You finished your last exam early and, after waiting for someone else to turn theirs in first (you don’t want to be first!), ran down the steps of that lecture hall, slammed that baby on the desk and skipped your way to freedom.  As you walk home you notice how great the air smells, how bright the sun is and how beautiful your campus is. School is out and you are feelin’ groovy.

After regaling your roommates with tales from your 90 minute essay exam (“I totally rocked that shiz!”), you head to your room to start the end-of-the-year cleaning session. You grab a garbage bag, sit down at your desk and start sifting through the piles of papers, books and notebooks that litter your desk.

In the back of your mind, you know that some of those notebooks will come in handy for next year’s classes. In the front of your mind, though, you know you will never look at them ever again. So, in a celebratory fashion, you toss one binder after another into the Hefty. Read More »

[Every week, CC and John bring you some of the weirdest, funniest, saddest things he hears on his college campus. Join the Overheard revolution!Leave your own overheard convos in the comments or send ‘em over!]

(Girl and guy, across dining hall.)

Girl: You’re beautiful! What’s your name?

Guy: Oh, thanks. You’re not very pretty at all.

(Guy, in the dining hall.)

Guy: I love space monkeys. But, you know, not in a t-shirt way.

(Girls leaving a class building.)

Girl 1: Oh, my God, that was complete bullsh*t.

Girl 2: Double bullsh*t.

Girl 3: Yeah. Fart fart fart. Read More »

We’re back with another edition of G.W.W.E. (Guys We Wanna Eff)!

As of 10:30 am today, I have handed in my last paper, completed my last final exam, and have shaken off the stress of another academic year.  I’ve been waiting for this moment for weeks—not only for the bliss of summer, but for my date tonight. That’s right, I’ve got my box of popcorn and a matinee tickets to X-Men Origins: Wolverine, with none other than hunky Ryan Reynolds.

You’d have to be a heartless (er, vagina-less?) beast to not want to eff RR. His chisled bod and perfect pearly whites are the stuff of every warm-blooded female’s fantasy. I just Googled his pics to find one to use in this article, and there is literally page after page of bare-chested wonderment. Who said there was no such thing as free porn? (Editor’s Note: Mmmmmm.)

Besides his current feature in X-Men (which opened this week has already sparked rumors of a spinoff film for his character) Reynolds has starred in Smokin’ Aces and Definitely Maybe. But let’s not forget my personal favorite (and perhaps his best-known role), stealing the show in National Lampoon’s Van Wilder.

Reynolds has been my favorite campus hottie since I saw Van Wilder in 2002. After watching the suave and cunning Reynolds charm all the ladies, I too wanted to date the big man on campus. But my eighth-grade fantasies clearly were not the stuff of my present-day, sweatpants-and-under-eye-circles reality (let’s just say I’m not catching the eye of any frat pack types around here, okay?). So tonight, I reunite with the chiseled hunk, hoping that his sharp-eyed gaze can look past my post-finals funk and reward my hard work with some hard effing…if only in my dreams.

You goin’ out tonight? Gonna hit the town and celebrate that final final? You gonna get so drunk that the only thing on your mind at the end of the night is gooey, cheesy and totally bad for you?

Me too!

But before you a make poor decision that involves you and the delivery places you clearly have on speed dial, read on. There are some snacks out there that are just not worth eating, no matter how many Vodka Red Bulls you’ve downed in honor of the end of History 240. Things you will regret more in the morning than last weekend’s romp with the History 240 T.A. Assuming all that fat and grease doesn’t prevent you from making it to the morning… Read More »

Okay, so maybe I’m jumping the gun here a little bit, but I am SO effing unbelievably ready for summertime! I am itching to return all my boring, barely cracked textbooks to the book store to receive less than 10% what I paid for them and bubble in the last circle on my Scantron before my brain explodes with information I will probably not remember in a week.

