"Ok, so I'll do all the work and you'll take all the credit. Sound good?"

It’s the start of a new school year and to honor that, we at CollegeCandy are bringing back the fan-favorite series, “We’ve All Been There.”  (We tried to get another national holiday/long weekend for you guys but it’s way harder than we thought so this will have to do.) Every week, Lauren – University of Michigan will comment on the common experiences all college women share – like the first day of classes or trying to figure out if that boy is crushin’ too. Read, relate, cringe and enjoy.

Your midterm is assigned and not only is it a group project, but you can’t even choose who you’ll work with. Your T.A. reads off your group of four then gives you the last half of the class to discuss your ideas. You pull your desks together in a mini-circle and start the introductions.

It only takes you five minutes to realize that this group is not going to work.  Between the kid who’s only showed up to class twice and the girl who speaks maybe three words of English, it’s going to be a disaster.

With only two weeks to complete both a four-page paper and a 5-minute presentation, you need to get to work quickly. The group spends ten minutes coming up with a topic and the next twenty trying to find a time to meet that works for all of you. Unsuccessfully. One kid holds an on-campus job at the library, one girl is heading out of town for the weekend and you all have 3 other midterms that you need to somehow complete.

The rest of the class starts packing up and – seeing a giant D in your near future – you decide to take charge.

“Ok, we’re going to break up the work. We’ll each take a portion of the paper and we’ll put it together at the end. Then we’ll use class time next week to write up our presentation. Good?”

The group agrees – most likely because they don’t want to spend another second in this classroom. You get everyone’s email address, divvy up the sections of the essay and go on your way.

You do your research and whip up your part of the essay the night before the next class. Only when you show up you learn you’re the only one with anything done. The boy doesn’t even bother to come, one girl was too busy to get her part done and the girl with the language barrier? You’re not even sure she understood the assignment.

You freak out. You only have a week left and half of today’s class to get the project done. While the T.A. drones on about that week’s reading assignment you zone out, thinking about your grade. “WTF? How is it fair that my grade depends on the other people in this group? I’m gonna have to do all the work myself. And then they’ll get my A? Ugh. But what else would I do? Let them ruin my GPA? I’m not gonna get a bad grade in a class this easy.”

Finally, she stops talking and you’re given the rest of the class to work with your group. Unable to count on anyone to get anything done out of class, you decide to use the time to write a script for the presentation. You’ll just do the paper on your own later. Do you want to? No. Do you have the time? Barely.

Do you trust these idiots to do anything worthy of your academic standards? Yeah right.

Thirty minutes is not nearly enough time to finish your presentation so you try once again to find a time to meet out of class. And, again, it’s a big, fat fail. So, again, you offer to collect everything via email and send out a final document before the big presentation next week.

You spend your entire weekend writing the paper, sending passive-aggressive emails to the group to get their stuff to you, taking the crap they wrote and turning it into something worthy of a passing grade and complaining to your roommates. Then you put it all into a Power Point with some fun clip art (Clip Art makes everything look better) and beg everyone to meet you 10 minutes before class to go over the plan.

When everyone finally shows up – even MIA Boy – you explain everyone’s parts to them. You run through it once, then, of course, get called on first to present. You turn in your paper to the T.A., take your place with your group and pray everyone in your group knows how to read aloud.

The presentation goes well (obviously – you did the entire thing) and a week later you learn your group has earned an A. All four of you.

Yeah, we’ve all been there.
Why anyone is still assigning group projects in college is beyond us too.

Recently, there have been several stories questioning the worth of a college education. Are we paying too much for a future that consists of scanning the classifieds for low-skilled work in flannel jammies while spooning Ben and Jerry’s into our higher-educated bodies?

The conversation is both controversial and thought provoking. As a current student, however, I’m choosing to oppose this idea and stick to the status quo: 4 years jam-packed with cram sessions, information overload, and a splash of debauchery. I don’t care what the statistics claim. With the help of your professors, a few BOVs, and the best part about college – NO PARENTS! – you’ll learn countless life skills that money (or a scholarship) really can buy.

