Paint the walls by number

Dorm rooms: a blank canvas, as far as decorating goes. Generally, your room will have plain eggshell white walls (blech!) Little touches get added here and there thruout the year to make it feel more like home. Of course, in doing this, you're gonna have to find something to stick it to the wall that won't end up in fines later. Cuz, what kind of college kid can afford fines? So you start making a mental list of things you could use. Tape? No. Sticky tack? You try it, and it fails. Command strips? There's an idea. They work all the time on tv, so they've got to work, right? Sure, let's go with that. You hang up your small, not-all-that-heavy whiteboard on the wall and next thing you know, the board's on the floor and there's a huge chip of paint still attached to it. Crap. Well, when you have your RA living with you, it's muy importante that she does not find out. Our method worked pretty well. First, get the paint chip, if you can, and tape it back on the wall. Next, convienently place post-its on this portion of the wall with "things to remember" on them. This is a temporary solution. The final step is to hope your RA is working on a paint-by-numbers in the kitchen. Included in this kit should be an assortment of white, cream, and tan paints. Remove the taped-on paint chip and mix a combo of just enough paint to repaint the spot, but not enough that your RA will notice any paint was used. If you do the job right, your RA won't notice a thing and you'll avoid those pesky fines at the end of the year. Thanks and love.

Snowball fights

So you're sitting in your house/dorm at 1am, tired of studying, but not quite tired enough to go to sleep yet. So what do you do? Well, if you live in Ohio, you'll probably have snow on the ground from about November to March. Our RA came back, slightly tipsy, ran upstairs and insisted we have a snowball fight. Why not? Nothing better to do, right? Not bothering to put shoes on, we ran out into the parking lot behind the house and started the classic snowball fight. About 15min later, fingers and toes about to fall off, we trudged back into the house. No sooner had we warmed up, Cait, in a panic, comes in saying she can't find her ring. So back into the cold we went, flashlights in hand, looking for a small silver ring in a parking lot full of snow. Needless to say, we weren't successful. We gave up after about 15min. Lesson of the day: Snowball fights at 1am barefoot are more fun, but do NOT wear rings. Thanks and love!

Drivethru dilemma

So, we've all had those days when we're sitting in the drivethru waiting for the endless line to proceed to get your food. While you're waiting, you dig thru the seats to find the change to pay for your order. Normally, when paying in change, you hand the worker a random assortment of quarters, dimes, nickels, and pennies. If they're lucky, they may get the rare dollar bill. There are the rare occasions, however, that the poor person on the other side of the window gets a handful of only pennies. If you're thinking ahead, like we were on this night, you will look around the house to find something to contain the change. A ziploc works wonders in this situation. In our case, tho, we did not have a single ziploc in the house. So, what do you do in this dilemma? Well, if you're in a chemistry lab that semester, you've got to have disposable gloves laying around the house/dorm. Just grab one and dump your change in it. Not only will you ease the job of the worker trying to catch all the coins, you may make their day. In the words of the person taking our change, "that is the most random thing I've ever seen". Thanks and love.

The Barn

Any UF student in the pre-vet program will be out at the barn for several classes throughout their college career. You will learn quickly that these classes tend to be at the worst time of the day. For most of the students, the class is planned just perfectly that you get back from the barn about 10min before you have to leave for your next class. While fellow pre-vet and equestrian students understand, those not in the program do not appreciate the smell for some reason. They may even wrinkle their nose at you (the nerve!). In response to this, you must come up with a list of quick and easy ways to lessen or neutralize the barn smell. A simple and obvious step is to change clothes. While this gets a lot of the smell out, you'll find it is still on you, especially your hair. Simple math: the longer your hair, the more area the smell has to cling to. Sprays help to lessen the smell to a point, but a lot of the times it only creates an...interesting...mixture. One of the fastest and simplest tips is to pull your hair back. Not only will you personally not have to smell it as much, the confinement of your hair will reduce the wafting of the stench to your neighbor. As far as clothing goes, you WILL get stains on them. It is inevitable. You obviously don't want to wear clothes you ever want to wear in public again. Coveralls or overalls are the best solution. Something you can wear over old clothes and throw in the trunk of your car. (PS- this also helps reduce the smell in your car.) If you must wear other clothing, a standard washer will get a lot of stains out. Blood is a particular hassle. Hydrogen peroxide does a pretty good job getting bloodstains out of clothing, but be sure to test it on an inconspicuous place on the clothing before spraying or dabbing on a large stain. Thanks and love.

Single Stall Showers

If you've seen a single stall shower you may have an idea that they might be a problem, if you've ever showered in a single stall shower you suspect they could be a problem, and if you've ever tried to shave your legs in a single stall shower you KNOW you have a problem!! The thing about single stall showers is...they are everywhere on a campus, in the houses and in the dorms...You can't escape them!! When we lived in our house freshman year we were appalled by the size of the showers...and that there were two in the small bathroom that was on the first floor of the house. They are barley wide enough for you to stand elbows out in and if your claustrophobic...your shit out of luck! The worst thing about these showers is....you have to be a contortionist to properly shave your legs! Ladies you know what i'm talking about, holding your leg up in the air while trying to balance on the other just so you can avoid bending over and pressing your butt against the wall of the shower because let's face it...you just met these girls...lord knows where there butts have been!! So Caitlin, more than all of us, knows the harsh reality of shaving in a tiny shower. That girl either cracked her head on the metal door handle, which cut her forehead open at least once, or sliced her leg open every single time she showered. She had this gnarly looking scab/scar on her knee most of the first semester here! The positive of this...you've been warned...start practicing now before you have to shave in that tiny shower. You can practice "dry shaving" also known as shaving you legs in the sink...yes we did this last year when we had what looked like a kitchen sink in our "private" bathroom...no toilet just a sink! You can also start taking yoga or just coming to the realization that it will take you a few months to get used to the new conditions and you may have to live with spotty legs or slight cuts.

