How to Take Students Abroad

Subtitle: Remember that they are kids. Their gutter minds are worse than ours. Well, yours maybe, mine just got worse with age. 

54 days. I live off of Rte. 54. Route 54. Ashland. Randolph-Macon.

I think that is where we will be headed...

Step 1: Passports. Ok, so because some stupid asshats at the DMV decided back in the day to hand out driver’s licenses like candy we Americans now have to have passports to BREATHE or go to Canada (Hence the Hot Pants stalking for me is limited to Stargate Cons and Twitter). Therefore, the most important venture in this little quest is to  secure the children this very important form of identification. Here is a nice little website to help you: http://travel.state.gov/passport/get/get_4855.html  USE THIS. DO NOT PASS GO. YOU CANNOT GET THEM AT WALGREENS. I state this because I have taken students abroad and had a parent argue this with me.  

Step 2: Have the students pack accordingly, which pretty much means always always always make them have a swimsuit. Always. Even if the schedule and the tour guide swear you do not need them because what is going to happen is that you are going to get to a river in France, the bus pulls over and the guide suggests you take a swim. And the teens will start to get nekked. FOR.REAL. As you frantically try to negotiate how much clothing they need to leave on. Honestly, I am not sure how I did not get fired. 

Step 3: Make your expectations of travel VERY clear. Case in point: Tour buses, don’t let them sit coed for 12 hour overnight trips. Teens do not care. Bitches will make-out, or more...and the last thing you want to be responsible for is the next episode of teen mom.  Don’t believe me? Just ask ONE band director, or better yet a choir director. You.Will.Be.Shocked. Also, prep you students in advance not to announce any life changes on planes over the Atlantic i.e. don’t come out, publicly, thousands of feet above the sea. Yes, sweetie, I love you and I am so glad we are still in touch but do you realize the heart attack you gave me? That’s why you owe me that free room for my next Con. 

Step 4: Warn them of food differences, in both name and menu.  Sometimes you just need to ASK what something is, because the kids are not going to. Here is a piece of Canadian trivia - apparently in parts of Ontario they are not called Chicken Nuggets but called Chicken Balls. We discovered this on my senior year marching band trip to Toronto. Here’s how it went down:

Band Director: Ok guys, the menu for us is posted, pick before you get in line. 

Student C: Mr. F? That says Chicken Balls. What are Chicken Balls? 

Band Director: I dunno Balls of Chicken?

Student B: HAHAHAHAHAHA 

Band Director: What? ( <------- THAT was your first mistake teach)

Student B: I am trying to figure out where the balls are on a chicken.

Student A: Chickens are female, they don’t have balls. 

Student C: Roosters do. 

Student B: Hey _______ your dad raises chickens, do roosters have balls? 

Student D: I am not eating ANY animals testicles...what is WRONG with Canada.

Band Director: (through his teeth) Order the damn cheeseburgers.

Step 5: Avoid three hour tours. Not only was this a BAD idea for Gilligan (No old jokes, I watch this on re-runs on Nick at Night) but there is not city in the Universe that is that interesting. Except for, well, maybe Toronto. Got another band trip story....I’m just making Marching Band look so good aren’t I?  Let’s play this little dialog out for you as well. 

Student B: I’m going to sleep because if that woman says ‘amalgamation’ one more time I may scream. Scoot over, I am leaning on you. 

Me: Whatever

Student B: (Leans over on me - goes to sleep) 

Me: (45 mins later) OW! Get up your heavy...

Student B: Is it over yet? (Looks out of window and LEAPS from seat) OH MY GOD IT’S A CONDOM SHACK!!!! 

Entire Bus: (Leaps from seat running to window - faces pressed to glass)

Tour Guide: BLAH BLAH BLAH Amalgamation BLAH BLAH

Student B: WHERE’S MY CAMERA!?! BRIANNE GIVE ME YOUR CAMERA!! THEIR LOGO IS A DANCING CONDOM.

Band Director: Honestly, I have no clue what he said, I think he just gave up.  

Oh and I am NOT making this up: http://condomshack.com/shop/ SEE!!!

Step 6: And while we are on the topic of driving, let’s talk about Italian drivers and how you need to avoid them. At all costs. They are INSANE. Like, special kind of insane. In fact, if you can, get a tour bus to drive you around because they are prepared for this. Got another story. Stuck in Italian traffic jam, which is pretty insane because the car are literally touching one another. So, I was sitting with our tour guide, having a very lovely conversation about a certain apple alcohol that we all know I love when all of a sudden the entire bus shook. Leaping to his feet, our tour guide raced down the steps of the bus, ordering in Italian for the driver to open the door and proceeded to hang out of the somewhat moving bus and scream at a very angry man in a tiny Italian that was ramming our bus and swearing right back. Honestly, I was kinda terrified, but it was also so hysterical that I just started laughing as the man in the car started to climb through his window and beat on the bus. Moral of the story: Don’t drive in Italy. EVER.

