L.A. gets ready for the big event MJ Memorial Service.

Lindsay Lohan’s getting sued.

So what causes the beer belly, anyway?

Chase Crawford and Zac Efron say goodbye to man-bangs.

Just how bad are your health vices?

10 crimes committed against women by reality TV.

College, although deliciously fun and entertaining, is full of things that are bad for us.  The four-day weekend bender? Bad for us.  The four Red Bulls we chugged to finish that paper at 5am? Bad for us.  The four classes we skipped because we were sleeping after that all-nighter? Really bad for us.

But, surprisingly, sometimes what we think is horrible for our health can have some benefits.  However, just like anything, these things should probably be done in moderation anyway.  Most benefits are demolished when you overdose on the activity (except sex…I maintain that you cannot overdose on that).

Stress – Yes, stress can be helpful (short of pulling out your hair because you haven’t started that art project that’s due in two hours).  Stress can benefit the immune system, preparing the body to withstand things like surgery and infections, and also pushes us to be most effective at the tasks at hand. Bring on the triple-bypass surgery, because I’ve had enough stress to boost my immune system to super human levels.

Caffeine – There are tons of benefits of drinking caffeine! Increased reaction speed and alertness, decreased evidence of liver damage, weight loss, lower occurrence of diabetes, and increased sex drives in females (it’s only been proven in rats, but I’m gonna make the jump).  Grab a cup of coffee from the cafeteria and enjoy the buzz.

Oversleeping – Sleeping too much is really bad for you.  However, how many college students do you know who are getting too much sleep?  Usually, we oversleep because we’ve been running on 3 hours of sleep for five days (finalsss) or because we’ve been killing ourselves with club meetings, classes, work, and assignments during the day.  Sometimes your body just needs some time to catch up and recover.  In fact, while you sleep your mind and body are putting things in order – repairing muscles, organizing memories and new pieces of information gained during the day.  Give yourself a chance to catch up to…yourself.  Sleep in! Read More »

I’ve always appreciated the phrase “no offense but (insert ANYTHING!)” for it’s ability to take away all offense to the next part of the statement. I went through about a thirteen year phrase where I truly believed that saying “no offense, but” before I said the most heinous thing possible would make it impossible for the person to be mad at me.

Needless to say I lost a few (all) friends over this phase.

As the time starts to tick down at school I’m not only getting increasingly nostalgic (remember that hilarious time I fell on the ice and broke my tailbone!??!) but also increasingly eager to dole out some honesty before certain people go out to the real world. Hence I started the first official Honesty Month at Syracuse. It’s an entire month of “no offense but.” I know, fabulous idea right? Read More »

Happy almost-Easter! Have you stocked up on your Peeps and Cadbury Eggs? Not you, Passover people – unfortunately you don’t get to partake in the tasty treats. You also don’t have to deal with the Easter Creep-sters, though, so that’s a plus.

Anyways, it’s Friday and we’re ready for a night in with some hot chocolate and a good (self-help) book. We would go out and par-tay, but we had a long week (as usual), full of life lessons:

College on crutches? It sucks.
Sex is good, but being wanted is better.
Gavin DeGraw is as funny as he is talented.
All those bad habits are just not worth it.
Vitamin Water is now almost calorie-free!
There are a lot of things guys just don’t know about us.
Pretty people have it really easy.
Lindsay Lohan deserves a break from the paps.
There are a lot of things we won’t miss when we graduate.
There are lots of pros to having a boyfriend…
And lots of pros to not having one…

Whew. We’re pooped. Nothing a big bowl of (free!) granola can’t fix!

The University Experience sure has changed. It’s now normal to take longer than four years to complete your degree; students are known to switch majors repeatedly (and often at the last minute); and transfer admissions offices are swamped with applicants who realize that the college they chose senior year of high school just isn’t making the grade.

I know all about the stress of transferring and adjusting to a new school. When I began my undergraduate career, I wasn’t content with attending the state university that 83% of my classmates were enrolling in. Oh, no – I had to get away. So I enrolled in a small private school in London, England.

My freshman year was a blast– I was in a major city, surrounded by hot men with hotter accents, and I didn’t even need a fake ID. But eventually, reality sank in, and I opted to transfer back to the same state school that I’d once adamantly rejected in order to prevent graduating with student loans up the wazoo.

My first semester at the state university was miserable. I’d missed out on all of the freshman year bonding, got stuck with a lame random roommate, and when I did go out, it was because one of my high school friends was kind enough to let me tag along with her group. It was so bad that I took a semester off to figure out if I wanted to go through the transfer process again. I ended up going back to the state school, and – thankfully – things got better. In fact, college kicked some major ass.

So, having been on the Maybe-I-Should-Transfer fence and a member of the Transfer Students Association, I thought I’d share some pro’s and cons with anyone who isn’t quite sure that they are attending the right school. Read More »

Bad habits. Everyone has them (yes, even me!). I pick my cuticles. And I’ll be the first to admit- it’s not appealing. Far from it actually. It can be painful, but mostly it is just gross. Not only to me, but to those around me.