Time Management It’s the Wednesday before Halloween weekend. You have an open bar to attend on Thursday, a haunted booze cruise on Friday, and several house parties to hit up on Saturday. Not to mention, you have a 10-page paper due Monday at 9am (Seriously…what kind of teacher is that cruel?). Thanks to the previous 3 years of trial and error, you now know that Sunday will be a total wash (or spooning-a-bottle-of-Gatorade sorta day) so you gotta spend all of Wednesday night/Thursday morning locked away in a cubicle if you plan on drinking yourself into oblivion during the weekend. Learning how to balance class, studying, work, and your social needs can be tricky, but college allows you to perfect that practice in no time at all.

Financial Skills Bills, bills, bills. Cable, Electric, Gas, Water, Rent. Who knew it was possible to receive so many statements a month? As a liberal arts student majoring in Government/English, I have zero intention of taking any sort of accounting class (even if it is the “for Dummies” version)… ever. But, by living off-campus and dealing with 4 other roommates, varying costs, and payment deadlines, college has provided me with a free lesson on finances, credit, fiscal responsibility and budgeting (for clothes and beer).

Rejection Applying for internships and not getting a single one. Trying to get into the bar with your fake, only to get turned away (at least your didn’t end up in handcuffs). Spotting a hottie across the party, leading to a hookup, leading to him ignoring your texts the next day. Rejection is a daily occurrence in college and once we get over it (with the help of something gooey and chocolatey), it prepares us for the harsh world we will be entering in several years (or months). It also allows us to realize that every day is full of new opportunities and optimism is far from overrated.

Connections After wading through a packed crowd and heading to the keg to fill your solo cup with some Natty Light, you strike up a conversation with a random girl wearing that shirt from Cusp you totally almost bought. Eventually, a friendship blossoms. And, it turns out, her Mom knows Mr. So-and-So, who is the President of that company you are dying to nab a job at post-grad. The connections made in college are usually random and typically surprising. It’s a small world… and it becomes much smaller after attending university. Friends, professors and parents you meet during your four years can provide many opportunities you would otherwise never have encountered. And, let’s face it – while half of finding a job after school is hard work, the other half is all about who you know.

Strategy Last year, one of my roommates let a rat into the house (thank you, city living). I came home unaware that the furry little monster was crawling somewhere in my living room until I was messing around on FB and came across his status: “Loving my new roommate!” next to a picture of a fat, rabid rat. I absolutely panicked, locked myself in my room, and sat with my feet up on the chair while googling “How to Catch a Rat” for a solid half-hour. Once two of my other roommates got home, we grabbed our rodent-catching gear (rainboots and brooms), figured out where the disgusting little bugger was, and used all of our dining room furniture to block off a path to the door. Several shrieks later, we managed to get the guinea-pig sized rat out of our house. What’s the point of that story? (Besides to highlight the shanty life I live?) Two words: critical thinking. Thanks to college, I know how to think critically when both pressure and absolute terror consume my being.

Utilization of Social Media Nowadays, its crucial to be tech-savvy if you want to be employed; Twitter and Facebook are both used as important marketing tools in most job markets. Good thing you spent 8+ hours a week mastering the art of internet stalking and sarcasm in 140 characters or less.

Limits So much studying you can’t see straight? So many RBVs you can’t see straight? You have four years to test out your boundaries and figure out which lines are appropriate to cross and which lines are not. You’re able to “get it all out of your system” before entering the real world – where dancing on a bar and proceeding to fall off is not socially acceptable.

Let’s face it… unless you are the most mature 17 or 18-year old in the world, college is a 4 year prep period that not only gets you ready for a job, but for life itself. And, in my opinion, the lessons you learn while at school (even the ones that you want more than anything to forget) are 100% worth it.

Grab your notebook and furry pencils (or whatever it takes to get you ready to hit the books), because I’ve got a list of things you can do to get on another list: the Dean’s List.

10. Invest in a planner: Good grades begin with organization (and writing down your assignments). Find a planner that works for you, whether it is the one provided by your school or that handy little calendar in your iPhone. Once you have it, write everything in it. Meetings, to-do lists, homework assignments, phone numbers. It is so much easier to manage all your information when it is centralized in one place.

9. Get to class: Self-explanatory. Abide by your class schedule and don’t skip. Though you may laugh in the face o that 8:30a.m. Theology class on Friday morning, remember that professors can and will deduct for absences. It would be a shame to miss that letter grade because you could not roll out of bed to get to your desk in the morning.

