It was released that Whitney Houston passed away today, and I literally don’t know what to do with myself right now. Is this real life? There’s not much info out right now about what exactly happened to the 48 year-old music legend. Though it’s widely known that for Houston battled with drug and alcohol addiction, I don’t even want to think that either of those things lead to her death.

Instead, let’s remember all the times we’ve sung into our hairbrushes to “I Wanna Dance With Somebody” and all the girls’ nights spent watching The Bodyguard. RIP Whitney, we will totes always love you.

You wake up. You reach over to your bedside table, grab your ringing phone and click the dismiss button to stop the alarm. Phone still in hand, you rub your left eye, but leave the right one open and peek at the device in your palm. Eleven new emails and four texts. You check them sleepily–texts from your mom, your sister and two from your best friend. Then move on to the emails–one from work, a few from school, some announcing sales at your favorite stores and lastly, a notification that John Smith wants to be your friend on Facebook. John Smith? Who is that?

Getting out of bed, you plop down in front of your computer and pull up the social networking site. You check out John Smith, but still don’t know who he is. Then you realize he has sent you a message. “Hey, we met at a bar the other night. It wasn’t anything big, we just introduced ourselves. How are you?” You still don’t really remember him, but you accept the friend request anyway. Then you go back to your news feed, where you see that your friend in Texas has put up new pictures. Clicking through them, you realize you haven’t talked to her in almost two years, but still know most of what’s going on in her life.

So much of our lives has been infiltrated by virtuality and technology that it’s rare that we have more actual face time in a day than virtual. We text, BBM, Facebook chat, Gchat, Skype, iChat and tweet far more often than we take the time to meet up face to face, and we don’t have a problem with that. (In fact, I just stopped and typed out a text in the middle of writing that sentence.) Often we have online friends that we have never met outside of the digital world–something that not long ago may have been considered a little strange, but has recently become a social norm. The number of online dating sites grows almost daily, and people find shared interests on all different kinds of blogs–from fashion to comics to music. But just because we like to look at the same website as someone, does that mean we should be friends?

Many people believe that virtual relationships are fake and watered down, and in a lot of instances that is true. Think about it–how much do you really know about all of your Facebook friends? Are the majority of them even your friends at all? Are they even real people? Or just fakes created by a lonely woman in the middle of nowhere like in that Catfish movie?

We may feel like we know people that we meet online because we spend such a huge portion of our lives in front of our computer screens, but who we are online can be totally different from who we are in real life. The internet provides a safety filter through which we feel we can be more outgoing, wittier and all around more impressive than we may be when approached on the street. Imagine that you start following someone on Twitter because every single one of their tweets makes you almost pee your pants, but you decide to meet them in person and discover they look a little bit like Chewbacca with even less social skills. Or, there’s always the chance he looks like Bradley Cooper and is just as funny as his 140-character one-liners. Either way, meeting people on the internet is a gamble, no matter how well you think you know them. And we’re always crossing our fingers for a jackpot.

So is it bad that so much of our personal lives and relationships are online? Maybe. But it doesn’t seem to be a trend that will go away soon.

Before I began, I had a lot a questions like “What is clean eating?” and “What foods are clean?” Well to be honest, even after doing loads of reading since my first post on the subject, I am still not entirely sure, so I have decided that I am going to slowly, but smartly, build my way up to much healthier eating. My first stop has been to cut out fried foods, microwaveable meals and simple carbohydrates (whole-wheat spaghetti = yum!).

So how has this been working out for me? I believe that a writer, like any artist, needs to be fully dedicated to her art – even if that requires perseverance in the face of pain, terror and piping hot broccoli soup. Yes, you read that right.  Broccoli soup.

Always a planner, yours truly scheduled herself to have two of her wisdom teeth taken out earlier in the week – which most of you know is no picnic. Yet, a week of yogurt, soup and healthy frozen yogurt didn’t sound so hard.  In fact it sounded quite refreshing – and easy.

Monday (surgery day) and Tuesday went by largely without a hitch – there isn’t much in the way of fried foods that can be slurped down and we had stocked up on yummy “drinkable,” healthy foods over the weekend.  However, on Wednesday, things took a turn for the worst  — I decided to have broccoli soup.

What do I have against broccoli soup? Well, I never got to taste it…not before I accidentally dropped it all over my lap!  The soup was so hot that I had to go to the ER to get checked out! Upon diagnosing my second-degree burns and observing my swollen right cheek, the ER doctor elegantly pronounced, “You’ve had a rough week.” Yes, doctor, yes I have.

