Just get creative (and a permit from public safety)!

Here are a few ideas on how to have some extraordinary (in a good way) fun on Friday and Saturday night, based on things my friends and I have done or aspire to do at some point this year. Although it’s always nice to have a plan in mind, I’ve found that the most spontaneous things end up being the most enjoyable, so don’t be afraid to just go with the flow when the sun goes down!

Screen a musical outside and have a massive sing-along

A couple of weeks ago, a program house on campus screened Dr. Horrible’s Sing-Along Blog and the musical episode of Buffy on the porch. If you’re a techie (or have friends who are), you can gather up all the theater geeks and have your own musical screening on the side of your dorm! Just be sure you have the necessary permits to do so.

Set up a bowling lane on your hall

This one’s really easy. All you need are assorted shampoo bottles/hairspray canisters and something that rolls, and there you have it – a bowling alley! If you want to raise the stakes, have a tournament for prizes, or simply for bragging rights. Not that knocking down a few bottles of shampoo with a grapefruit is that impressive, but it’s still something, I guess.

Have an old-school slumber party

Remember those elementary school pastimes of making prank calls to guys and stuffing your face with candy at a friend’s sleepover? Since college is technically one giant sleep-over, why not have a night of nostalgia and junk food (minus the confining sleeping bag/pretending to be snoring when someone’s mom comes down to check on you)? Play “Never Have I Ever” and “Truth or Dare,” and if you’re really bold, play a prank on your next-door neighbor. It’ll be even easier if they’re falling-over-themselves drunk, so you’ll get twice the hilarity out of less effort!

BAKE!

Even if you’re really bad at baking (like me), take advantage of the empty common kitchen and bake some cookies, or brownies, or both! The ends will definitely justify the means, no matter how frustrating the actual process is. Plus, who can resist sampling (read: wolfing down) fresh cookie dough? It certainly can’t be worse for your health than what’s cooking at the dining hall.

Host a marathon of a TV show

Yes, I know, watching DVDs gets old after a while. But when you’re trying to squeeze an entire season into an evening, things get interesting very quickly, usually by the eighth straight hour of viewing. If you’re really ambitious, screen a season of 24 in one sitting. I’ll personally shake your hand if you accomplish in one day.

Play the Wikipedia Game, extreme edition

I mostly use it as a procrastination tool, but I imagine it can get competitive with enough spirited people involved. You also might learn a thing or two from it, and isn’t learning what college is all about? Am I right? …hello? Bueller?

No one should be expected to sit in the library or stare at their dorm room walls every day of the week with their nose in a book. Everyone needs something that helps them unwind, especially on the weekends.

Sometimes finding something to do – especially on a campus where parties are a rare occasion -  is hard. I knew when I signed my life away as a Hollins woman, I was going to be living in Roanoke, Virginia,and that I wouldn’t have a big city as my playground on the weekend. I knew I wasn’t attending a huge state school where fraternity parties are the social factor and that club activities would be endless. As a prospective, I remember asking about the student life on the weekends only to hear the same fib that my fellow peers heard themselves as prospective students: “Don’t worry about it, you will always find something going on.”

Oh, but that is very far from the truth. Options on campus are very bleak. From the first weekend as a first year, I realized as no one was around on the weekends I would have to be entirely responsible for finding something to do Friday and Saturday nights. While not feeling bogged down by having too many social activities planned, I like that Hollins has a sleepy atmosphere (especially for those weekends I need to do a lot of work), but for the most part – I don’t understand why we can’t have some sort of decent entertainment when the weekend rolls around.

The social scene at Hollins on any given weekend can be summed up in three ways:

1) You leave on the weekends

2) You rely on an apartment party or a party hosted by NEFA (a specialty housing dorm)

3) You hope the Student Life/Activity Board has something planned

A huge chunk of the student body leaves on the weekend. Girls carpool for the entire weekend up to Hampden-Sydney, an all male college two hours away and sleep on random futons since making the drive back in one night is out of the question. If Hampden-Sydney isn’t someone’s bag, other colleges like Washington and Lee, Virginia Tech, and Roanoke College can be visited. However, if you don’t know someone who goes to those schools, good luck finding a party or meeting people. What does the rest of the student body do when they leave? They go home! Students who are from Virginia or even close cities in North Carolina find themselves frequently going home because of the lack of campus activities. The only time students make plans to stay is if a formal is happening, which only happens twice a year.