8. Get a change in scenery: The library is not for everyone. Some people cannot cram themselves into a desk on the third floor and work until 2 a.m. Others openly admit that the library is a better social scene than a bar on Friday night. Find a study space that works for you, and you ALONE. My personal study space is a Starbucks near my school. I pack up all my books, grab a skim latte and park myself at a table in the corner for hours at a time.

7. Employ the help of some dead composers: Music has been proven to help students while studying, but lyrics have the potential to get in the way of the thought process. Good thing Bach never set out to write words with his pieces or attempted to match Drake’s raps. Classical music can improve studying for tests and quizzes. Feel free to judge me on this: I have all of Peter Tchaikovsky’s The Nutcracker on my Ipod, but I am thanking those sugarplum fairies graciously when the As start rolling in.

6. Unplug from the world: I know it sounds nearly traumatic to even conjure the thought of turning off the iPhone, but cell phones and social networking sites like Twitter and Facebook will only end up working against you for the 12-pager due tomorrow. Allow yourself a Facebook break or texting session if you need it, but when you are in front of the Microsoft Word document or textbook, keep your eyes and fingers focused on the task at hand.

5. Take good notes: Do I sound like your professor yet? Though I do not want to get into the boring rhetoric of “good study habits,” I cannot express how important it is to take good notes. Anyone can agree that notes are no fun to take, but when it comes to studying late Sunday night you will thank yourself for being so diligent with that highlighter.

4. Get a study buddy who knows their stuff: Most college campuses have free tutors and study aids. FO FREE. And no one seems to really know it.   Tutoring sessions take up only one hour of your time but will save you a lot of frustration and confusion. Having a tutor does not mean that you are not capable on your own, just that you are smart enough to want to improve with someone’s help.

3. Abuse office hours: Yes, that is right. Do not take advantage of office hours, abuse them. Professors are in their office for a reason and if you are having any kind of difficulty you should see them first. They know the work better than anyone else. Write down your professors’ office hours and keep them in a place that you can refer back to when you need the extra help.

2. Reward yourself (always and often): Rewards are totally acceptable. Although I highly recommend pats on the back, why not take it a step further? Think of something you love and find a way to reward yourself with it when you do a good job. One paper down? Grab a chai latte. B+ on that killer math test? You totally deserve a shopping spree!

1. Map out your goals and keep them where you can see them: The key to getting the grades is actually imagining that you already achieved them. It is a timeless secret, but it really has been proven to work. At the start of every semester write down your goals – short-term and long-term. Keep those goals in a visible spot and look at them daily. I kid you not; those who can see their goals written out for them are more apt to move towards the direction of achieving them.

And make sure you keep my number one motto in mind as well: Work hard but play hard too. When you have finished studying and you have taken the test, don’t be afraid to go out and have a good time. Just be ready, with brain cells intact, to get back to books come Sunday night.

College classes are the perfect example of things that can be accurately judged from a first impression, no matter how fleeting. Let’s take a look at some of the most common experiences you might have on your first day and what they might mean about the class ahead.

What happens: Your prof shows up 10 minutes late, frazzled and smelling heavily of espresso.
What it means: Feel free to come to class in your PJs and contribute to class discussion with garbled comments that aren’t fully formed, since your prof will neither care nor be able to tell the difference.

What happens: A PowerPoint presentation is already up on the screen when you enter, and the prof has a writing implement in his or her breast pocket.
What it means: Watch out, sister! This prof isn’t going to take any shenanigans. S/he is likely to be a hard grader, so start assembling your study group pronto with the cute dudes who sit near you.

What happens: The prof hands out the syllabus, reads it word for word, asks if everyone has the textbook, and dismisses you early.
What it means: Don’t be fooled by the early dismissal. This is a by-the-book prof who isn’t too keen on original ideas and probably doesn’t want to hear yours. Learn to read and regurgitate what’s in the textbook, and fast.

What happens: You all meet at the coffee shop and the prof buys everyone drinks and pastries.
What it means: Count your blessings. Your prof is either really nice or really insecure—better hope it’s the former.

What happens: You do an icebreaker activity with the other students in your class.
What it means: Your prof used to be a corporate motivational speaker. Polish off your phrases of cynicism, because you’ll probably need them for the kind of crap you’re going to hear in this class.

