Stumpy

Just as in high school, college comes with a lot of projects. The variety of the projects ranges depending on your professor. Lindz came back from class one day with an assignment: wear a sock over her hand for 24 hours and write a paper about her experience. In explanation of this, the class was an English class in which they were reading a book about a man who had his hand amputated during the war. KTSue heard of this assignment and decided to keep her company. Can't be that hard, right? Wrong! The littlest things now seemed impossible. We get ready to leave for dinner and both put jackets on (it is October after all). Hold one side of the jacket with one hand and zip it up with the other...oh wait. Lindz and KTSue stand on the front lawn of the house for 5 solid minutes, each using their good hand to help the other zip their jacket up. The jackets did not get unzipped again until after we were safely back at the house after dinner. Homework that night turned into a fiasco. A friend asked us to edit his paper for him, due the next morning. In the process of this, we ended up having to retype the entire paper to help him get it done in time. Have you ever tried properly typing (ya know, the home row thing they mentioned in like junior high? yeah, that) with one hand? Doesn't work out so well. By the time we were a quarter of the way thru the paper, KTSue had ripped the sock off (wasn't her assignment anyway) and halfway thru the paper, Lindz looks at her "stump", yells "That's it Stumpy! Ya ru'ned it! I'm cuttin' ya off!", and follows suit. Lessons from this: some projects are not as simple as they seem, teamwork is key, and having a stump for a hand SUCKS! Thanks and love!

Furniture Fiascos

A dorm room comes with standard furniture: beds, desks, dresser, chairs, maybe a few extra pieces. The key to maximizing the space in your room is arrangement. Some schools are kind enough to leave a booklet of ideas. We weren't so lucky, so we got creative. This involved a lot of heavy lifting, a lot of cursing, and eventually a working room. A few pointers: be sure to have plenty of pins for the furniture before stacking, have a plan before executing, and most importantly...watch the fingers! Once you get everything situated, remember to use it with some intelligence. We had several incidents with the chairs in particular. UF has 2 types of desk chairs: those that can lean back (which we had freshman year) and those that can't lean. More than once, we would be leaning back, but thought we weren't. You can see where this is going...to the floor. One time in particular, a friend was kneeling on the chair with her knees going thru the back and she leaned too far. We had to pry her from the chair before she could get up. As an added note, it was not fun going from those chairs to the ones that don't lean, for the next year. :) Another key piece of advice: tables are not for sitting. Late one night, our RA was sitting on the table with her feet on the chair, sticking thru the back. The chair tips, she falls to the floor with her feet caught, there's a trip to the ER, and she spends the next week or so on crutches with a bruised foot. Needless to say, no one sat on the table after that. Thanks and love! Happy New Year everyone!

Make Technology Your Betch

Computers are a wonderful thing. In college, you must have access to a computer. There's no way around it. There are papers to be typed, powerpoints to be made, and online homework to be completed. Of course, there are other, less academic, uses of computers. You can use them to keep in touch with friends and family and for cheap entertainment. We have a few points to make with this blog. First, if you don't have a facebook, you will get one. They are great for talking to friends from home and staying up-to-date with the breakups and the makeups, the weekend plans and final exams. It's also great for curing boredom. It was for this reason that we created a new pastime: facebook fights. KTSue and Lindz were sitting around late one night with nothing to do, so KTSue wrote on a friend's wall saying that Lindz shouldn't be the only one writing on his wall. Of course Lindz had to rebutle. This started a 20-post fight back and forth until we finally decided that we had riddled his wall with enough yelling. One important thing to remember, when initiating a facebook fight, choose your opponent carefully. It only works if the argument is convincing, but be certain you both know the other is joking the whole time. Another use for computers is to communicate across the room without letting anyone else know what you're saying. Yahoo IM or AIM are great for this purpose. Whether you are 6ft or 6mi apart, you can have an entire conversations without the risk of eavesdropping. Thanks and love!