Occasionally an apartment party or a themed party through NEFA will happen, but the frequency of this is rare. Also, these parties aren’t for everyone. Many girls don’t feel comfortable going over to the campus apartments because they don’t fit the cliques that live in many of the apartments. NEFA, a housing dorm for the campus’ artsy folks, throws unique, unforgettable parties, but most of them are not for the faint of heart. What if you just want a small get together? What about a dorm room?

Parties in other dorms do not happen, whatsoever, which can be very frustrating. Say it’s 11pm on Friday and you want to “Just Dance” along with Lady Gaga and your two best friends? Good luck getting through the song before someone calls Campus Safety to complain and a knock from an officer interrupts you. Every hour in all the dorms seems to be quiet hour. Whenever students speak up about the lack of social atmospheres, the Activity Board usually says “We have monthly mixers with a DJ and we invite other schools” to combat the complaints, but it does not suffice when no one actually shows up to the poorly planned and advertised school sponsored parties.

For a small university, Hollins is very diverse in its beliefs and types of students. Regardless of the variety amongst us, I have heard over and over again that not enough is done on the weekends in order to give students something to do. Yes, Hollins shows a movie every weekend in the auditorium and they have a shuttle take students to the mall, movies, and Wal-Mart, but that is not enough. When over half of the campus departs on the weekend to other colleges or home, something more needs to be done. How can a campus have a close-knit community when everyone leaves by 2pm on Friday and returns by 6pm on Sunday?

I am not asking for endless activities on the weekend. I think that students should be responsible for coming up with something to do, but I do believe that the university should endorse a more sociable atmosphere. Whether that means allowing students to have dance parties at reasonable hours without getting campus officers sent up or providing well planned mixers with other colleges, something needs to happen in order to help the social scene from sinking even more than it continues to do so!

In asking for other opinions from students on campus, Hollins sophomore Jennifer Old sums up how actions should be taken on campus to improve the overall weekend situation: “I think people are hesitant about the parties and other social events held on campus. Parties are broken up much more quickly at Hollins and the threat of the Roanoke Police has become very real. As for the social scene outside of the party sphere, I think there should be a community forum every semester. HAB (The Activity Board) should hear the collective desires of the campus and cater to the diverse interests of Hollins women.”

Obviously a social environment is very important to college life. Now tell me, how do you spend your weekends? Do you think your college provides enough entertainment and amusement for students? What do you want more of in your school’s social scene? Dish – I want to hear what I’m missing!

When walking around campus, you see her. She’s rocking the casual look like it’s nobody’s business. And she’s doing it well. Her bootcut jeans are accompanied by a perfectly worn-in t-shirt layered under a zip up hoodie. She’s wearing black Converse or a pair of well-worn sneakers, the laces tight enough to keep them on, but loose enough to allow her to slip in and out of them easily. Her haircut is low maintenance, but totally chic.  She’s rocking plastic rimmed glasses, no contacts; a watch, no jewelry.

You don’t know her, but you want to.

This is one co-ed who has got it together. She is the kind of girl who is naturally pretty, has a killer body and is completely oblivious to it. She is friendly, kind, and her easygoing, low maintenance attitude makes it easy to get along with her. Even her professors are drawn to her, always chatting with her before class and helping her after.

She has a large circle of friends, filled with a variety of different types of people. Girls love her, guys love her, nerds love her, athletes love her. And though you don’t know her, you kind of want to love her too.

She is funny without being raunchy, boyish but not butch. She prefers drinking beers in a pub to shakin’ her thang at the club.  She’s comfortable at a Death Cab for Cutie concert, but has no problem listening to The Beach Boys or the Avenue Q soundtrack.

She rocks her GPA, has a hot (yet totally down to earth and awesome) boyfriend, and seems to excel at just about everything she puts her mind to…without getting frazzled.

In short, this girl just exudes cool. And as she walks by, you aren’t sure which you want more: to know her or to be her.