Ready for the big time? Start studying your profs’ mannerisms, fashion sense (or lack thereof), and office decor (yes, that does require you to attend office hours). It might be a pain, but it’s not a waste of time. When you supplement your in-class comments with similar body language or slip in that “Far Side” reference that reflects a cartoon your prof has outside his office door, you can start welcoming those A+’s with open arms!

Just a typical Tuesday in class.

While every college girl shares many of the same college experiences (selling books, sexiled, one shot too many), she also carves her own path and has her own unique adventure. Have you ever wondered what it’s like for other girls? What it’s like to be an engineer? To get married?! To play an NCAA sport? Well wonder no more. Our one-of-a-kind CollegeCandy writers (and readers!) are sharing their unique experiences and opening our eyes to different college worlds.

It’s late on a Friday and I’m enjoying a night out with my friends at the local Steak ‘n Shake. I’m just about to dig in to a nice, juicy burger when a sudden realization hits me. I have a paper due in exactly one hour, and if I miss the deadline I will fail my web design class. I rush home and spend the next hour furiously banging out the rest of my paper about famous designers. With ten minutes to go, I hit the submit button. Crisis averted—for now.

This is a typical day in my life as an online college student.

I started as an online student with just one class. With a history of barely passing my on-campus classes, I needed a change. I knew it would still take a lot of work, but taking a class in my pajamas sounded like too good an idea to pass up. The result? I squeaked by with an “A” and scored higher online than in any of my real classes. The next semester I took two more. After that, I was hooked. Last semester I started my life as a full-time online college student working toward a degree in web design.

Don’t let me mislead you into thinking online classes are easy. Sometimes they’re down right infuriating. You can only talk to your classmates and professors by email, and working on a group project is like trying to herd cats. You’ll put in just as much time and hard work into your assignments as you would in any other class, and you’ll still find yourself chugging energy drinks in the library and cramming for finals.

Online classes do come with some drawbacks. If you take them through a real, accredited college or university (and the University of Phoenix does not count) you have to follow some strict guidelines. You need to be a least a little computer savvy to save your work in different formats and ensure it gets submitted to the right place.

More importantly, though, most professors take the stance that if you miss a single assignment or project during the semester, you fail. Since you don’t have to physically go to class, they see no reason why your project should be late. During my last semester I had surgery. I spent an entire week cramming to get in two weeks worth of assignments so I could take a week off to recover.

On the plus side, I can work from anywhere. If I need to go out of town, I can pack up my laptop and go. I also have the freedom to attend virtual classes at any time. I boot up the computer late at night and sign in to start reading the assignment for that week. Then I head out to the library to get some work done.

It’s not your typical college experience, but it works for me. And I love it.

If you ever consider online classes, be it one or an entire degree, take them from a college you know and trust. Pick one with a physical campus that offers regular degrees. The University of Phoenix, DeVry University, and ITT Tech are all scams. Let me repeat that. Scams. Your classes will be a push over, your credits won’t transfer to any other college, and your degree will be worthless. They’re known as degree mills because you’re essentially paying them to award you a worthless degree. So if you decide online is for you, talk to your current college and see what they offer. Whether on-campus or online, you still have to work your butt off to get a college education.

[Story submitted by reader, Jessica R. Thanks, Jess! You got your own story? Tell us all about it and you could be featured on CollegeCandy.com!]

"Dear Prof: I'm totes writing you in my undies."

Texting and chatting online has surely affected the way we communicate. If a friend doesn’t respond to a text within 10 minutes of me sending it, I immediately assume he/she has gone Amish. What did people do when there were no cellphones or AOL chat? Communicating must have been exhausting. You mean you had to wait at home to receive a phone call from your boyfriend in hopes your father wouldn’t answer?

Beyond waiting for the phone call, texting and chatting online has surely affected what we say. The term OMG wasn’t created from sending letters through the Pony Express; it was most likely created in the depths of an AOL chat room BSBLuvr who found it exceedingly difficult to express her love for ‘Shape of My Heart’ over and over again. Since then, abbreviating words (AKA ‘chatspeak’) has made communication easier for all of us. But apparently some people can’t seem to understand when this language is approp (in a drunk text to a friend) and it’s inapprop (in an email to a professor).

Yeah, it may seem totes obvi to you, but it seems that many students are taking their AIM lingo to class and their professors aren’t LOLing. In fact, they’re getting pretty pissed. And who wouldn’t when students are starting their emails off with, “Yo, teach”? (For realz.)

