Not gonna lie, I could literally write an entire book of how I think everything Sofia Coppola does is the coolest shizz ever.

No big deal, she was only the director of some of my favorite movies, like The Virgin Suicides and Marie Antoinette. She’s just the daughter of Francis Ford Coppola, the director of The Godfather, besides being related to some of the coolest people in Hollywood (like Jason Schwartzman, heyo!).

Besides those minor details, she quietly pursues another interest (that she is, unsurprisingly, awesome at) and that is fashion.  She created her own fashion line called Milkfed, unfortunately for me, sold only in Japan. She and Marc Jacobs are pretty much best friendz forever, considering she is also his muse for his ENTIRE BRAND.  Also, the woman interned at Chanel when she was 15-years-old for Christ’s sake.  Wanna know what I was doing when I was 15?  Taking MySpace mirror pictures in my bathroom wearing a “sweet new top*~!”  Therefore, Sofia: 1 million, Cristina: 0.

The things she creates and inspires are godly to me, including her style.  The confusing yet awesome part of Sofia’s style is that she sticks many times to classic feminine pieces but has still been known to have a sort-of androgynous style as well.  Sofia will rock anything from jeans and a t-shirt to a Marc Jacobs original and make it all look like it was made for her specifically.  She has been quoted as not liking anything too loud and flashy, but sticks to a style that represents her calm disposition.  Plus she made it socially acceptable to wear flats to red-carpet events.  Yep, she definitely knows how to get the ball rollin’.

So, yeah, who wouldn’t want to take a little inspiration from this fashion icon? And here’s how we can all channel Sofia through our own wardrobes.

Bag, Skirt, Shoes, Shirt, Sunglasses

Sofia is all about the classics and it doesn’t get more classic than a crisp white shirt. Add a little girly flair by tucking it in to the polka dot skirt and mix things up a little with the masculine styling on these ballet flats. It’s a combo that totally works and just oozes Sofia’s personal style.

The wayfarer sunglasses add a hint of laid-back cool that is so very Sofia, and the overly structured (and somewhat masculine) bag is just another way to make this look a little androgynous and a lot more interesting. It also happens to be a similar style to the bag that she helped Louis Vuitton create in honor of her personal style, for about an eighth of the price.

Yes, LV made a bag just for her.

Stop being cooler than me, Sofia.

The fear of my impending final failure sent me scurrying to the library for some quality study time and I have yet to leave (I’m considering having my mail addressed here). Sixteen hours straight in the library and you’re bound to start feeling loopy. In the search for something to concentrate on other than the chi-squared test, you also might start noticing some weird things going on…

Because people are so consumed with work and are therefore also residing in the library, they’ve moved their entire lives into their tiny study space: private phone calls, private conversations, eating habits that should be private (anchovies on top of pizza—blech). I’ve witnessed relationship mini-dramas in the stacks, stumbled across a couple taking a creative study break, and some surreptitious flask sippage. Alchol and sleep deprivation combined with a certain amount of desperation will lead to some interesting things, such as the three recent events that I consider evidence of what too much studying does to the college student’s brain.

1. The Naked Donut Run

This is a tradition at my school that was started a few years back by some very enterprising students. Also very brave ones. Every semester we have a reading week in which to prepare for the upcoming hell of finals. Every semester we have a group of students buy several dozen treats from the nearby Dunkin’ Donuts and hand them out to us poor harried creatures that once resembled students in the libraries. The twist? They do it in the nude. And considering most people are sitting at desks while studying, that puts you at a very interesting eye level.

2. The Absolute Quiet Riot

The Absolute Quiet Riot, a beloved tradition of three years, is the best study break I can imagine. It takes place in our Absolute Quiet Room, a completely silent space I’m sure everyone has at their school. At a prearranged time, a significant number (oh no, I’m thinking in stats terms!) of the students working in that room get up from their books and climb on to the tables and boogie. I’ve seen the swim, the lawnmower, and a variety of moves that should not be done without adult supervision, all in complete silence. It is the Absolute Quiet Room, after all.

3. The Band Playing Christmas Carols

I’m sure many people enjoy listening to music while working. I myself am a fan of having a TV show such as Sex and the City on in the background. This is somewhat detrimental to the work itself, but it does give me useful ideas on what shoes I will treat myself to when (if) I survive finals. However, I feel that noise of that calibre should be enjoyed through headphones. Last week I discovered that the Brown Band does not feel the same way. They marched on down to the basement of our Sciences Library and proceeded to play a rousing rendition of Jingle Bells, which was then followed by other carols. My ears are still ringing and I can’t use my calculator without thinking of Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer.

These are some of the strangest things I have ever seen in a library, aside from our challenge (drink a shot on each of the 14 floors), but I’m sure you all might have seen something even weirder than naked people proffering sweets.

So, let’s hear it! What’s the weirdest thing you’ve witnessed during a late night at the library?

[photo source: http://agitprop.typepad.com/]

Of course I would spend every high school moment from that morning bell—which seemed to ring earlier and earlier as my senior year wore on—to the final bell with my friends by my side. I was part of a bunch of different groups, all of which met after or before school and surrounded me with people. But at home, I had solitude.

With both my parents working and my brother off at college, I spent many nights doing homework, watching bad television and heating up leftovers all by myself. Some may think that would be lonely, but I really liked the peace and quiet.

It’s never quiet here. And sometimes I like it; with all the commotion, I haven’t had time to get homesick or have a culture shock freak out. There’s a feeling of community when I walk around campus and see someone I know or when I strike up a conversation with a stranger in the dining hall. Yet every once in awhile I realize… I never have a moment to myself.

