If I could go to a Bat Mitzvah every weekend for the rest of my life, I would. Those were the glory days. Personalized everything, sundae bars, extremely awful DJs, and everyone in their pubescent splendor.

You remember: it’s 7th grade. You have braces. Low by Lil John is playing and you’re doing your best imitation of Beyonce in the Crazy In Love music video. You’re most likely wearing a fold over skirt and Tiffany’s bracelet (imitation or real). Suddenly Low finishes and Heaven by DJ Sammy, Candlelight Mix, comes on. Everyone’s pairing off to awkwardly sway with one another, about three feet apart. But suddenly you notice there’s no line for the photo booth and it’s either now or never. This dilemma was a weekly thing in middle school.

Let us now reflect the best part of the mitzvahs, the favors.

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Ah, middle school dances. Remember those? Middle school was a time filled with girls who like boys but are taller than them and boys who like girls but are suffering through that awkward I might-be-going-through-puberty-soon stage. A time for “do you like me? check yes or no” notes, relentless bullying as a sign of flirtation, and teachers who are more in tuned with the adolescent gossip than the actual students are. So when you bring all of these elements together for a school dance: the awkward meter skyrockets! As we take a trip down memory lane, let us remember those crucial ingredients needed to concoct the perfect middle school dance.

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And to make things worse, middle school kids are mean. Like, really mean. Name-calling is like eating for middle schoolers–they do it compulsively. Last time I visited my middle school (don’t ask me why I ever went back to that awful place), the halls were plastered with signs telling kids to stop being so mean to each other. Waste of money, obviously. At least they tried.

It will probably never stop, that’s just the middle school MO. But if you thought you were the only one out there getting called chicken legs on the regular, you are oh so wrong. Even celebs got teased when they were kids. Oh you thought they were perfect? Well they are, of course. But they had to be 13 sometime.

Check out these nicknames celebs were teased with when they were younger.

Got something awesome everyone needs to know about? A really great local band? An awesome website? A product that truly changed your life? A great beauty product?! Email your “The Know” ideas to Jill@collegecandy.com or tweet me and I’ll pass them along to everyone right here, every week. Make your kindergarten teacher proud and share!

You know that odd period of time Friday night when you’re done with class, too tired to workout but not quite ready to go out and nothing, I mean NOTHING is on TV? Unless you want to watch the same episode of Say Yes to the Dress for, like, the 12th time all the while thinking (just like you did the first time you saw this very episode), “Why am I watching this crap? There goes an hour and a little bit of dignity that I will never get back.”

Well, guess what? That’s all about to change. There’s a new reality show in town, peeps, and this time it’s actually good. I’m not talking so-bad-it’s-oh-so-good like Jersey Shore and all it’s fist pumping glory (as thankful as I am that I’ve learned how to beat the beat); I’m talking eye-opening, thought provoking, I-can’t-believe-this-is-the-country-we-live-in good, and it’s starting this Friday.

Executive produced by none other than the always perfectly coiffed Ryan Seacrest (seriously does the man EVER sleep?), Jamie Oliver’s Food Revolution is a show we all need to watch. Taking place in Huntington, West Virginia – ranked as the fattest city in our nation – Famous chef, Jamie Oliver settles in and spends months trying to change the way America’s children are fed in school.

OK, so it doesn’t sound all that exciting, but stay with me.

After seeing the sneak preview on Sunday, I was enraged at the CRAP we are feeding kids (think pizza and chocolate milk at 7am), the red tape around trying to change the system and how FAT they are. I’m talking about fat as in the fat kid you refer to when you make the joke “like a fat kid loves cake,” except this time it’s like 12 cakes, a giant scoop of ice-cream and a corndog. (Yes, apparently, people eat those!) And they’re being taught to eat like this.

By their schools.
Yup.

Don’t think a show about elementary school lunches affects you? Think again. Have you looked inside your college dorm’s caf lately? I’m pretty sure the only “healthy” thing in that place is the fro-yo machine. And, btdubs, I’m pretty sure the health quotient goes out the window when it’s 1/4 yogurt and 3/4 Oreos and sprinkles (i.e. the freshman year diet of a certain someone who happens to be writing this article). The truth is, while Jamie Oliver is uncovering the unhealthy foods in our middle schools, the problem is everywhere, and we all have to be on board if we want to see changes.