OMG. WTF? Didn’t college learn you better than that?

It’s time for a chatspeak intervention, people. Below is a handy little guide to help you determine what is appropriate and inappropriate when it comes to professional correspondence. Professors, thank us later….with an A.

Inappropriate: Yo, teach
Appropriate: Dear Professor __________

Inappropriate: My comp. crashed and I lost my whole pape. FML.
Appropriate: Due to technological issues, I lost the entire rough draft of my essay. Would it be possible to get an extension?

Inappropriate: OMG my alarm didn’t go off this morning Can you fwd me the notes?
Appropriate: I was unable to make it to lecture this morning; is there any way I can get the class notes so I can catch up on what I missed?

Inappropriate: I will BRB from vaca nxt wk.
Appropriate: Although I understand the importance of attending lecture, I will be out of town next week with my family. I don’t want this obstacle to hinder me in this class and I was hoping you might be able to share the lecture slides with me in advance so I can stay on top of everything while I am away.

Inappropriate: Sup homie. Wut was the homework for 2day?
Appropriate: Good Evening. I was distracted at the end of class today and somehow missed the reading assignment for Wednesday. Can you please remind me what it is so I make sure not to fall behind?

Innappropriate: Where’s your office @?
Appropriate: I’d like to set up a time to speak with you during office hours. Please let me know where and when works best for you.

St. Patrick’s Day is a college student’s dream come true.  Well, I feel like any excuse to drink green beer and wear a “Kiss Me I’m Irish” pin is a dream come true.  I’m not Irish at all, and can respect St. Patrick’s Day and all it has to offer.  Especially since last year, I managed to sport a neon green wig in public all day long and closed the night out ordering hash browns at Perkins at 3AM.

The only issue I’m having is that St.Patty’s day lands on a Wednesday this year.  You know what that means: time to figure out how to party and go to class.  Ultimately, you can’t let a little thing called “your education/future” ruin your St. Patty’s Day experience, so I’m here to help you get it all. Because if I can do the Irish Jig with a leprechaun on top of a bar (true story) anything is possible, people.

Get Ahead on Thursday’s Reading
If you want to dedicate St. Patrick’s Day entirely to drinking green beer, you are going to want to get ahead on all your work for Thursday. Buckle down and do that reading on Monday or Tuesday, so you don’t have to think about anything come Kegs & Eggs at 6am on Wednesday.

Make Sure You Have Everything You Need
When you have to juggle class and fun, you’ve gotta be prepared, so pack that bag the night before! Things to include: a toothbrush so you can brush off all of the green beer stains on your teeth before class, a change of clothes (just in case you spill beer on your shirt before lecture), breath mints, a bottle of water to sip on during class, eye makeup remover, and mascara. Pack the correct books and notes for each class.  Oh, and make sure pack a list of local taxi numbers.  If I could dub a holiday dedicated to bar hopping, St. Patty’s Day would win the prize.  This way, you can do it safely.

Load Up on the Carbs in the morning
Kegs and eggs? Sounds great (cuz it rhymes), but you are going to need to fill up on a little more if you don’t wanna boot before noon. Load up on the carbohydrates to avoid a crash mid-afternoon, and pack a ton of Kashi bars for an afternoon protein/carb boost. (This is perfect if you’ve got a 2pm lecture you need to attend – use the time to refuel!) Oh, and if you can, drink some water in between alcoholic drinks. This will not only slow you down so you make it through till the late night parties, but it will keep you from looking like a hot, sloppy mess in class.

Set cell-phone alarms
Chances are, after the first five beers, the last thing on your mind will be hustling to class on time. And then, five hours into the St. Patty’s experience, you won’t even remember what time class starts.  So before you get the party started, set some alarms (loud ones) on your phone so you know when you gotta put down the car bomb and pick up the books. And if you need backup, find a sober friend now (you may have to look high and low) to keep tabs on you and make sure you get you where you need to be.

Schedule out your day in advance
This way, you can get the most partying time between classes (which is a number one St. Patty’s day concern).  Which bars do you want to go to?  Who can drive? Where are we meeting and when? Where will everyone be after I finish that 3-hour lecture? Figure these things out now so you don’t waste precious party time tracking people down come Wednesday.