Step 7: Know where you can get medical treatment. REAL medical treatment, not the cute little Italian old lady who wants to buy your sick student who is literally turning red and is running a fever in the middle of Florence and no one can understand why you are speaking Spanish well and without an accent trying to get help and would rather ask you how you learned to speak Spanish than listen to you, great, the kid is throwing up again, hun go lay on that bench while I try to find, yes ma’am, thank you, thank you so much for the gelato, yes I am sure it will help.  

No worries. She was ok. I let her sleep on the bench and then took her to see David. I think David would fix anybody. 

Step 8: Make sure your students understand that two things will happen in crowds: 

1. Someone will NOT be wearing deodorant. And I am not talking like how I am a little ripe after a run, but I am talking about like they would never be able to find the aisle in the supermarket and the stink is so bad you want to lose your lunch. Oh, look at that pretty cloud, breathe in, breathe out. Now hold your breath. 
2. Gypsies will steal you blind. I am not trying to say nasty things about gypsies, but I have SEEN them hand someone their baby while their three year old picks a pocket. Put your money in your bra or other under garments because since no one is wearing any deodorant anyway a little boob sweat isn’t gonna hurt. So, the answer to your question is, I TOLD you this would happen when we were back in Spain sitting on my roof. I am NOT buying your gelato. 

Step 9: Ok, looking back at this blog, don’t take students to Italy or Canada. No good will come of it.  

Step 10: Go to the Corte Inglés. Buy Manzana Verde. Like FIVE BOTTLES. Put the children to bed. Tape their doors so they cannot make sexy time. Go out onto the veranda. Find Tour Guide. Drink. Sleep. Repeat. 

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 Drink Properly

How to Properly Drink 

Subtitle: You are grown; the time for Natty Ice and Boone’s Farm is OVER.  Us cultured people make fun of those people.  We don’t want to be made fun of, do we? 

Step 1: As my subtitle indicates,  it is important that you have a clear understanding of what is proper alcohol.  In order to do this, you must first experience the worst of the worst.  How do you determine the worst? If you are young enough to get away with it, slip into a frat party.  Whatever beer they are passing out to the freshman will be the worst beer. Do not confuse this with what the seniors are drinking, sometimes they had already had an older friend fix them. As far as wine goes, pretty much anything sold at a gas station is considered the worst in this department.  And for liquor, anything in a bottle made of plastic.  Unless that plastic if a reused gallon milk jug of moonshine, in which case you are now buying the best liquor even though it comes in plastic.  More on moonshine later.  Buy one of each of all three. 

Step 2: Set up a tasting with your friends.  If you are still at the point in your life where you think a tasting is snotty (I hope this entry will change that) you can instead enjoy a drinking game.  The internet offers a wide variety of complicated drinking games, the best of which in my opinion circle around the theme of a TV show or movie.  If you like something contemporary there is an excellent game for Game of Thrones going around.  If not, here is a basic Stargate game I have created that should be useful (and this show is on Netflix, so you can do this any time of the day):

Activity on Show	Number of Shots/Sips/Chugs
Teal’c says “Indeed”	One shot
Jack says something sarcastic	One shot
Samantha saves the day because she is the smartest person on the show by millions of IQ points	Two shots
Daniel argues something that Jack calls sissy	One shot
You completely lose track of what the hell is going on because Michael Shanks is so damn beautiful that nothing else really matters	Three shots - hell, at this point just start chugging.  And keep watching.  He only got hotter as the show went on...

Step 3: Wake up the next morning. Make some Blackberry Tea (trust me - my sister in law taught me this trick - GOLDEN).  Swear that you will never do this again.  Don’t worry, you won’t.  I am here to fix that. You now have your basis for comparison. 

Step 4: Back to the store.  Here is what you need to purchase.  This is going to be a costly trip, so bring a friend, or friends or make sure you at least have a credit card with reward points.  

1. WIne: Buy a few reds from Europe and a some whites from Virginia, Australia, Oregon or Washington.  Do NOT buy anything that says sweet.  That is not wine.  That is a wine cooler for people who think they can get away with still drinking wine coolers because it comes in a different bottle. As for the types of wine you should buy, I will explain the basic types in Step 5. 
2. Beer: Read the label. It needs to come in bottles and it needs to have been made within a 50 miles radius of your home OR comes from a known microbrew.  If it comes in a can or cardboard box, do not buy it.  
3. Liquor: Ever heard the phrase top shelf? Guess where the good liquor is? 

