Exam week can be pretty intense. All you want is to pack up your shizz and go home to party for a month, but the word “cumulative” is making you want to throw up in your mouth. Can you slide by, or is exam week going to destroy the grade you earned busting your butt on every paper you wrote this semester? Everyone has their own study tips and ways to deal with stress, but here are some surefire tactics to avoid if you really want to make the grade.

1. OD’ing on Caffeine

If caffeine were illegal, I’d be a certified crack whore. So I know that overdoing the stimulants can only end poorly. There have been times where I drank so much coffee that it had an adverse affect on my body, and I passed out facedown in the books. Or I got so hyper that I alphabetized my DVD collection instead of hitting the books. Overdoing the caffeine can also keep you up for hours after you’ve shut the books, and you’ll be super groggy when the time comes to put number 2 pencil to paper (if you don’t sleep through the entire final!).

Another major caffeine no-no? Taking energy pills such as Stackers. You’ll be more concerned with the heart palpitations you’re having than the exam itself. You don’t want to pull a Jessie Spano in front of the whole lecture, hall do you? Read More »

Women’s social issues have been treated in programs geared towards teens for ages. Remember when DJ Tanner went on a crash diet so she could look good in a bathing suit, and then passed out on a stairclimber?

On Saved by the Bell, Elizabeth Berkley gained pre-Showgirls notoriety, for the famous Jessie Spano Caffeine Pill Breakdown (I’m so excited! I’m so scared!). Of course, Full House and SBTB were heart-warming sitcoms, where everyone learns their lesson in the end, and move away from their self-destructive behavior, never to mention anorexia, bullimia, or drug abuse ever again.

The breakout Canadian teen sensation, Degrassi, which airs in the US on The N network, covers a variety of teen issues, without the cavity-inducing sugary sweetness of the stuff we grew up on. Among the kids who dabble in drugs, alcohol, eating disorders, and bi-polar disorder, Degrassi introduced the world to Ellie Nash, who is a cutter.

I’m too old for Degrassi, but I don’t care. I’m pretty much obsessed with it. The best part about the show is that it doesn’t sweep the issues under the rug at the end of each 22-minute episode. And because the writers have the balls to “Go There.” I mean, come on: we all know the caffeine-pill incident was a stand-in for a harder drug, like speed or something, but hard drugs don’t exist at Bayside High.

I remember when the cutting craze swept my middle school. I have no idea who started it, or why it caught on, but at my school, cutting was the iPhone of the late 90′s. Read More »