Take a Five-Hour Energy
I’ve heard these things are the bomb.com and if there were ever a reason I’d need a little bottle of energy, juggling a day of drinking with 4 hours of classes is it.

Buy a Green Wig
If I have ever done anything correctly for St. Patty’s Day, it was buying a green wig.  I understand this may have nothing to do with surviving a long day of drinking, but I can guarantee if you are sifting through newly added Facebook pictures during lecture next week and a gem pops up with you sporting that green wig, you will be happy you got one.

Picture it: We pan over a full classroom, a man with a slightly too-tight plaid shirt and vile comb over is lecturing with the same tone and volume of a dull beeeeeeeep.  If we watch the students, we see several completely passed out while others furiously scribble notes, attempting to keep up with information that may or may not be on any exams this teacher gives. The old guy up front is so dull he makes Ferris Bueller’s teacher look like Lady Gaga, but what can you do?  The class is required and this guy is the only one who teaches it, whether the students like him or not.

But what if you, the student, got a say in that? It’s happening at Stanford, where students get to give their teachers a grade for a change. The university is using student evaluations to determine things like professor salaries and tenure.

And it’s about frakkin time! Teachers evaluate us every single day (or at least during midterms and finals) to determine our abilities – it only makes sense to let us do the same. After all, unlike the department heads, we are the ones that know them best. We’re interacting with them when we show up to class on a daily basis, sleeping through their deathly boring lectures, sitting in the libraries cursing them for their vile exams on things that we had NO IDEA would be on that test, writing papers that we know they’ll tear apart.

When it comes time for the administration to evaluate a professor, then, it’s obvious that they should come to us, the source, for the lowdown.

And allowing students to voice their opinions does more than just allow for a fairer pay scale; by giving students the right to evaluate their professors it forces teachers to change up their game to provide a better education. I mean, that’s what we’re here for, right? Why should we have to adapt to the weird professor who lectures about conspiracy theories for over an hour (in a science class) in a monotone that has the same effect as Tylenol PM just because he happens to be the only one teaching that required course? If students are able to speak up about that guy, maybe he’ll have to do something different (like keep us awake?) to stick around.

This is college; we’re supposed to be learning, not merely surviving.

Stanford is on the right track with this evaluation business and I just hope more schools will follow suit. Give the students a say in their own (crazily expensive) education?  What a novel idea.

With the start of a new quarter comes the excitement of new classes and a new schedule. And new TAs. While my friends are frantically researching classes that both fill their requirements and leave Friday open, I’m zoning out at my desk dreaming (and praying) about a tall, handsome, smart, romantic, witty discussion leader.

One that I’ve never, ever had the pleasure of having.
I have, however, encountered a creepy TA that just would not go away, which seems to be more the norm than the exception. Here is my story:

I was a cute and innocent little freshman when this all went down. The grad student, let’s call him Jeff, was TA-ing for one of my history classes winter quarter. I’m a history major and have a natural love of history and hearing my own voice, so I was basically the ONLY person that ever said anything in section. But I always felt creeped out when Jeff looked at me. Especially those few times I wasn’t saying anything at all. I could see in his face that he wasn’t looking at me as the brilliant history mind that I (thought I) was; it was obvious he was thinking things a little – ew – naughtier. Being young and naive, I brushed it off and pulled an A in the class. Probably much easier than I should have.

The very next quarter – lucky me! – he was my section leader again. Awesome. The quarter went by pretty much the same as the one before it. And again, I pulled a very easy A.

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!! EWWWWWWW!!”

That’s me screaming in shock and horror as I opened a Facebook email from Jeff the next fall. Yes, 3 months later. He had friend requested me and I couldn’t really say no – I mean, what if I needed a letter of recommendation in the future!? The email was short. A little hello, a little “how’s school?” and a lot of “let’s get a cup of coffee and catch up soon.” I played it off well; “I’m too busy, blah blah blah, random niceties…” I clicked send and hoped that was the end of it; I was very clearly giving this guy the brush off.

But then I would see him at the rec center (la la la, Britney on the iPod, la la la, OH SH*T, hide hide hide!!), biking on campus (riding, riding, ahhh!, swerve, look busy, don’t attract attention to yourself!), while walking into class (dive belly-down into row of seats), and pretty much everywhere in between. I did a pretty good job of dodging him – he never approached or reached out again.

Or so I thought.