Step 5: Know your wines. Here are the major categories of wine and their basic descriptions:

Reds:

1. Merlot - Really really dry red wine.  Makes your mouth dry wine.  Usually tastes like licked a piece of plywood. Very herby. Makes you look sophisticated to drink.  
2. Syrah/Shiraz - A hearty dry red wine.  Good for spice lovers.  Lots of tannins which is like LSD for the tongue.  Makes you look like you know about wines when you drink this one. 
3. Cabernet sauvignon - Smooth, easy red wine. Good for first timer.  Great wine for steaks. Can be kinda peppery.  Makes you look like a non-snotty red wine drinker because everyone has heard of it.  
4. Malbec - yummy South American snottiness
5. Pinot Noir - dark delish French (the best anyway) goodness that is good with chocolate
6. Zinfandel - not a wine - skip this
7. Sagiovese - fantastic Italian - work up to this
8. Barbera - see wine #7

Whites: 

1. Chardonnay - Dry white wine. Popular with women. Will make you either look like a sophisticated woman or just a woman when drunk by a man. 
2. Sauvignon blanc - Dry white, but not as dry as Chardonnay. Herby taste but the awesome winemakers of South America like to mix goodies into this, like mango.  Makes you look like a smart white wine drinker. 
3. Pinot Grigio - little sweeter than the SB or C but still actually tastes like alcohol.  That is what we are going for here friends.  If you cannot taste the alcohol this defeats the purpose of drinking like a grown-up. 
4. Moscato - gas station wine
5. Riesling - fun German bubbly wine that is a tiny bit sweet but still dry and actually tastes like alcohol

As a side note, wine should be made out of fruit.  Nothing else. And if the fruit is not a grape, make sure that the wine tastes like alcohol.  Not Kool-Aid. Period.  

Step 6: Know your beers. Here are the major categories of beer: 

Ales and Lagers.  That’s pretty much it.  There are some sub categories, but like the wine, we need to start small. The difference boils down to this, Ale are heavier and heartier (think European beer) and Lagers are lighter and clearer (think American beer). One is really not better than the other, it just depends on what you are eating and what you are in the mood for.  And it should taste like beer. Not piss.  If you are choking it down, that is not beer.  Beer should taste hoppy and yummy.  AND it should probably cost about $8-$10 for a six pack of bottles. Seriously.  Wine does not always follow this rule, i.e. Two Buck Chuck at Trader Joe’s, but beer does.  If your beer purchase costs more than the groceries of the family of four ahead of you and you only have like two six packs, you have done well my friend.  

Side note: I have been informed by a good friend as I write this blog that apparently it is hipster ironic to “Drink PBR while driving a car worth over $20,000.” Well, not while driving, I don’t condone that, but being in possession of said car.  You know what I mean. 

Step 7: Know your liquors. Here are the major categories of liquor:

1. Vodka - Russian burny alcohol. Lot o’ burny. Good with OJ.
2. Gin - Old lady burny. Good with juice according to Snoop Dogg. 
3. Rum - Middle aged burny. Good with coke, even diet if you are trying to lie to yourself about the calorie content of your indulgence.
4. Tequila - Mexican burny.  Actually has legit taste with burny. Good stuff includes worms.  My favorite kind of burny.  Would make my life to shoot this with Michael Shanks.  (Well this or moonshine. Hey handsome, you ever had moonshine?)
5. Whiskey - Redneck burny. Strongest taste of all.  My brother’s kind of burny.  Add nothing to this drink kind of drink. 

There are many others, but this is a good start.  After all, I am only trying to teach you to drink, not to tend bar.  That might have to be another entry...

Step 8: Moonshine. Yes, shine gets is own step.  Thanks to reality television, most of you know what moonshine is and how it is made.  If you don’t, I suggest checking out this link: http://dsc.discovery.com/tv/moonshiners/ . (I really should get paid for this!!) Moonshine can come in many flavors, but my top three are a) Apple Pie, b) Sweet Tea and c) Peach.  Butterscotch is ok and I have had plain, watermelon and strawberry, but nothing beats those three.  I love moonshine so much that it is hard to be sarcastic in this posting.  I love moonshine more than Spanish wine, I just have to function the next morning so Spanish wine usually wins.  

Step 9: The tasting. Now, here is where I snob you up. Put away the beer pong cups, the printout of step 2 from above, anything you used before.  And, while you are at it, get your friends to bring over some food, good food, like expensive cheeses and crackers and sushi. Lay everything out on a spread for all to see and start drinking.  And TALK about what you drink.  This is NOT stupid. What is stupid is going into a business dinner at 35 years old and have no idea what to order. What is stupid is hosting a party where you buy a ton of beer, etc. and no one drinks it because it is so bad.  Like anything else in life you have to learn how to do this.  Do not get drunk! Are you listening to me or have you already starting drinking!?!? Dammit, why don’t you people ever listen to me once we pull out the booze!?!?! Quick - someone still reading start the coffee!!! 

Step 10: Oh, you’re still here? Can you still read? Try this: saodfgjnagnagn . Just kidding; that was a test.  Oh, I’m still here.  I will have my wine AFTER I finish writing the blog like I expected you to start drinking AFTER you read it.  Yes, there is a step ten and that step is, only drink with friends.  Not just the DD or take the keys issue but friends will clean up your puke and put you to bed.  Friends will not let you drunk call your ex.  Friends will make you stop internet stalking and tweeting your celeb crush. Friends make sure that you do not act like too much of an ass. 

And then record it.  

To put on YouTube. 

I hate you people...