Finals are killer and, really, the only thing keeping me going right now, besides multiple grande caramel frappucinnos, is imagining that in a few weeks I will be dreamily grillin’ poolside while sipping strawberry margaritas and donning sparkly flip flops.

So, even if summer is a miniature blip on your radar right now, I hope this playlist of chill tunes will keep you sane. Seriously ladies, summer is so close I can almost feel the peeling, dry skin on my uber pasty shoulders. Oh summer, you can’t come soon enough.

Summertime..and the livin’s easy at CC. Listen here.

Yay for May!

The April showers are (or should be) over, and it’s time for summer kick in. I can’t WAIT to be done with my exams (only one more… and 10 Red Bulls to go) and on the plane ride home.

The month of May is chock full of great things, and I am more than excited to get this party going. While we’re all winding down and getting ready to finish up the school year, don’t forget to enjoy all the fun things to do and celebrate this month:

1) It’s Asian Pacific American Heritage Month! (Yeah, I know, try saying that 10 times fast.) As an ABC (American-Born-Chinese), this celebration is near and dear to my heart. Even if you’re not Asian, you can still join us in celebrating this awesome holiday by making some scrumptious Chinese food, and I don’t mean the kind by General Tso. Laugh it up with my fellow Asian Russell Peters, probably the funniest guy alive, and watch this PSA too, brought to you by Dat Phan, another hilarious Asian comedian and stereotypical crazy cab driver.

2) At only 50 calories a cup, who doesn’t love those lovely red heart-shaped fruits we call strawberries? It’s National Strawberry Month, believe it or not (yes, even fruits get to have parties in their honor). It’s also National Salad Month! Throw a garden party and combine the two to make this Chinois Strawberry and Goat Cheese Salad, or this Arugula and Strawberry Salad. Speaking of strawberries, has anyone ever heard of strawberry meth? Sounds….tasty?
Read More »

Every college library is similar – always too hot or too cold, smells kind of bad but you aren’t sure why, phrases etched into the tables, and a mixed population of students either writing on each others’ Facebook walls or writing 20 page term papers in a single night.

Good times!

I used to be very anti-library (who isn’t), but this semester I have found ways to make it more comfortable, enjoyable and conducive to a productive day/evening/month of work-doing. It’s all about being prepared (for anything) and as long as you have these essentials in that backpack of yours, you can be successful too.

Water bottle: This seems obvious but you’d be surprised. I once pulled an all-nighter without bringing a water bottle and because I was so into the work I was doing, I never felt like going to get water. Stupid mistake! I got tired and sick, and spent my night drooling on my laptop instead of researching on it. The next time I filled that sucker up a few times per hour, got everything done, and felt great the next day. Also, drinking only coffee, tea or Red Bull (or Bawls...) will almost definitely dehydrate you, cause you to crash sooner than without caffeine and probably give you a terrible stomachache (which may explain that weird smell in the libs….).

Personal hygiene products: I’ll admit that I’m a little weird when it comes to hygiene – I carry toothbrushes with me wherever I go – but I highly suggest anyone going to the library for an extended period of time should have at least a toothbrush thrown in their backpack. Some other products that always come in handy for me are hand sanitizer, lotion, tissues, chapstick, and deodorant. Trust me, it’s better for everyone if you smell like a “Satin Pear” (whatever that is) than whatever 10 hours in a dirty library smells like for a 9:35 Italian class! Read More »

The royal GPA f*ck up.

We’ve all done it. Whether it was “I’m too hungover to go to class” semester, or the easy freshman mistake of loving the lack of attendance policy way too much, at one time our GPA has clicked down point-by-point faster than the funds in our checking account after drunkenly opening a tab at the bar.

I may be only a freshman, but I’ve pretty much already declared my major in GPA Sabotage, with a concentration on Accidental Stupidity. Having been such an idiot my first semester of college, I speak from partial experience on the five unfailing ways to destroy your GPA like a Category 5 earthquake.

