For the first couple of months after my college acceptance, it was all about celebration. Buying up sweatshirts and car decals on the bookstore website, networking with my future classmates on Facebook, making pro/con lists for next year’s housing choices. But recently, my future hit me as being much more real when my school’s course catalog for the 2009-2010 school year was put online for current students (as well as curious prefrosh) to use in selecting their courses. And, being the geek that I am, I perused nearly every humanities department’s section and salivated at the descriptions of the classes I’d love to take.

But my passion for intellectual pursuits poses a problem for me. While my school does not have any core requirements, there is no possible way I could take every course that interests me in four years. I plan to be an English major, but there are courses in the history, government, philosophy, religion, and film departments that sound like incredible classes. I love to learn anything and everything and I will take every opportunity to do so; yet time constraints and forces beyond my control will make it impossible for me to take certain courses. Read More »

We all have them – those four million t-shirts baring our university’s logo/our sorority letters/the 45 clubs we are a part of. You’ve collected them over the course of your degree, and now you have so many you can barely close your dresser drawers. You probably have a few you wear — the nice one you bought at the bookstore, or your favorite shirt you acquired at a school event (because every college student knows free sh*t is good sh*t) that you wear to the gym or sleep in. But the rest? They just sit there taking up precious dresser space because you can’t bring yourself to get rid of them.

“I did my first beer bong in that one,” you tell yourself. “I can’t throw away the memories!” Well, you don’t have to. Here are a few ways to reuse your old shirts.

Throw pillows — Pick the t-shirts with logos you love, but never wear. Follow these easy instructions, and you have new room decor. The main cost is pillow forms, or cotton batting, but it’s a lot cheaper than going out and buying them from a decor store. Variation: make an actual t-shirt pillow.

T-shirt shopping bag — Go green when lugging your groceries home with a snazzy new shopping bag. You can save the planet by not using plastic bags, and have extra change for happy hour by not spending a cent on the reusable ones from the grocery store. Plus, you can turn that pre-party t-shirt into something actually useful! Read More »

I have more t-shirts than anyone should really have ever. Not only could I dress myself for about a month just in t-shirts baring my university’s logo, but I have countless free beer promotion shirts (bonus from working in a bar), funny saying shirts (my favorite being the “I have reservations” Native American one), and shirts from every event/concert/outing I have attended forever.

And I wear a lot of them. I used to boycott getting really dressed up during the day (who needs to look cute in a 9 AM class?), and rock my comfy jeans and a tee. On the rare occasion that I actually decide to enter the gym I’ll throw on one from my collection. But a lot of the time they sit in my dresser unused and unloved. And it makes me kinda sad. Cause all clothes should be loved, right?

One day I thought I might wear one out to a bar if I could create something with it. I was trying to go for the “I – didn’t – really – try – to – look – cute – but – somehow – I – just – look – adorable” look. Except I’m seriously not that creative and the only thing I could think to do was cut the neck a little, and maybe do something to the short sleeves. Read More »