The other thing you need to know about single stall showers is that when you get bored they can become sources of free entertainment and possible records for the Guinness Book. We would know...we got bored and thought it might be a good idea to see how many of us could fit into that tiny shower that had caused us so much pain and suffering. Six, that's how many girls you can fit in a single stall shower. We were crammed in there like sardines, as the girls piled out Caitlin and Lindz were left when Cait accidentally turned on the shower. It was a disaster...Lindz was wet, so was Cait...but it was fun! We suggest you try to squeeze as many people as you can into the smallest thing you've ever seen...it's worth the laugh and you may win some sort of award!!!

Thanks & Love

Box Turtle

In the spirit of Box City tomorrow, we feel it is appropriate to share this one with you. For those of you who don't attend UF, Box City is an event run by Habitat for Humanity Campus Chapter in which teams build houses out of cardboard boxes and sleep in them overnight to get a new appreciation for how difficult it would be to live on the streets. Without even considering the theme, Caitlin suggested we should do a turtle. You'll learn from these posts that in most cases, we don't do anything half-assed. It's all or nothing. This was one of those cases. By the end of the day, the body of the turtle was roughly the size of an above ground circular pool, but only about three feet high, with the head, feet, and tail extending beyond that. One of the regulations of Box City is that no part of your creation can be on the grass. Only once we put the feet on did we notice that we had broken this rule. The three of us, plus three others had to pick up the turtle and move it roughly five feet forward. This was obviously easier said than done, but we did it. Upon completion of Squirt, we grabbed as many blankets from the house as we could. In order to be eligible for the prizes in the morning, two people needed to be in the box at all times, from eleven that night until seven the next morning. When we came back with our supplies, we discovered someone must have tried to break into our home and in doing so sent poor Squirt's head rollin'. Now you have to imagine this turtle's head, if his body was huge so was his head we were able to crawl in and out of...so needless to say Squirt was eating us repeatedly. It was an easy fix though. After the first hour, we found out just how cold and dark it was inside the box turtle. Caitlin and KTSue made a run to WalMart for taplights so that we were able to see what the heck we were doin'. We came back out to the car, only to find that the battery had died. As Lindz and Skylar were in the box at the time, they couldn't leave to come help us. We ended up having to call a friend, who had gone home sick earlier in the evening. We couldn't get the jumper cables to work properly so we left the car in the WalMart parking lot to deal with it in the daylight. Now, when we first settled into our respective places in the large area we were all near each other, but had our own bubbles. Not even 30min after laying there we realized how cold it was, and Caitlin popped up having to pee (go figure). So she went to the building that was supposed to be open ALL NIGHT, but as quickly as she left she was back doing, what, you may ask?...the pee pee dance, because the building was locked, every last one of the doors. So Cait and Lindz proceeded to run all the way back to the house across campus so that Cait could pee, they bundled up and came back. It wasn't till morning that we realized Skylar lived in a dorm closer to where we were (yes, by the time you're doing the pee pee dance, all logical solutions go out the door. All you know is you gotta pee and you gotta do it NOW). As you can imagine, the box was freezing overnight, only moreso. By the time they came to wake us up in the morning, everyone was huddled in a giant pile in the center of the box...spooning and still shivering. Point of this story: after all this turmoil, we didn't even get a freakin' prize! Needless to say, we were a bit disappointed. Scratch that, we were pissed! Thanks and love.

The Wax

Ever use your lamp as a candle warmer? Ever have it tip over and spill wax all over your floor? Well, we did. This may not seem to be a big problem, but when you have your RA living with you, it tends to be an issue of secrecy. KTSue poked her head into Lindz' room to see what was up. During the conversation, an unknown force swept across the room, tipping the light. Before we knew it, candlewax had dumped all over the floor. And it wasn't just a little bit of wax, you know those Yankee Candles? Imagine one of those. Shock turned to panic as Lindz' fav words became "holy shit!". So if you find yourself in the above mentioned situation, first things first...shut the door! You don't want your RA finding out, do ya? (According to Cait, "she'll fine ur ass out the butt!") :) Second, hop on google. In doing so you will discover the best way to remove wax from carpet is: allow to dry, use student i.d. card or another form of i.d. to scrape excess wax off carpet. Next, obtain a brown paper bag or any towel you don't want to ever use again and place over stained carpet. You better hope your mamma packed you that iron cause your gonna need it. Now if you do not have one go to your nearest Wal-Mart, Black & Decker portable iron $20. Iron over top of towel and or bag allowing the wax to be soaked up. Step 3, pray to god your RA doesnt see whats left of that tiny stain. Final step, feel quite confident that you got all but a tiny spot of wax outta the carpet and did not get fined out the ass. P.S. This whole situation could have been avoided if the R.A. would have informed us that we were allowed to have candle warmers in our rooms. Just as a note...ask your R.A. what is and is not allowed....also note if it's not allowed there are ways around it!! Thanks & Love