1. Racking up a big streak of absences for your class. It’s pretty obvi, almost to the point where it seems ridiculous to bring up, but it’s the most effective method for watching your GPA drop like an axe. Keeping up the good fight in your classes is all about resisting the incredibly tempting ability to skip class. Even if there is no attendance policy, chances are extremely good that you don’t want to miss what’s going on. Plus, catching up after a missed class is a massive headache for anyone with a decent course load.

2. Not participating in class. This is kind of a gray area, but for the most part it can be really destructive to your grade in a class if you just waste your time there. Classes are only worth the money they cost if you’re retaining the information presented, and the professor is there to make sure you do just that. Communicating with your professor and participating in class is definitely the way to get the most out of it, and it can make even a 9 AM lecture more enjoyable. Plus, if you make a big mistake in your class, your professor will likely be extremely helpful in getting you back on track knowing that you are invested in the course.

3. Sleeping through class sessions. This is a biggie. It can be actually painful to try and stay awake in class, especially when it’s one of the soulless 8 AM courses. It risks being mind-numbingly dull to stay awake, but if you sleep through class, you’re wasting your time even being there at all. I have definitely used classtime to catch up on some Zs and learned pretty quickly that it’s one mistake you absolutely don’t want to to make.

4. Blowing off studying for exams, or just the exams in general. The best saying I’ve heard about exams is the Murphy’s Law of College Exams: they are always based on the one class session you didn’t attend, and the chapter in the textbook you didn’t read. There is nothing like a screwed college exam to sink you about two letter grades, if not more. Studying is all-important, as is keeping track of your exam schedule so you don’t accidentally miss one. These two things can mean the difference between doing well in a class and scraping to pass.

5. Cheating/ Plagiarizing. It may be incredibly tempting, but as is largely well-known, either of those offenses are automatic one-way streets to being blacklisted from every college, and having your future resume incredibly tainted. Not only will your test or paper be an automatic zero if you’re caught, but your entire college career will be seriously affected by a brief lack of judgment. No test grade is worth the colossal slap on the hand resulting from cheating, and a paper that’s written with someone else’s words isn’t worth the ink you print it with. If you’re tempted to make either of these serious mistakes, resist them. Academic Dishonesty is one phrase you never, ever want associated with your transcripts.

What a coincidence it is that April is both Stress Awareness Month and when we all take finals. Cruel trick, world. A cruel trick, indeed.

Instead of grabbing a cigarette or another cup of coffee, use exercise this year as a way to alleviate the overwhelming feelings that come with cramming a semester’s worth of information into a few study sessions.

Clinically proven, exercise naturally decreases the amount of stress hormones your body produces and counteracts your body’s normal stress response. By working out regularly, your body will better be able to handle finals week and allow you to get in the amount of studying you desperately need. It will allow the burden of 2 tests in one day seem much less daunting than it really is. It will make the inevitable ‘F’ seem like a very doable passing grade.

So just take a deep breath and put on those sneakers before you hit the books. Read More »

I know the semester isn’t over yet – unfortunately – but I feel fully comfortable here now. Why? Because I am ready for summer. I know it’s weird to feel like I belong because I am wishing I weren’t here, but for the first time college is beginning to feel like the good-old-(or at least predictable and comfortable) days of high school.

In the fall, I was so excited and nervous to be here. With all the new parts of my life keeping me busy, I skipped the phase of I-wish-it-were-still-summer that I have every October of my life. And while I looked forward to Thanksgiving and Christmas breaks, it was not because I wanted to get away from school, but that I wanted to see my hometown again. That last day of finals was actually a little sad, since I knew I’d be without my college friends for over a month. This was drastically different from the last day in December for previous years, when I stuffed everything in my backpack and drove out of the school parking lot as fast as possible.

What truly surprised me was that coming back to college this spring was interesting. In high school, coming back from break meant midterms, more studying, and many dull and long months to go. This year it meant new classes that I got to pick, seeing my friends again, and going out more. So far, my usual emotions during the school year have been off compared to years before. Until now. Read More »