If anything, it’s worth watching to see Jamie’s passion for the project – it’s incredibly inspiring. And by that I mean it’s worth watching because who knew a man telling people they are large and in charge could be so damn sexy? That man can cook me up some steamed veggies any time.

Either way, ‘Food Revolution’ is one show to be in The Know about. Quality.

Bonus points: If you’re trying to curb your late night eating habit this show couldn’t air at a better time! Friday right before you hit the bars – it’s like having your mom standing over you watching you eat pizza and french fries at 2am chanting, “First stop- your thighs!”

The official two hour series premiere event is this Friday at 8/7c on ABC, with episode two airing at 9/8c.

Yes, you read that right – 12-year-old boys. Buying condoms. And, gross, having sex.

In an effort to keep those little boys safe, Switzerland, the geniuses that they are, have introduced a smaller condom called the HotShot.  OF COURSE! Why discourage 6th graders from getting it on when you can just make a smaller condom?  Little kids should obviously use condoms, that’s just responsible…much like having sex when you’re 12.

And as long as the Swiss are creating things for our younger friends (or the kids that we babysit for…), I wouldn’t be surprised if they took it one step further. Perhaps it’s time to start making smaller cigarettes to fit in those little hands, Hello Kitty vibrators, Spongebob Squarepants flasks (for those long days on the playground), or even a Hannah Montana bong (“The climb totally speaks to me. ZOMG, why are my light up sneakers so BIG?!”).

Or maybe the swiss should stick to what they know (watches, pocket knives) and let kids be kids. My god – I know they’re growing up fast, but this is just too much.

"When a man loves a woman...."

I vividly remember the times when Salt-N-Pepa’s “Let’s Talk about Sex” would come on the radio while I was being chauffeured around by my mother. I would plead to the heavens above that she would not take this opportunity to actually talk about sex with me. I dreaded the conversation that I knew was coming.

I thought Chrissy’s mom in Now and Then explained it perfectly when she said: “All women have a garden, and a garden needs a big hose to water it…or a small hose… as long as it works.” That was all I needed to hear on the topic of coitus. Plus, I would probably vomit if I ever heard the phrase “blow job” leave my mother’s lips.  And fortunately for me, I never had to.

Whether she figured the sex ship had already left my harbor, or she truly and sincerely believed that I was, and am, still as pure as they day she birthed me, my mother has successfully avoided the topic of sex with me for the past 22 years. And that’s too bad, because a new study is preaching a much earlier age to have The Talk.

According to Dr. Mark Schuster’s study, far too often parents wait too long to address the topic with their children to point where the conversation falls of deaf and already de-virginized ears. So he advises parents to explain the birds and bees (and wrapping those birds and bees in latex) to their kids at the middle school age at the latest, before they even start thinking about sex.

Yes. The Talk. At 13. Holy hell.

I understand the importance of The Talk, and I understand that girls and boys are giving it up much earlier these days (thank you, Britney), but I just can’t even imagine having my parents sit me down with a banana and a condom on my way out to a friend’s bat mitzvah to explain how safe sex works. Hell,  to this very day I still cringe when a sex scene comes on T.V. when I’m watching with my parents. It’s just uncomfortable and makes me think they might take that moment to bust out the anatomically correct male model and explain his reproductive parts to me. And at the ripe age of 22, I’m still not sure I’m ready for it.

Did you get The Talk? How old were you?

Well, this kid's screwed.

Sixth grade was a rough year for me. I was sitting at the semi-popular table at lunch and was delusional enough to think I was the cat’s pajamas. Looking back, I simply was not. Maybe because I used phrases like “the cat’s pajamas.”  And now, a Swedish study is telling me that my unpopularity will cause me to suffer from heart disease and diabetes later in life and I will most likely start doing drugs and try to kill myself.

If I had known this when I was 13, I would have combed my hair on a more regular basis.

The study, which is most definitely making me want to eat enough candy to put me in a diabetic coma/do drugs/crawl into my bed and cry, was done by Stockholm University and the Karolinska Institute and assessed children in sixth grade for their degree of “popularity, power and social status.”

Now, I have to ask: What kind of power were they expecting from a 13-year-old child? His ability to convince a girl in his class to go 7 Minutes in Heaven with him?