[Photo courtesy of Wild Rose on Flickr]

Proper protocol is usually required to get to the bottom of a situation. Sometimes you have to start with an RA or the Dean of Students; each issue has its own designated driver to get to the bottom of what’s going on. However, when you reach the end of the line and nothing is solved, going past the usual set of rules and skipping to the top becomes the only option if you want action!

After going all freshman year without much success from the Dean of Students and the Housing and Residence Life, my mom and I decided to set some time aside to schedule a meeting with the President of my university in hopes to get everything sorted out. Eager to put an end to the continual issues that beleaguered me throughout my first two semesters in college, I expected results and an apology from my university’s president.

Before going into the meeting I compiled a list of all the things that happened and how they were handled. I remember looking down at the list as we walked into her large office thinking that it really was one thing too many. As my mother and I spoke openly about my experience at Hollins and the issues that I have seen on campus such as bullying, harassment, and the roommate debacle I survived, President Gray (a very cheerful, articulate, and warm woman) sat across from us with a look of disbelief on her face. In telling her about the botched responsibilities of the Student Life administration, she spoke about not knowing these issues beset her campus. Apologizing for the terrible experience I have had on the campus, President Gray looked forward to making my university a better place with input on how to improve.

Working through the main issues my mom and I brought up, President Gray thought of ideas to help take preventative measures for other students on campus. For example, she came up with the idea of putting peep-holes in every first-years’ door, so they could look out and see who was at their door. I thought it was a great idea because maybe if I heard someone outside my door when words like bitch and whore were slewed in erasable markers on my whiteboard, I could have caught them.

She thought of implementing a bullying policy into the 2007-2008 student handbook, which I thought would help the administration define in better terms what bullying actually is. And to help me feel safe and calm in my living situation for my sophomore year, President Gray promised me that I would not have to live in the first year dorm again (which was where I was placed in a single due to a shortage of singles in upperclassmen housing) and that some type of housing compensation would occur for the price distinction of living with a roommate and on my own, in a single.

Leaving the meeting with her, I finally felt relief.

Fall 2007 rolled around, and it was time to go back to school. And then it became clear – all promises were off. Suddenly, the school had no available single for me in any building except the building President Gray agreed with my mom that I should not live in again. The only option was for me to live in a double room, as a single. However, the university decided that if I did that, they would not pay damages of lasts years woes in the form of a single room, like they formerly planned to do. When inquiring about this with the president, she said via e-mail that she didn’t remember deciding I would live elsewhere than the single I reserved in the first year dorm, in the first place.

Just as all these promises seemed to not be carried out, the president herself seemed to vanish off into the sunset for a week or two long vacation. Leaving me with the option of living in the overly expensive double as a single, I moved into my dorm early to help out with first year orientation (expect a story next week about this orientation) feeling cheated, ignored, and taken as a joke yet again by Hollins and its administration. After dishing out an extra $1,000+ or so, after I was told I wouldn’t have to, I couldn’t help but feel lied to … especially when I ran into the President during freshman orientation and she asked if I was pleased with the start of my sophomore year at Hollins. Seriously…give me a break!

Although she can talk the talk of being a professionally polished president, she failed at keeping her word. Disenchanted yet again by the university I chose to attend, I felt like I had nowhere to turn. If the President will listen, but not act or take her own promise earnestly – who will?

Just because the president doesn’t follow through on the school’s mission statement or promise doesn’t mean your issues as a student should fall on the back burner. Everyone deserves an education worth achieving and a student life worth living, and the appreciation of this keeps me pushing through to help make my university a better place, even in spite of its substandard character traits and underhanded administration.

Maybe it’s just the classes I am taking—and of course, I know the freshman 100-level classes are the easiest—but I don’t feel too freaked out. Well, maybe I’m a little stressed, given that most of my teachers think that assigning long essays is better than assigning a final test. That leaves me with hours of work to do this weekend. But I’d rather write an essay than study for a test, so I am not too worried. I’ve found these classes pretty reasonable, which proves to me that all those AP classes actually did simulate the college experience.

