Confessions of a College Shopaholic

I began my training at a very young age. But not for any sport or even dancing, I was trained as a thrifty shopper before I could walk. Now you must be thinking, "What's so difficult about shopping? You pick something out and pay? Right?" So wrong! So much goes into shopping that most people never think of!

Rule #1: Never pay full price! Sales are God's gift to a shopper and used right it's possible to save more than you spend. I have a saying, "If it's not half off it's not on sale." Also, don't go into a sale blindly! Make sure what you are buying says clearance and isn't just in the clearance section. Nothing is worse than thinking that adorable new scarf you thought was sixty precent off and it turns out to be full price!

Rule #2: Shopping carts are your best friends! They store your items until you are ready to pay, hold your children so they don't get lost, and make you move at much faster pace. But the best use of a shopping cart is as a battering ram! Use it to block off other shoppers from the area you are in or to push a slower shopper out of the way. You haven't lived until you've experienced a cart joust!

Rule #3: It doesn't matter who saw it first as long as your the first to get your hands on it! This rule tends to apply to big shopping days like Black Friday and the day after Christmas. These shopping holidays become a sporting event to the best shoppers. Days start at four a.m. and last until about three p.m. You do not take these days lightly, an unexperienced shopper can be seriously injured in a shopping mob. This means you take care of yourself, get your hands on what you want, and get out!

Follow these rules and you to can learn to shop like a pro! That is when you have money... and if your like me... you won't.

5 more minutes!

I remember back in elementary school i hated taking naps. I used to think "I'm a big kid! I don't need to take a nap!" Well now, I'm in college and all I can think is "I'm a big kid! I NEED A NAP!!!!!!!!!" I love sleep! I would do it all day if I didn't have to go to class, be social, or have a life. But I am now at a point in my life where, as a student, I have to give up one of my favorite things and I'm not very happy about it. It's not just about not being able to take naps. You know that old saying - Early to bed, Early to rise makes a man healthy wealthy and wise. Well I came up with a new one - Late to bed, Early to rise makes a person a college student. I'm lucky if I can get to sleep before two in the morning and then I have to be up so early in the morning for my classes. I even try to get to sleep before but end up just tossing and turning in that horrible half-asleep stage until I can finally let go! It's not fun!!! That's why I'm always so tired!

That is why the weekend is so Important! Sleeping in one weekends is god's gift to humanity! Some Saturdays I go into legal comas, sleeping for more than eighteen hours at a time and man do I feel great afterward. But then there is the greatest enemy of sleep, the alarm clock! I'm in love with my bed, but my alarm clock won't let us be together! I know that personally I threaten to kill my alarm clock every time it goes off, and I hit snooze a lot so it happens quite often.

I would give anything to get just a bit more sleep in my life, even if it was just a few more minutes. Hey wait, I have a few minutes before my next class! Nap, here I come!!!

LIVE FROM NEW YORK, IT'S SATURDAY NIGHT!

I know. I know. With the loss of veteran cast members, Saturday Night Live has gone WAY down hill. In my opinion, the loss of Tina Fey and Amy Poehler was a huge blow to the show. The writing is not nearly as good, and frankly, it's not that funny. I'm not necessarily a die hard fan of the show, but I certainly watch it and quote it more than most.

I'm a huge Kristen Wiig fan. I dressed up as one of her characters, Gilly, for halloween ("Sorry!"). I'm not ashamed. Literally, every character she does is funny to me. Target Lady -- also, equally fabulous.

This is one of my absolute, all time favorites:



Andy Samberg. Amazing. Enough said.

Sometimes, I think the fact that the majority of the show is sub-par, makes the really good skits stick out.

Recently, Jane Lynch hosted. It was easily one of the funniest episodes I've seen in a while.
And this is one of the reasons why:



laugh away.

I'll stick by SNL for a while. No matter how crappy it gets.

Hello… My name is Mara and I’m addicted to Facebook.

sickfacebook.com

I created my facebook account almost five years ago and I never looked back. I am a self-admitted facebook addict! More than 500 million people have a facebook and I am one of the 175 million people that check their page daily. (TechCrunch.com) I can’t go an entire day without checking my profile and my feed. And why not be addicted? I am able to connect with hundreds of people at the click of a button, post a funny video, or take care of my virtual pet all in one place.

I had never questioned my devotion to the Holy Grail of social connections until just a few weeks ago when I saw the movie “The Social Network.” It is a really good movie if you haven’t seen it but once I knew the struggle that went into making this worldwide phenomenon I started thinking about how different the world would have been if facebook had never been made.

1. I defiantly wouldn’t spend as much time on the computer. I would have to read a book, do homework, or interact with people face to face! (gasp!)
2. My contact list on my phone would be overflowing. We would need to talk or text in order to contact people instead of just facebooking them.
3. None of our virtual worlds would exist! No petville, yoville, farmville, or other community games.
4. No one would remember anyone’s birthday. I need that notification or I feel horrible for forgetting.
5. Facebook creeping wouldn’t exist. We would actually have to ask people what we wanted to know about them instead of just creeping on their profile!
The list could go on and on.



I know that I’m focusing on facebook but my argument can be applied to other social networking sites as well. Yes myspace came before facebook (facebook is better) but myspace has become the place to find out info on the latest music. Twitter lets you post anything from “Going to Wal-mart to buy stuff! Hit me up later” to “To be, or not to be--that is the question: Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune or to take arms against a sea of troubles and by opposing end them. To die, to sleep-- No more.” As well as granting or taking away fame. And who can leave out search engines! Yahoo and Google save my life when I’m writing a paper and am too lazy to spend time trying to find research. Within seconds you have 500,000 possible sources!



I am an addict and I need my fix! If that means spending 7-8 hours a day with my page open in front of so be it!!! I’d much rather live in a world where I was addicted to facebook then a world where it didn’t exist. Yes, it distracts us from work we need to get done. Yes there are pointless and mindless games we can’t stop playing. Yes we can creep or be creeped on. But I wouldn’t have it any other way!