Hopefully next week will be a little less exciting and I will be able to spend more time coming up with yummy meals and recipes to do while on this challenge.  (Right now I am sticking to Gazpacho…)

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Remember back when Disney Channel used to actually be good and somewhat entertaining to watch? Even though today’s Disney stars like Selena Gomez and Miley Cyrus seem to get way more attention than anyone back in the Zoog Disney days (late 90′s/early 00′s) ever did, I would much rather watch re-runs of Lizzie McGuire rather than The Suite Life on Deck or Shake it Up. So what have our favorite nostalgic stars been doing ever since they left Mickey’s realm? Check it out in the gallery below!

Who was your favorite old school Disney star? Do you think the new stuff is better than the old, or vice-versa?

Have you ever uttered the words “music was better back when…”? Or maybe you’ve been the one listening to a friend wax poetic about the good ol’ days of rock ‘n’ roll. In either case, you’re definitely not alone. There’s a seemingly huge divide between electronic music artists of today and, say, the organic sounds of The Doors. But guess what? Not anymore.

The folks over at the National Academy of Recording Arts and Sciences (aka the GRAMMYs) got together with Hyundai and GreenLight Media & Marketing for the new film RE:GENERATION. Along with world-famous electronic music heavyweights Skrillex, Mark Ronson, The Crystal Method, DJ Premier and Pretty Lights, they brought the ultimate music experiment to life.

These relative new-comers were each assigned a genre of music to work with — country, jazz, classical, R&B or rock — and were then paired with legendary artists from each category to create and remix the ultimate tracks. RE:GENERATION is all about respecting classic musicians — the pioneers and revolutionaries — while ushering in a new era of sound. We were blown away by what was possible when today’s top DJs worked with amazing talents like Nas, Mos Def, Erykah Badu, LeAnn Rimes, Martha Reeves and members of The Doors, among others. Take a look through our gallery below to see and hear all the collaborations.

RE:GENERATION is hitting select theaters on February 16 and 23.

initiating the gallery...

Alex loves rainbow sprinkles, retro bromances, and cultivating an iTunes library superior to yours. Most days, though, she just wishes she was Courtney Stodden. Got something to say or a good conspiracy theory you’re just dying to share with someone? Follow her on twitter @AlexandraRane or on Tumblr.

[Photo Credit: Brian Nevins]

Valentine’s Day is in just three days and I have one question for you: do you know what you’re wearing yet? You may be thinking, I don’t have a significant other. Why does it matter what I wear? Regardless of whether you have a boyfriend, a hook up, a crush or if you’re completely single, you should still try on V-Day. I know, I know it seems like a waste of time but I can think of two reasons to dress up even if you’re not dating anyone. 1. You could find someone. And 2. It will make you feel better about yourself if you’re wearing a cute outfit instead of walking around in slouchy sweatpants. Also, you could go out with your girlfriends and make all the guys drool over how hot you all look. You know I’m right.

Now, back to the question of “what are you going to wear?” Don’t worry, College Fashion‘s got you covered!

Mitt Romney might have had some epic fails in the primaries this week, but we don’t think he should feel too bad. Why? Because now his youngest and hottest son, Craig, has an entire Tumblr dedicated to him. That should make papa proud, right?

You probably saw our post about the Romney sons, from hottest to creepiest – if you didn’t, you should check it out here. It’s the definitive guide to the brothers Romney. So clearly, CollegeCandy deserves credit for this excellent new meme. Hey girl, don’t worry. We’re sharing the wealth. Craig Romney is no Ryan Gosling, but his DREAM Act only involves you. Check his “Hey Girl” memes out over at F*ck Yeah! Craig Romney.

The fashion industry is known for being extremely open-minded, especially when it comes to stepping out of gender norms and conventions. In the past couple years, stealing styles “from the boys” has been a major trend in women’s clothing. While women wearing men’s clothes has become fairly normal on the runway, the roles are rarely reversed. It is for this exact reason that Andrej Pejic is both so interesting and controversial. Andrej Pejic is a twenty-year old androgynous male model that has been catching the eyes of designers such as Marc Jacobs since he was first scouted at age eighteen. He ranks number 18 on the models.com Top 50 Male Models list and number 98 in FHM Magazine’s 100 Sexiest Women in the World in 2011.

While Andrej Pejic’s androgyny has long been a topic of conversation, his appearance at this year’s New York Fashion Week has elicited a lot of extreme opinions. Speculators are questioning whether he will model both men’s and women’s clothing, just men’s clothing, just women’s clothing or simply watch the shows. Firstly, I find it really interesting that someone could model both men’s and women’s clothing. I also think it’s really cool that the fashion industry is essentially leading the world towards breaking down gender conventions. While I can understand that this is controversial and might bother some people, I’m excited to see the results of the major changes in social norms that are occurring in the world today. In light of the overturn of Prop 8, I’m excited to say the world is moving in a more open-minded direction.

Ashley is a freshman at George Washington University and she’s majoring in Overanalyzing Situations and International Affairs. Follow her on twitter @ashleybrooks25

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