What I’m feeling this week more than nerves and stress is relief. I’m relieved to have conquered the first semester of college. It’s not that I expected to have a terrible first semester, but I never assumed it would be so easy. I was terrified that I would be the girl who made lots of so-so friends, but never made a real connection. In high school I liked to stand out in class, and I thought I would hide in the corner in college classes. And I thought I’d miss my old friends and my family like crazy. I’ve seen other freshmen here go through that. But for me, everything seemed to fall into place.

Have I changed? Yes. But I didn’t expect to stay the same. I’m no longer the girl who lived in the same house her entire life, who had the same friends for almost a decade. Maybe last year I would’ve found this finals week excruciating, but I’m not that girl anymore. I can handle this, just like I’ll learn to handle the harder finals weeks to come. That’s what college is all about.

This series is meant to provide advice for getting the most out of college, rather than just getting through it. So far we've already discussed having a professor as a BFF, checking out what's going on in your college town, and now we're going to talk about extracurriculars - the ones you never thought you'd join!]

This generation of college gals are smart, savvy, and driven. Do you want to be a CEO of your own company one day? You’re probably already president of your college’s Business Leaders of Tomorrow club. Are you an up-and-coming style maven? No doubt you’re involved with your school’s Passion for Fashion group.

Yeah, being involved in career-minded clubs are definitely a must these days if you want to make connections, but what about joining a club…just for fun? It may seem difficult, especially when it’s so hard to manage school, friends, guys, a job, and elusive “me” time. However, if you take the plunge and join a club you never thought you would, a lot of things could happen.

First of all, joining a club for fun might lead you onto a completely different career path. Not that everything you do in college has to be future-oriented, but there are plenty of roads to success that don’t follow a “traditional” educational route. Have you seen Tina Fey’s awesome impersonations of Sarah Palin on SNL lately? She didn’t get a degree in Hilarity Studies to snag that gig. If you’re the “funny one” of your group of friends, or just a big comedy fan, why not stop in on a meeting of your campus’ improv group? You may discover you’re just as good at scoring laughs as Ms. Fey.

By the same token, f you’re always the one busting a move at mixers, or glue yourself to the couch whenever So You Think You Can Dance comes on, look into joining the dance troupe. And if you were always good at Spanish in high school but chose to devote your undergrad years to chem labs, maybe drop in on Foreign Language Club meetings to rediscover an old passion.

Furthermore, joining a new club will get you out of your dorm and into a new social circle. Sure, we all have our core group of friends, but do you ever feel like you’re doing the same old things all the time? If you’re looking for excitement, joining a new club just might jumpstart your social life. Most clubs will not only meet on campus but host or sponsor events in the community. Poetry or literary clubs will often hold open mics throughout the year–something to look into if you’re an inner poet or rapper who wants some exposure. Cultural clubs like Hillel or the Asian Student Union will certainly throw parties on holidays like Rosh Hashanah and Chinese New Year (plus, who doesn’t love free food?). And the pals you make from joining a new club can connect you to other fun things going on around campus you may never have heard about.

And joining a club for fun means there’s no “political” pressure to run for treasurer or president just so it looks good on your resume. You can attend meetings when you like, socialize with who you like, and get involved at your own leisure. Best of all, college is a time when you have an enormous amount of opportunities to try new things at very little cost and without expectations of following up. If you want to take a dance class after graduation it’ll cost you at least $15 a pop. So what do you have to lose? Get out there and break a leg!

[Come back to find out the next must-do on my list: Live With Strangers!]

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How to deal with incompetent student leaders. 

Are there animal parts in our makeup?!

Baby pandas melt our hearts.

Our bank accounts shrivel up to nothing, but we still love the richies.

This chair looks uncomfortable. In so many ways.

Seriously? Who gives Bonnie Hunt a talk show anyway?

Arizona’s coach, Lute Olson, is stepping down.

Press on nail polish?

Oprah is being sued….for $180 MILLION.

Whatever you choose to do today, here are a few sweets to celebrate with. Starting with the sweetest kiss.

Chuck Bass is the ultimate womanizer.

Looks like redheads are having all the fun.

Marcia Brady has tried anal sex??

10 things your student bag should never be missing.

Heidi Klum loves her milk.

Will Sarah Palin be on SNL tonight? Only time will tell.

How to settle your debt with the roomie.

What insult should be the new “douchebag“?