I realized just how gross when I saw a not so charming boy taking part in the same not so charming habit during a lecture and my friends pointed out that:

a) Yes, I look like that too when I pick/bite

b) We are destined to be together because we share the same nasty habit.

Whether it is nail biting, throat clearing, being chronically late, talking too loud on your cell phone etc- we all have that one (or eight) habits we just wish we could break. But sometimes we really can’t help but take part in our bad habits. Kind of like when we couldn’t help but text that guy last Saturday night at 2am, even though we said we were sooo done with that.

Sometimes bad habits are just really hard to break.

So before you make that New Years Resolution to not oversleep or stop cracking your knuckles, here are three steps to actually help you achieve that goal.

3 Easy Steps to Breaking Bad Habits (From WebMD)

1) Make It Conscious. Many times, we do these things without thinking about it. Like when we are bored in class or stressed in the library etc. So figure out when and why you take part in your habit(s) of choice. If you realize when/why you are doing it and can attribute what you are feeling that is driving you to do it, you will have an easier time finding a way to stop. Read More »

I don’t smoke, but I have a lot of friends who do. When I’ve asked some of them how long they’ve been craving nicotine, many—to my disappointment—admitted getting into it only a few years prior.

It was the social thing to do in college, one of my friends said, lighting up while we were driving one afternoon. It was hard for me to meet people. But at parties, these huge groups of people would be outside smoking. I’d go out there, bum a smoke, and talk to everyone. She exhaled, trying to blow it out the window, but only succeeding in covering me with poison. I tried not to breathe, and nodded.

Another time, a different friend and I were backpacking through Europe. Our hostel had a small back porch, and a lot of people sat outside at night and smoked. Whenever we would go out there, she’d light up, and start talking to everyone. I knew she wasn’t a big smoker, and it felt strange to watch her light cigarette after cigarette, laughing and joking and going through a half a pack in only a few hours.

You know, I said as we were going to sleep that night (in a room that consisted of us, and 7 Argentinean boys…so I guess when I say sleep, I mean, “as we were attempting to try to sleep, something that never happened the whole time we were there”) you could just go out and talk to people and not smoke. Just because other people are smoking, you don’t have to. Read More »

I had the intention of being a contact-wearer. But after a week in high school of trying to get them in every morning and only ending up with puffy, red, and irritated eyes (sans contacts), I decided they just weren’t for me.

But, all of my roommates in college currently wear contacts, so I hear about them constantly. Whether, it’s “Whoops, I passed out in my contacts last night after coming home from the bar” or “I don’t have time to clean them before class today,” the topic always seems to comes up.

Well, if you are one of those girls who wears contact in college, you may want to pay attention to a new study that reports, “Almost three quarters of contact lens wearers are risking blindness because of their dirty habits.”

It also found that over 15% of wearers will pick an unwashed contact lens off the floor and pop it in their eye and 70% of people keep their lenses in for far too long every day. Read More »

After spending a portion of my day listening to a friend detail a particularly painful break-up she’s currently going through, giving her the best advice I could while recognizing her little painful moments all too well, I started thinking about the process of breaking up itself.

Not the actual nuts and bolts of the deed, those always vary, but the way we react afterward.

No matter who we are, our pain tends to mirror each other during these times. We make the same decisions, fall into the same bad habits, give ourselves the same pep talks, and feel the general sh*ttiness so strongly that most of us, by our mid-twenties, have experienced some kind of life really can’t go on moment.

When a girlfriend goes through a break-up, we give advice, comfort her, but most of all, completely understand what she’s feeling. We completely understand, and never really want to go there again (although most of us will, according to the numbers. Damn you statistics! I knew I got a B- in your class for a reason!).

So certain that we all share the same brain when devastated, author Sandra Ann Miller has written a book, A Girlfriend’s Guide to Getting Over Him, in which she lists “10 essential ground rules to prevent the recently jilted from making the most common breakup mistakes”. The rules are listed here. Read More »

You know when life just sucks? When one crappy thing happens after another, after another and you feel like life just took a big dump on you?

Yeah, welcome to my life as of late.

It’s like I can’t get out of these series of unfortunate events that are just cropping up day after day. Not everything is totally sh*tty, I do see the good things that are continuously happening, but it’s like I’m being stoned and the world just keeps on throwing rock after rock at my face.

And it hurts.

The worst part of it though, is that I’m having a hard time separating these crappy times from my self-esteem. When life gets me down, my self worth tends to go with it. And most times, I end up at the end of it all trying to get my life—and my body—back in loveable condition.

But this time I say NO.

This time, despite all the sh*t, I’m trying my hardest to keep my body-love separate from my life-love. So what if my life sucks, I am determined not to let the self-esteem I have worked so hard to build crumble along with the rest of my life. Even when everything else is going down, I am working on staying strong.

I happened along the blog La Dolce Vita’s most recent entry, an affirmation to YOU.

There is no one else in the world like you. There is no one who has experienced every single experience you have or shares the exact same outlook that you do. You bring something unique and wonderful into this world every single day you are in it. You are one of a kind and while it might be nice to admire the bodies, personalities, achievements and other attributes belonging to others, you can only be you. Read More »