Popularity is such a trivial theory. And no, I’m not just saying this because I’m bitter that I’m at greater risk for alcohol dependency than others. Popularity in middle school ran parallel to who had the best desserts in his or her Power Rangers/My Little Pony lunchbox. By eighth grade, you were considered a cool girl if you had boobs and a cool guy if you were allowed to touch them. If you made it to second base, you were destined to be popular in high school. And if you went to an all-girls high school like I did, well no one was popular in that case.

I got to college and finally came to terms with my own social status, wherever I happened to fall on the social food chain. But now I’m learning that I can never truly leave my unpopularity in the past, as it will have a long-term impact on my identity, behavior and ambitions.

Currently, I feel pretty good about myself. No sign of diabetes and no one has had to talk me off the ledge just yet, but who knows. Perhaps the time I split my pants during a talent show performance and my entire middle school laughed me off the stage will be the cause of my ultimate demise 20 years from now.

But a recent article now has me thinking that these girls are a whole new generation of slut, wearing their sexual history on their sleeves.

The gist of the article is that a middle school in Colorado has banned rubber bracelets because they believe the students are participating in “snap games.” No, that’s not some sort of game where you pull back the rubber bracelet and snap your friend’s wrist to make her scream bloody murder. It’s actually when students wear different bracelets to represent their participation in certain sexual acts.

Pause.
WHAT!?

I always thought these bracelets were sorta ugly, but knowing they actually represent BJs on the bus and getting down and dirty with a boy at a bar mitzvah makes me feel all kinds of gross and old. Back in my day we wore the rubber bracelets to support a meaningful cause. We had ones in remembrance of 9/11 and we had pink bracelets with the cancer ribbon to support loved ones battling the disease. We didn’t walk around with an arm full of “Suck the Penis” bracelets pledging our allegiance to the adolescent sex cause.

But what’s worse than actually taking part in this fad is the fact that administrators think banning the things is going to put the kabosh on recess romps. I’m positive that most of these girls are just wearing the stupid bracelets so that they don’t get ousted by Slutty Stacey at the next lunch table meeting. And the ones who actually are participating in this game can just text their new boyfriend their sexual resume instead of displaying it publicly on their arm.

Seriously, can we get these kids some damn sex education, please? Maybe focusing our efforts on teaching girls how to use a rubber instead of banning rubber (bracelets) would be more productive…

(Also productive: starting this fad on a college campus. If those college boys joined in it might save us all a lot of time weeding out the manwhores….)

You'll regret those fashion decisions one day, kids. Trust.

Now that we are all college students our life is full of stress – classes, jobs, and, oh yeah, that little task of figuring out what to do with the rest of our lives. I’m sure that on more than one occasion we have all stopped and wished we could go back to our carefree childhood years for at least a day:

Coming home from school to a Swiss Cake Roll waiting for you and eating it layer by layer while watching episodes of Sister Sister and The Secret World of Alex Mack. Then chatting on AIM for hours on end to all of our “homies” about the “phat!” shoes we wore that day.

Ah, that was the life.

But as wonderful as it was, there is one aspect of my childhood that I pray never comes back to haunt me: my wardrobe.

I blame my shopping addiction and poor fashion choices on my mother. From a very young age she had me convinced that a new dress was needed for every new event that popped up on the schedule. That being said, when there was a new trend on the market, I was one of the first ones to have it. Then? Cool. Now? The reason for many an embarrassing photo (which I very purposely left at home when I moved to campus). Looking back on the trends of our middle school days, I am left sitting on my floor surrounded by piles of reputation-killing photos wondering what the eff we were thinking back then…

The Scrunchy

I know every single one of you had a scrunchy. The larger than life hair-tie that could have held up a horse’s mane was definitely unnecessary for the sliver of a ponytail that covered a nine-year-old’s head. You had to have one in every color to match every outfit, and I even remember wearing them on my wrist, like they even had a chance in hell as working as a bracelet.

Overalls

I’m not sure if “milkmaid” was an actual trend or style featured in fashion magazines in the early 90′s, but it was in my world. I wore overalls every other day, and when feeling particularly adventurous let one strap hang down as if “not having time to finish dressing” made me instantly cooler. And when my beloved ‘ralls developed a hole in the knee, I thought it was awesome that my mom let me pick out a patch at the fabric store and sew it overtop.

