How to Go To College

How to Go to College

Subtitle: I am not sure how we graduated. Seriously, did we even go to class??

58 days. I got nothing. No seriously, I haven't even bought those special bullets. 

Step 1:  Find one other insane person with whom to share this experience. Personally, I found that orientation worked pretty well for me, since I quite literally found one of the most insane people in my life right off the bat. There was something about her, locura radiating from her person, and I bounced up happily and introduced myself (i’m kinda loud, I do things like that).  However, if going to cheesy mandatory orientations is not your thing, you can go to class, but we are putting that off as long as possible. You are going to need this person because when you find out that your assigned roommate is a Vala -like Space Herpes ridden whore, you’re gonna have to move in with them. Oh, and make sure they will clean up your puke. In an Easter bucket. Trust me, that’s helpful. 

Step 2: Cultivate a larger group of nutjobs. You need your person, yes, but we know there is safety and power in numbers, so you need to create your group, yourself. Greek life is useless. I mean really, you invited me to this stupid party, acted like fake asses, selling yourself to me, pulling me aside and saying shit about my friends and then expect me to PAY to hang out with you. I’m poor and I’m a bitch. I think I will stay with these people. You can find these people in one of three ways: 

1. Kidnap them from the sidewalk because they are cute. (Hey - I got me a husband that way!) 
2. Join the Theatre Guild. Trust me, ALL the crazies go here. 
3. Roommates of the crazies. Birds of a feather shit and all. 

Step 3: Learn how to drink.  Seriously, this is probably the best advice that I can every give you and really should have been step one before you met your crazy because by this point you and your crazy now roommate think that Mad Dog 20/20 is proper alcohol, which it is NOT.  Here, just read this and come back to me as soon as you have printed your notes: How to Drink

Step 4: Use Greek life to your advantage. Ok, so remember those yuppies bitches that made you come to their stupid make-up party? Wanted you to pay like $500 a year to hang out with them? Guess what they and their male counter-parts DO with that money. THEY BUY BOOZE AND HAVE PARTIES! AND they LET you go do even though you laughed at them for not paying to be their friends and you get to drink for FREE!!! 100% Free!!! It’s genius!!! For real, is someone telling these freshman who are having to streak through campus or drink stupid shit like they’re auditioning for Fear Factor? Wait, on second thought don’t. More free booze for nerds. 

Step 5: Don’t hate the playa, hate the game. Now, here’s how dis gonna go down....and step five is da place ta put it.  Haters gonna start seeing that you got the whole college package, the parties, the trips, the everything and you didn’t do anything other than find a bunch of like minded nerds and pile into Hot Roommate’s dorm. Let ‘em hate! They’re just mad that we are all here on scholarship, don’t have to pay for our friends and are on the dean’s list. Every. Damn.Semester. Let ‘em hate. You’re gonna be laughing at them in ten years. 

Step 6: Oh yeah, maybe you should go to class. Dean’s list is all good and true but they are starting to catch on to the fact that you are never there but have an A average and now if you miss class they are going to fail you, A’s or not.  So, here’s the plan: Take classes with your nerd friends and alternate whose turn it is to go. Monday friend 1, Wednesday friend 2, Friday friend 3, etc. It works really well, I mean, hey, you got the notes from today? What do you mean it was my turn to go? It’s YOUR turn to go? No, Jessi goes on Wednesdays. What do you mean she switched? Since when???

Step 7: Prepare for the unexpected. Because one day you will be in your dorm eating a bowl of rice from your friend’s illegal rice cooker. And you will get a call that one of your acquaintances that your friends feel the need to babysit has just left the dorm to meet up with a strange Canadian Man she met on the internet (This HAS nothing to do with Michael Shanks people, I swear, THIS is how my life plays out for REAL) who happens to be named after a famous 1950’s rock star at a local seedy hotel known for Suspicious River like activities (Ha! Got HIM in this one, I am a GODDESS). But, after you throw your pajama clad ass into your car, well your friend’s car because you refuse to let the Porn Star (yes, I had an AeroStar Van in college. We peeled off the AERO and replaced it with PORN) be involved in such insanity, you drive to the hotel to discover that they are not there, it was a ruse, so you describe her to the police, explain it is a strange internet man and then drive around campus shouting her name around like a crazy person to find she has taken him back to her room to bed him.  Gross. I am going to eat my rice. 

Step 8: Indoctrinate new members. Now, you are going to face some competition from the Greek life as you try to recruit freshman, so you are going to need some good selling points. Try this list: 

1. We are free
2. We will not make you circle your fat while you stand naked and be judged
3. We have older members and access to booze
4. We are like the smartest kids on campus and run the tutoring center, so we have your grades covered.
5. For some sick reason the profs LOVE us
6. We won’t make you wear stupid shirts with letters from a semi-dead language on them.
7. We are free

That should do what you need to get those new members. 

Step 9: Keep in touch with these nut jobs AFTER you graduate. Yeah, we graduated, didn’t you read the subtitle? Even though they are states away and may go through some SHIT and you don’t talk for a few years and then find everyone again on FaceBook, Twitter and just because you picked up the phone. THESE are your real friends, your family, the people you were meant to find that you were brought together with under insane circumstances. Don’t forget them. Ever. 

Step 10: Go to the reunion. Sit around your porch, watching your kids play, laughing about how dumb Hot Roommate was when you flirted with him, recount runs to Philly to buy cheesesteaks and stealing street cones. Because you made it this far and the best is yet to come. Spanish wine anyone? 

I love you guys so much and I always will

How to Write a Paper

How to Write a Paper

Subtitle: I am your Spanish teacher, your SPANISH teacher, why am I showing you this?!!?