I don’t sing anymore. No, I wasn’t a good singer, but I used to belt out lyrics while driving to school or doing some late-night studying with the radio on, my iPod providing a soundtrack for every occasion. Now, even when I’m sitting alone in my dorm room, I know anyone can walk by and hear me. When I’m walking alone around campus I know there is probably a person around the corner. And when I study in the library, I have to stop every three minutes to talk to a person who saw me and wanted to say hello.

In some ways I love that there are people always wanting to say hello. I’ve never been so friendly to so many people before, and I think some of them will actually become life-long friends, not just Orientation-buddies. But I also love the sound of silence, and there is precious little of that in college. Someone is always chatting loudly on her phone or blasting bad rap music from her car or playing the piano in the common room. Endless chatter, the bass of a car stereo and the notes of a musical instrument: this is my new soundtrack.

And soon I will learn to sing along with it, but for now I will start with just a tap of a foot, and maybe a hello in the library.

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While biking up an extraordinarily large and difficult hill in Spin class this morning (made even more difficult by the night of binge drinking that preceded it), I was startled out of my zone by a rather raucous shout of, “COME ON, BABY!” I wasn’t sure who was screaming, or who baby was, but I didn’t care; I lost my groove. I started feeling the pain in my legs, the burning in my quads, and my whole ride was off. But I kept going. And so did she.

“WOO”“LET’S DO THIS!”“PEDAL. DO IT DO IT DO IT.” It was quite clear that this loud and rather burly woman was screaming at herself – pushing herself – but, why? Was there something wrong with internal dialogue?? With all the adrenaline pumping through my body, I wanted to pull a Christopher Carter and knock that bitch off her bike.

The thing is, there are rules, damn it. Sure, they may not be written down in some giant book of Health Club Etiquette, but they are there and everyone should follow them. The New York Times recently asked people at gyms around NYC about their thoughts on the topic. Many of the responses mimic my own. And I am going to list them here. Not because I want to bitch (even though it is something I really am very good at), but because I know how much these things piss me off and I want to protect you, the CollegeCandy reader, from getting into a Cardio Throw Down.

1. Loud Noises: Working out is a personal quest to enhance one’s health and body. No one else in the surrounding area really needs to hear how hard you are working, man. Do not grunt, do not talk to yourself and, for the love of God, do not sing aloud to the Rocky Theme blasting from your iPod.
2. Saving Machines: So, you want to get on the last available elliptical… after you flirt with the cute trainer and do a lap around the gym in your hot new Lululemons. Why not just toss a towel on there and hold it for later? It is not like anyone else is coming to the gym to work out on that machine; they will just wait for you to finish your business.
3. Cell Phones: Not only is chatting on the phone proof that you aren’t working hard enough, but I do not need to know how big of a bitch your friend is because she made out with that guy that you liked 3 years ago.
4. The Wipe Down: I find nothing more vomit-inducing than watching someone run 7 miles on the treadmill, get totally drippy-sweaty and simply walk away from the machine without cleaning it. Gag.
5. Spot Savers: I get it. You, like me, prefer to workout in the back corner of Boot Camp in hopes that the instructor won’t see you taking cigarette breaks when things get rough. And maybe that has been your spot for the past 6 months, but I am there now, so stop giving me the mean looks and find another spot.

Stay in line as you hit the gym to get ready for the beach, ladies; you never know when someone is gonna snap and send you flying off your treadmill.

Photo courtesy of Broadmoor.com

This sentence isn’t offensive on it’s own, but couple it with an hour’s worth of similar utterances, and you’ve got one of the most annoying situations in life: The Girl Who Won’t Stop Talking About Her Boyfriend.

I was recently in the presence of such a girl, and found myself silently contemplating all the ways in which I could force her mouth shut permanently.

Trying to do work around one of these female specimens is impossible. You just can’t do it. No matter how interested you try to make yourself look in whatever work is in front of you, Girl Who Won’t Stop Talking About Her Boyfriend will continually engage you in superficial drivel.

The shallow conversation she tries to engage you in will always be one-sided, however. Even though she’ll ask you questions that will keep you away from you work, she’ll routinely answer those questions herself, not having even a second to wait while you search your head for something remotely friendly to say.

Girl Who Won’t Stop Talking About Her Boyfriend usually picks single people to torture. It’s a subconscious, animal-like sense that she has about her—she can smell singleness like a shark smells bloody fish heads.

I’m not sure she does this for vicious reasons. Quite possibly she thinks you want to hear about her hours of making out under the setting sun in a horse drawn carriage. You want to hear about it, she reasons, because you don’t have it. By detailing her unbridled happiness, she’ll let you live vicariously through her.

See? She’s actually doing you a favor.

If you’re a direct person who doesn’t mind stomping on the joy of others, telling Girl Who Won’t Stop Talking About Her Boyfriend to shut the fuck up is the most direct way to stop her waterfall of words from drowning you. If, however, you find yourself a more tactful person, there’s only one real way to escape her never-ending supply of “he’s just so cute, isn’t he?”

Run.

I mean it. Run away. You’ll never be able to get her to be quiet, she’s too blind with love to catch subtleties, and screaming at her will make you look like cynical bitch. Girl Who Won’t Stop Talking About Her Boyfriend will never voluntarily stop talking, so your best bet is to smile and run. Far, far away.

…Just make sure to find a good hiding spot.