, Mitchell Scott, and Ben Browning. Dan Whitford started it all a decade ago when he released the single 1981, and then started recruiting other members to join his musical project.

Top 3 Tracks:

Need You Now

Pharaoh’s & Pyramids

Sun God

Why You Should Listen to It:
The best way I can describe this album is that it’s an ’80s dance party that makes my heart happy. From great synth beats to Whitford’s deep soothing voice, this album makes it hard to sit still. I was listening to it at work today and it defintely made those four hours fly by, although I probably got some strange looks from my boss from dancing in my chair during Pharaoh’s & Pyramids. Anyways, if you’re looking for something to rid you of the winter blues, push you through that 45-minute stint on the treadmill or get you through another day at work, Zonoscope will hit the spot.

Want more awesome iPod suggestions? You got it!

What It Is:
theBalm All About Alex eyeshadow

Why This Should Be in Your Bag:
In the last year, I’ve recently grown to really love and appreciate eyeshadow. Once you learn how to apply it correctly, in a flattering way, it can really brighten up your eyes and make you look stunning. It’s unfortunate that so many girls are shadow-phobes, but I understand why. Initially, I thought that wearing eyeshadow meant slopping on lots of bright blues and pinks, making you look like a circus clown. Even though I am now a believer, I still stay away from those bright colors and stick to comfortable neutrals, like brown, olive, grey, and the occasional plum or bright liner.

theBalm makes wonderful shadows. I reviewed their Shady Lady Vol. 3 palette a little while ago and now have the opportunity to test out one of their singles! The shadows in Shady Lady not only impressed me with their superb quality, but beautiful colors and pigmentation. After I saw that they had a shadow with my namesake (Alex!), and it was a gorgeous bronzed olive, I knew I had to give it a go! Read More »

OK, contrary to popular belief from my last posts, post-grad college life is pretty amazing sometimes.  That’s why I’m going to dedicate this post to something positive. Because yes, also contrary to popular belief, post-grad life is not a purgatory (I have a tendency to be a little melodramatic from time to time).

Back during my college days (that seem so long ago) going on dates seemed like a non-existent activity.  Go ahead and rat on me if you’ve been on ten dates already and you haven’t even been through an entire semester.  If that’s the case, I now understand why I don’t know you.

Anywho, I rarely went on any dates.  I met a lot of guys, but for some reason (probably somewhere along the lines of everyone leading a lifestyle two leaps away from a homeless person) dates were a seldom activity.  Therefore, while meeting guys was not difficult in college, dating them was.

Nowadays as a post-grad, meeting guys is a little more difficult to do outside of a strenuous work schedule.  However,  actual dating becomes a little more natural.  As opposed to college when I was surrounded by lax tees and Natty-Ice-grasping-frat-dudes 24/7 who couldn’t afford to buy me a McGriddle, the guys out here are more like, well, men.

During college, I was convinced chivalry did not exist anymore.  I mean, please; dudes wouldn’t even pump beer into my Solo cup for me.  Dudes wouldn’t hold the door for me at Chipotle.  Dudes wouldn’t sacrifice a treadmill during a busy afternoon in the workout room for me.  Dudes wouldn’t offer up the last burrito in the line at the caf for me.  I felt like a dude wouldn’t even go the extra mile to dedicate a fart to me (not that I’d want anything to do with that).

Read More »

The following post is written by Aaron Johnson from University of North Texas, one of our many friends at Uloop, a student powered marketplace. Read more great posts in their blog.

With college classes well underway, many, myself included, look to the ever-daunting decision of picking a major. Do I want business? Engineering? Journalism? Art? A foreign language? What does this do for me, anyway? What if I hate it?

Academic advisors kept asking me what I liked to do, and my reply continued to be: everything. While there were a few obvious things (most involving too much math) I knew I didn’t want to do, there were very few things I couldn’t see myself doing on the long list of majors they displayed for us.

As I continued to go to these advising sessions, I slowly began to narrow my choices down to a few. I don’t want to do something just because I’d make money; I want to do something I enjoy, or at least tolerate. I want to learn about it before I choose something. Thus, I continued to take exploratory classes.

As you look for what you’d like to choose in a major, don’t settle for something simply because you could see yourself doing it, or you think you’d make bank doing it. All too often you see people returning to college because their first go-round left them getting lots of money, but miserable, as they couldn’t stand the career path they had chosen. Read More »

[Welcome to Celebrity Chic on the Cheap, where our style guru takes a celebrity look and breaks it down for you, our poor college fashionista. What does that mean? It means that while the celebrities (I'm talkin' bout you, Olivia Wilde) are spending $5,000 on an ensemble, you don’t have to.]

I am completely in awe of Vanessa Hudgens. If my four-year long relationship with Zac Efron had ended, I would have fallen off the face of the earth. I would have gone on a bender that would make even Lindsay Lohan and Charlie Sheen stop and side-eye me. My only mission in life would have been to redefine trainwreck. There’s no way I would have stepped out in public on a regular basis looking even more gorgeous and stunning than ever. And yet, that is exactly what Miss V did.

I bow down to her post-breakup prowess.

Vanessa has always had a shabby chic aesthetic that I love. She’s all about pieces that flow with her body, nothing too overwhelming or overly constricting. (Guess she’ll fit in well next Fall?) Her look is flattering and easy to put together, while still being visually intriguing and fresh. Layers and great accessories are staple elements of a Vanessa-inspired outfit and with a little savvy online shopping, I’ve layered and greatly accessorized one for myself. Read More »