She also did this to my…

Bell Bottoms (with platforms, of course)

Yes, the jeans that I could have climbed into through one leg. But they looked great, especially when balanced out by my footwear, which always gave me a good three inches of height (and 6 inches of width). My clunky shoe of choice was a Skechers platform sneaker. I also had a pair of chunky Mary Janes, which were always worn with a…

Skort

And this is where things get a little fuzzy. Would I ever in a million years where a skort again? No chance in hell. But I can see the practicality. Young girls (and Hollywood starlets, apparently) aren’t always totally aware of leg position and skorts made it much easier to sit Indian-style during class (or a rousing game of duck, duck, goose on the playground), instead of doing the awkward connect-knees-and-fall-to-the-floor deal. But that combo was the fashion equivalent to the mullet – it just doesn’t work.

Poncho

I rocked the knit poncho like it was my after-school job. Because you never know if you’re going to get caught in a blizzard and need 13 pounds of fabric draped around your body to keep from freezing to death. Not that a poncho would protect your armpits or hands if such a situation arose…between the school bus and the classroom. But the fringed edges were so cute and the poncho was so chic! Especially in pictures, where it looks like I skinned some road kill and wrapped it around my shoulders.

The Tech Vest

OMG, the Old Navy Tech Vest. After seeing the commercials for them every day after school and dreaming of when I could feel the itchy, felt around my own neck, I begged my parents to get me one. Everyone else was rocking them in gym class and I felt so left out. All those pockets. All that warmth. Sigh. When I finally got one for Christmas, I was ecstatic…and so was my little brother who got the exact same one.

Wearing the Old Navy Tech Vest? Fail.
Matching your brother (color and all) in the yearly family photo? Double fail.

I know I’m not the only one who regrets over 80% of my middle school attire.
What pieces of your childhood wardrobes have you asking yourself “WTF was I thinking?!”

Even if we’ve blocked out selective memories of our childhood (the dentist…I shudder at the thought), we all remember elementary school recess. Now that I’m through with my public school education, I’ve been taking the time to reminisce about my favorite memories from those days. Man, did I love that half hour of pegging younger kids in the head with kickballs (which they totally deserved, by the way, just for being there).

At the risk of sounding like a creeper with a window-less van parked 100 yards from a playground, here are some of my favorite games from recess that I wish were appropriate for eighteen year-olds to play. Note: I like the games…not the kids.

Name of the Game: Indian Pin (a slight variation on dodgeball)
Why it Rocked: Since regular dodgeball was banned in my school, we had to be a bit more creative with our recess games. Indian Pin was a favorite variation on dodgeball that we adapted from our gym class. The official object of the game was to knock down the opposing team’s pin, but since we had a bunch of kickballs and an unlimited capacity for evil, we would forget about the pins and just give the other team hell. Back in my tomboy days, I would pick off the other team’s members one by one. I guess I had more balls than many of the boys in my class.

Name of the Game: Four Square
Why it Rocked: Being king in a game of four square made you an automatic recess rock star. The ball was literally in your court. As there are an infinite number of possible rules for the game, from the fair and just to the downright cruel (two words: cherry bombs), the power of the king is extremely enticing. I was always partial to the “old school” set of rules – volleys, single-taps, and double-taps – since they allowed games to go on for a long time. Benevolent despotism was my style, but other rulers were not as kind. The Lemon Drop Massacre of ’01 is proof of that. And I still have nightmares.

Name of the Game: Pick-up Soccer
Why it Rocked: Although soccer isn’t known as a recess sport, it was one of the ultimate competitive games that we played in elementary school. We played in tournament style, with multiple teams all pitted against one another. The last team standing won a great deal of glory, but at a high cost: since we didn’t have referees, we could play as dirty as we wanted to with no penalty at all. The “supervising” teachers were totally clueless as to why several kids returned to class with huge grass stains on their butts and hideous scrapes on their knees. But those cuts and bruises were like badges of honor to all the soccer kids, even if we cried a little when we got them.

Name of the Game: Wall Ball
Why it Rocked: One of the privileges that came with being the top dogs of the school (i.e. fifth graders) was access to the coveted wall ball court. Dozens of kids played at a time, taking the simple tennis ball game to the extreme. Wall ball was the pinnacle of elementary school recess for us. It was the most fast-paced, most competitive, and sweatiest of all the recess games. You had to constantly be on your toes, or else you wouldn’t catch the ball making a bee-line for your head at light speed. Or at least that’s what the injured kids would cry when the ball knocked the wind out of them. A merciless game, that wall ball. To think a little tennis ball could cause so much hurt!

What were some of the games that rocked your school playground?