Days as a Freshman: 90

Mood: Guilty

“Do you have any gum?”

Stacey shifted in the brown leather chair, straightening her blazer. She had dressed for the occasion, opting to go for “mature and classical” instead of her usual “fake and preppy”.

I was sporting my standard jeans and long sleeved shirt look, being under the impression that the Dean of Student Life didn’t really care about our clothes.

“Here.” I reached into my giant purse and pulled out a half-crushed packet of gum. “You sure you want to be talking to Dean Carlon with stuff in your mouth, though?”

“Do you have any gum that hasn’t been through the washing machine?” Crinkling her noise, Stacey stared at my hand like I was passing her a dead rat. “And I was gonna spit it out before going in there anyway. I just have this horrible taste in the back of my throat.” Begrudgingly taking a piece of gum from the pack, Stacey slipped it behind her shiny pink lips and bleached white teeth. “I always get a gross taste in my throat when I’m nervous.”

“Should we be nervous?” I took a piece of gum myself and started to chew quickly, realizing that my jaw had answered my question for me; we should be very nervous.

“Is there anyone else in there?” Sitting up as straight as she could, Stacey tried to look over the frosted glass portion of the dean’s office. “Do you think the guys are in there? Do you think they’ll make us talk with them sitting there?”

“I don’t know. I hope not.” I couldn’t imagine talking while five guys stared at me. I didn’t think it was physically possible.

“Why isn’t Rebecca here?” Stacey cracked her gum, “she was with us. She saw the whole thing too.”

“Rebecca’s on her way home.” There had been a note on our door this morning from Rebecca saying goodbye and Happy Thanksgiving! in giant pink letters. Surely Stacey had seen it. The pink had been a direct homage to her wardrobe.

“Oh, right. Because of all that shit…”

“What shit?” I spit my gum into my hand and dropped it into the trashcan next to me. I didn’t want to forget about it and then walk into Dean Carlon’s office. It was going to be hard enough to talk without the extra hazard of possibly choking.

“Her brother and the whole gay thing.” Stacey looked at me, her big blue eyes squinting in confusion. “Didn’t she tell you?”

“No.”

“Her brother is in Iraq right now. He got shipped out a couple months ago. Plus, she just told her parents she was a lesbian in like, September. I’m not sure she was real excited to go home. It’s weird that she didn’t tell you.” Leaning back in her chair, Stacey busied herself with trying to look through the office window again.

It was weird that Rebecca hadn’t told me any of that. Weirder still that she had confided in Stacey instead. I thought Rebecca hated Stacey…and I thought we told each other everything.

“Ms. Simmons and Ms. Keller?” The door to the dean’s office opened slightly, Dean Carlon poking her white-haired head out. “I’m ready for you now.”

Jumping up like she had been stung, Stacey headed for the office without looking back. Gathering my stuff, I followed behind, hoping Stacey’s combination of nerves and a Red Bull breakfast wasn’t going to make her say something stupid.

Dean Carlon’s office was small and smelled faintly of cigarette smoke and Lysol. A mahogany bookshelf, a desk with a computer, and three chairs were about all that fit inside the room, and I was relieved to see Stacey and I were the only ones being interviewed.

Sitting behind her desk, Dean Carlon smoothed out her fashionable white bob and smiled faintly at us. From what little I knew of the Dean of Students, she seemed like a fun, easy going person, sitting in the stands at basketball games and teaching special lectures about resumes and life after college. We had never formally met, and I as I sat down on another brown leather chair, I wished our first official encounter was about something else. Something less…complicated.

“Thanks for coming, girls. I know there are a lot of big papers happening right now.”

“No problem!” Stacey smiled too wide and practically shouted. “Totally no problem at all!”

“I hesitated calling you girls in…” Dean Carlon closed her eyes for a moment, and when she opened them again, seemed much more weary than I had initially noticed. “But this whole soccer house thing is really getting out of control.”

“Is that what the fight was about?” Stacey did her best to look concerned. “I had no idea. Grace and I got there at the end. We saw the guy get punched—” She stopped, unsure if she was unloading too much information, but Dean Carlon was already leaning in and taking notes. “Public Safety basically broke it up before anything was explained.”