College mornings

Upon entering college, one thing you generally look forward to is the ability to choose, for the most part, when your classes are. This is more crucial than you might think. This decides your fate for the next several months. The first, and most important, piece of advice to know: avoid 7:40 and 8am classes at all costs! Unless you are one of the select few "morning people", you will spend half of the semester getting to class late because you overslept and the other half sleeping in class. Lindz and KTSue personally discovered this during two different semesters, not by choice. Our first semester at UF, we were both registered for calculus at 7:40am. We had a system that worked for the most part. Both of us had alarms set and whoever was up would make sure the other was awake. We lasted until October before we were both fed up with the class and the prof. Calc the following semester was much better. Our second encounter with the early morning light was the fall semester of our second year. Religion at 8am. We had gotten used to how the mornings go, so that semester went much more smoothly. This brings us to our second point: know the travel times to your classes. We had the morning down to an art: first alarm at 7, second alarm at 7:30, out of bed at 7:35 with enough time to get dressed, brush teeth, and get to class on time. Just remember to take off your slippers BEFORE getting halfway to class (KTSue learned this the hard way :) )*Note: it certainly helps having a small campus such as UF. Thanks and love!

Beggar's night

What is the one night a year kids have permission to stay out after dark, go door-to-door, and demand candy from strangers? Yup, halloween. October 31st. Though, if you've been trick-or-treating lately or know someone how has, you will know that Beggar's night is not, in fact, on Halloween. It's a few days before. We learned this the hard way freshman year. We look out the window and suddenly see small children running from one door to the next. Crap! We soon realized that it was Beggar's night and the only thing we had in the house that we could possibly hand out were peanuts. Although as Alisha said "do you realize how many kids you can please with just one nut?" Needless to say, we weren't pleasing any children with nuts. (Please ignore the pun.) After running quickly to the nearest Walmart and grabbing a bag of candy, we took blankets, the bowl of candy, and music out to the front stoop to wait for the children. In the process of sitting outside for an hour and a half, freezing our toes off, we had a total of...wait for it...4 kids. Woah, dream big! We were eating candy for the rest of the semester. Lesson of the night: find out when Beggar's night is BEFORE that night and a handful of peanuts does not count as a treat. Thanks and love!

Superhalloween

In honor of Halloween this weekend, we will pull from our holiday bank of freshman year. In order to fully appreciate this blog, there is one piece of info you must know. Ktsue is absolutely terrified of horror movies. Point blank. Now, picture this, it's the weekend and you're looking for something to do. Movies are always an option. Superbad was in theaters at the time. So everyone in the house piles in the car and heads to the movies. While standing in line, Steph turns to Ktsue and says "make sure you say 'Halloween' when you get up there". Yea... So, Ktsue was stuck sitting thru Halloween, hands over her eyes for half the movie. The result of this? That night, Ktsue checks her closet before going to bed and makes Lindz sleep on the empty top bunk. To this day, she cannot see his face or hear the music without "having a minor stroke" as Lindz puts it. Thanks and love!

Mattress Surfing

So, you're bored on Friday night and don't feel like getting all gussied up to go out. What do you do? Well, living in a two-story house has its advantages. One of these is what we like to call "mattress surfing". The width of your stairs will determine whether you can actually surf or not. In our case, two mattresses fit end to end snuggly, so it turned into more of a mattress slide. Now, before jumping up and pulling your mattress off your bed, please be sure to check the landing surface at the end of your stairs. At our house, it was the front door. This can result in broken arms and faces. Luckily, no serious injuries were the result of this endeavor. Just pile as many pillows and blankets at the end of your mattresses to cushion the fall. If needed take one blanket to cover the pile and use duct tape to secure it to the wall, so you won't have to repile them every time you slide down. For a faster ride, sit on a blanket or plastic bag and enjoy the wind in your face. Just don't blame us if your face goes thru the wall. The hardest part of this scenario is getting back up the slide. This is how you build up your arm muscles. Place feet firmly at the bottom of the slide and grip handrail with both hands. Use the hand-over-hand method to climb the matresses until you reach the top. Just hope that the handrail is secured into the wall. If needed you can utilize the crack between the matresses as a step. Thanks and love. *Disclaimer: we are not responsible for any damages and/or injuries sustained as a result of this blog.