Earlier this quarter Jeff emailed me again. Rather than respond nicely, I finally just blocked that creeper. Of course, the next day, as I’m trying to get in and out of the history office super fast to avoid any potential run-in, I leap into the elevator and who follows me in? JEFF!

I was stuck. I smiled at him because I thought he knew exactly who I was and it was inevitable that I was going to have to make small talk with him. But no. He said hello to me, entered the elevator, and began chatting with another woman (presumably another TA). Did he know exactly who I was? Did my new haircut and 7lb weight gain throw him off? Whatever it was, I held my breath that whole elevator ride and then RAN out of it when it got to my floor.

That was the last time I saw Jeff. For now, at least. Who knows when that creeper will show up outside my window with a boom box over his head? Luckily the whole thing is over, but the entire situation just sort of creeped me out. There’s not much for me to do in a situation like this. I guess I could complain to the department head, but Jeff didn’t technically do anything wrong. The guy was just creepy. At the same time, though, the whole TA/student relationship is a weird one. We’re not that far apart in age, meaning that it would be totally acceptable for someone like Jeff to pursue someone like me in any other situation. And equally acceptable for me to give him a very stern “Leave me alone, dude!” when I wasn’t interested. But the fact that Jeff controlled my GPA (and my future) left me without much control and got this whole thing started in the first place.

So much for my hot TA fantasy.
Maybe next semester?

So, has anyone else been put in this oh-so-awkward position?
Any happy endings to TA stories?

Brrrr.

Your alarm goes off and before you even get out of bed, the winter chill hits you. It’s gonna be a cold day, which is great since you have 4 classes and a meeting. You pull back the covers and jump out of bed. Holy hell it’s cold. You curse your state. You curse your old house and it’s terrible heater. You curse your stupid choice to pick a school not in the Caribbean. You run to the bathroom and wash your face with too-hot water. Yeah, it may dry out your skin, but right now it feels good.

You run back to your room to get dressed, jumping around a little in front of your closet to warm up. Then you start pulling out the layers. Jeans aren’t warm enough on their own, so you slip on a pair of leggings and pull the jeans on over them. Then you put on a tank, a long sleeve shirt and a sweatshirt.

Somehow, you still feel cold.

You rifle through your sock drawer looking for the warmest pair of socks you’ve got. It isn’t until you sit down to put them on – and all that hard work from bending in those 12 layers leaves you sweaty – that you begin to warm up.

You pack your bag, pile on your boots, jacket, scarf, hat and gloves. Then you brace yourself for the cold winter winds.

Despite the fact that you walk to class with your face down, the wind whips you. Hard. About halfway through your trek the tips of your fingers start to go numb. Then your ears start to burn. Your eyes water. And no matter how many times to sniffle, whatever is in your nose just keeps migrating south towards your upper lip. You wipe it off, a string of snot now adorning your mitten.

Finally, when you’re about three seconds away from becoming a human icicle – you arrive to class. Before settling in for lecture you scurry to the bathroom to fix yourself/thaw out a bit. You search for the paper towel dispenser to blow your nose. Yeah, it’s like blowing your nose into a piece of notebook paper, but the snotsicles need to go. Of course, this bathroom only has hand dryers. You sneak into a stall and grab some (single-ply) toilet paper. You don’t think anything of it until you realize everything you just blew out of your nose is now covering your numb hands. You look around to make sure no one saw that, then toss out the toilet paper and run your hands under warm water.

It feels so good.

You keep your hands under the dryer for a few minutes longer than necessary, take one last look in the mirror to make sure those fleece-hat-caused-fly-aways have been tamed and head to class. You take off your jacket and pile it and everything elso onto the seat next to you. Then you reach down to grab your notebook from your bag and discover that your pants are wet up to the knees. And, now that you think about it, your socks feel soaked too. (Thanks, Uggs.)

You spend the entirety of class wiggling your toes to keep them from falling off, yet somehow sweating at the same time. You try to concentrate on what’s happening on the Power Point up front, but all you can think about is stripping off some of those layers. But you can’t – you can already feel the giant pit stains that have formed under that sweatshirt. So you deal. And you sweat. And you move your feet around to make sure they are still attached.

And then when class is over, you pile on the layers once again and head out into the cold, winter day and start the cycle all over again.

We’ve all been there.
And we have the snot-covered gloves to prove it.