I sat on my hands to keep from cracking my knuckles, a habit I had developed from years of pre-piano-recital jitters. Even though I no longer practiced piano, I still took my anxiety out on my hands.

Stacey was basically telling the truth. We had arrived at the tail end of the fight, but we had seen more than just one person getting punched.

“So you weren’t there when Justin Stevens supposedly pushed…” Dean Carlon looked down at some papers on her desk, “when Justin pushed Jake Ryan into a wall and threatened him?”

Stacey’s eyes slid over to mine. We had been there. But it was more complicated than that.

“We didn’t see it. Maybe it happened before we got there.” I looked Dean Carlon right in the face and lied, hoping the guilt I felt wasn’t noticeable.

“Alright. Is there anything else you want to tell me?” Straightening up her papers, Dean Carlon looked at Stacey and I with a friendly but intense stare. Did she know something we didn’t? Did she know we were holding something back?

Yes, we had seen Justin Stevens, aka half-dressed organic peanut butter guy, slam someone against the lounge wall. But he had done it to protect Sasha, who was doubled over on the ground, trying to recover from a kick to his stomach. We had seen that, too. And we had heard things.

Like the guy who Justin had gone after yelling about what Sasha had done to Sammy.

I swallowed and tried to smile at Dean Carlon. She should know all of this. I knew that. But I also knew I couldn’t say anything.

At least not yet.

Mood: pissed off

“Campbell!”

As the soccer boys stomped over to us, I felt myself pushing against my hard, black chair, wishing I could use it as camouflage. Everything about them was loud; the way the walked, shoving wayward chairs and tables out of their way, the heaviness of their boots on the linoleum, the shouts they threw back and forth at each other, even their energy made too much noise, the small atrium cafe seeming suddenly much too tight and airless.

“You missed the meeting, man!” Pulling a chair over to our table and sitting on it backwards, the loudest and biggest of the soccer boys pushed Sasha’s shoulder playfully, but hard enough to almost throw him off his chair. “It was a shit show. A total shit show.”

The two other soccer boys, dressed in almost identical blue sweatpants, white shirts, and blue baseball caps, stood on either side of Sasha. Their eyes slid over to me. I looked down, staring at the bobbing teabag in my cup.

“Coach was there. He told the student life people to calm down. But not before they put the whole f*cking house on probation.” Still ignoring me, the head soccer guy pulled his own baseball cap over his face. “No parties for a while, man. At least none that they hear about.”

“So they didn’t…did they ever find out if anything really happened?”

I looked up as Sasha spoke, his eyes meeting mine apologetically. I could tell he felt just as uncomfortable as I did.

“Naw man. The girl who reported it is a total slut anyway. It’s nothing.”

The head soccer moron pushed his blue cap higher on his head and smiled, his smug grin making my skin crawl. How could Sasha hang out with these pigs?

“Who’s this, anyway?” Jutting his chin in my direction, the head moron sized me up with his tiny eyes, looking away just quick enough to signify he wasn’t interested.

“Grace. We were just going over chemistry shit.” Pushing his tea farther away from him, Sasha cracked his knuckles and ran his hand through his hair, keeping his gaze on the wall right above my head. “You guys heading back to the house?”

“Yeah” Head Moron nodded, “after a pit stop for food. Josh is freaking out about wanting cake.”

“I just got this need for fucking cake, man!” One of the identical twins slammed a fist into his hand, signifying just how much he needed cake at one in the morning.

“I’ll head out with you guys, then.” Without looking at me, Sasha stood up and grabbed his bag from the ground. Trapped by embarrassment and confusion, I stayed sitting, watching him like a puppy that’s just been kicked.

“Catch you later, Grace. We’ll finish talking soon.” Smiling a smile that was hardly the smile I had seen only minutes before, Sasha turned and walked off with the three stupid musketeers, the Head Moron shoving him into a wall before opening the glass atrium doors.

As the idiot twins and Sasha walked outside, the Head Moron looked back over at me, catching me staring and winking a beady eye in my direction.

Disgusted, I looked away, my fingers curling around my paper cup and my mind racing.

How could Sasha stomach those guys, let alone live with them? And why had he changed so quickly when they stomped over?

More importantly, what had he wanted to tell me before they came along?