Step 1: Write a paper.  A really bad paper.  Add in lot of quotes and other things from that sample packet the librarian gave you that really taught you nothing other than plagiarism is akin to selling your soul to Lucifer or drowning a puppy. Use ‘I’ a lot in your paper and tell your audience about every opinion you have on the topic in the first person with no support. Proudly turn it in.  

Step 2: Get paper back.  Your teacher/instructor/professor has most likely bled all over it, unless you go to one of those stupid schools where everyone gets a trophy and red pens are not allowed because they might hurt your little feelings.  In which case, before moving onto step three please get a red pen out, break it in half and pour over your paper.  And suck it up!

Step 3:  At this point in time you are ready to listen.  First, you need to understand what a paper is.  A paper is an argument.  You’ve had one of those, haven’t you? When your husband left the trash in kitchen and the cat tore it open? When your best friend looked at your man? (Which this should not bother you - please see my entry on man-neediness) When that moron that had been tailgating you for miles finally rammed into your bumper and is now acting like you stopped and got hit on purpose? That is what a paper is a fight, just one with smart words and no swearing.  Unless you are clever, then you can work those bad boys in all over the place.  But that takes mad skills. You are not there yet my young Padawan.  

Step 4: Figure out what you are going to write about.  Make it provocative. Make it risk- kay.  You gotta get your blood boiling to write well. You will notice that my funnier blogs are when something drives me bat-crap crazy or is something I am passionate about (Like my love for Michael Shanks - you didn’t think I’d get him in this one, did you? Well, that will teach you to underestimate my true obsessive nature.).  This may not help you in all essays, but try.  Because even ‘Compare and Contrast the Hundred Years War to the War of the Roses” can be interesting if you keep in mind that the royal families of France and England alone did more disgusting crap than every soap that has ever aired on TV. 

Step 5: Research. Not on Wikipedia.  Do you know WHY you do not research on Wikipedia? Because Wikipedia is what smart people do when they are drunk. I am not kidding; nerds get blitzed in small groups watching “Game of Thrones” and change Wikipedia.  I know this to be FACT.  You think I am kidding? Try it sometime. But if you are not nerdy, they catch on pretty fast, so you must be clever and master writing, much in the way you did to include swear words in your paper, to make those changes stick.  (My hubby just asked “Wikipedia has administrators?” to which I replied, “Yes honey, Wikipedia has an entire crew of readers that try to protect lazy high school students from drunk nerds.” ) 

Step 6: Write.  Now, this can be hard, so I will put it in everyday terms.  Please excuse the course language, but as they say, that’s how dem kids speak.  

Introduction: SCARY FACT OR QUOTE.  That’s scary huh? Well, bee-achesz, if you don’t do X,Y, Z shiznit’s about to get real scary.  (That was your thesis. A thesis says here are 2-5 reasons I am going to win this argument buttface, here they come) 

Paragraph One: I am right about X.  Here is some crap that some smart people said that agree with me.  See, I am right.  You are stupid.  Now I am going to talk about thing number two. And not Dr. Seuss thing number two.  

Paragraph Two: Y is also true. I am a genius.  And remember this guy from paragraph 1, yeah him? also a genius? On page (insert page ## here) he agreed with me too. In YO face! You think that’s all I got? Buckle up bitchez....

Paragraph Three: And as if you did not think I was the next coming of Christ, here is Z.  Yes!! Z!!! And because of this book and that book and this scholarly journal.  That’s right cuz, I whupped out the scholarly journal on you!! Do you know what those are? I thought not! And they more than PROVE I’ve got this. 

Conclusion: So, basically, if you ain’t figured it out by now, I’m right. I mean really if X,Y and Z didn’t do it for you, well, you’re hopeless.  So, here’s another quote or something that since you didn’t understand the rest of the reason that I am a god that you won’t understand but it makes me sound all smart like.  Oh yeah, and the end.  

See, not so bad right? 

Step 7: Revise.  Please, get a friend that is smarter than you to do this. Or at least better educated/knowledgeable of current rules regarding paper writing. We all have those people in our lives that, well, you know, just aren’t.  Don’t let them see your paper. They may make comments like “Well, you sounded like you didn’t feel it,” or, better yet, “I didn’t see your opinion in there, you know ‘I’ think.”  Little do these people know that there is a secret little committee of dwarves that live deep underneath the bowels of Harvard University that determine what is correct in paper writing today.  These dwarves are thousands of years old and probably whupped out some clausal errors on Moses.  They like to change the rules.  What your mom wrote for a paper in school in her day will not cut it, because as soon as those dwarves get bored or someone smuggles them in a bag of Skittles, BOOM! they change all of these rules! FOR NO GOOD REASON! Make sure your proof reader knows these rules and/or has an established relationship with said dwarves.  

Step 8:  Turn that bad boy in.  Yeah, waltz yourself right up to the desk (even do this virtually if you are turning in the paper online, walk about 5 feet away and sashay your self over to the computer and dramatically click submit.) 

Step 9: Pray, meditate, contemplate, send positive vibes or whatever you do to ask a higher power to help you out.  Paper writing is subjective and sometimes the mood of your teacher can determine your grade.  You may have written the greatest masterpiece of all time but your prof just got dumped by his live in girlfriend and you get an F (True story people - happened to me - took a LOT of butt kissing to salvage that one). So, if you have followed all of my steps above, you should be ok, in theory, Provided no one as slipped any dwarves sugary treats.  In that case, dude, you’re on your own...

Step 10: Get paper back.  Earn an A.  Graduate with honors. Remember that quirky little blogger that helped get you there. Because she had two kids to put through college.  And became a teacher.  You know where this is leading, hopefully :-)