1. According to this University of Florida study, alcohol-based gel sanitizers are considered adequate for a quick cleansing after coming into contact with a sick person, but not to replace washing hands thoroughly with soap and water. Ironically, they state that health care workers are recommended to use gels in between patients but food preparation workers are encouraged not to. I guess I can see the difference but we tend to think of doctors’ offices as uberclean and kitchens mildly less antiseptic.

2. Livestrong.com says that hand sanitizers are a good interim product as well, but cite the CDC (a pretty darn good source, I’d say) as saying that alcohol gels are not a replacement for hand washing, especially if there are foreign particles on the hands to interfere (such as dirt, food, etc.). This site also discusses the issues of bacterial immunity to hand sanitizers (aka there’s no proof for it) and other worries about their usage.

3. Even Purell’s own site dances around the issue of hand sanitizers’ usefulness. Read for yourself how every FAQ includes the reiteration that their product is not made to replace soap and water. And yet they guarantee that their product kills 99.9% of germs…hmmm…

4. This is the only site I’ve found that implies that using hand sanitizers actually makes the matter worse. In short, they say that it may actually aide bacterial growth on your skin, but that seems impossible. There is lots of concern that children constantly sanitized won’t develop proper immune systems, but not that hand sanitizers will make you dirtier…

Conclusion: It’s better than nothing and if it makes you feel better, use it. Make sure that your hand sanitizer has an alcohol base and be sure that your hands are completely dry before eating or putting your hands near your mouth or eyes (that’s some pretty concentrated alcohol and complications from children sucking their thumbs and such immediately after have been reported). But when you are ever near a bathroom, give your hands a good ol’ scrub if you’re worried about getting sick.

What do you think? Do you dole out the Purell, the Germ-X, or a similar product during cold and flu season or do you prefer to stick to soap and water?

No matter how many ribs are showing or how many fat rolls peek over the waistband of their jeans, girls can’t seem to get an accurate idea of their weight situation. We’ve all heard “Oh but I really need to lose weight!” or the ever-exasperating “But I must be fat! When I touch my toes my stomach makes a roll!” Girls (and some guys) always seem to think that weight needs to be lost in order for them to get “better”, “hotter”, or “sexier”. No matter what the mirror or scale says (or your doctor, diagnosing you with anorexia), weight always has to be lost because the mental picture is always “I’m fat”. But I don’t suffer from this. My fight with the mirror goes in the opposite direction.

Have you every heard the term “reverse anorexia”? Usually it’s used to describe men who are so obsessed with bodybuilding that they never think they’re big enough. Even if they can’t fit through the bathroom door anymore, they still see a puny stick figure in the mirror. But I’d like to propose an alternate meaning. In my case, reverse anorexia means that my picture of myself in my head is far thinner, healthier, and svelter than I actually am. I don’t look in the mirror expecting to see a fat person. I look in the mirror expecting to see a thin face with a sharp jaw, a defined collarbone, a flat and muscular stomach, tanned skin, long muscled legs and lean arms.

This is the body of years ago. It’s the body I identify myself with, the avatar i see in my head whenever I’m asked to define myself. So the reality is, increasingly, shocking. I’m startled when I can’t cross my legs. I’m disconcerted when the view of my toes slowly diminishes. I’m horrified when I hug my little brother and he says I’m choking him with my “extra skin”. When I pull on my fat pants (size 14) and still hang over them, I’m surprised. What happened to the girl in my head!?

Now here’s the kicker: I’m 18 years old. I’m not in my forties or fifties when metabolisms tend to slow down. I am a rising sophomore in college and already I have 30-50 lbs to lose to make my doctor happy. To make myself happy? Well, that remains to be seen. I just want my own body back.

Because that’s what it feels like. I feel like I’m living in another person’s body. I don’t identify with the lumpy, greasy, squishy image in the mirror. Unless I am in a particularly bad mood, I can’t imagine that this is me looking like this. I mean seriously, this isn’t me!How did this happen!?

Well, unfortunately–or perhaps fortunately, if you care to be optimistic–I know exactly how it happened. I started Tae Kwon Do in middle school and by the time that I quit in high school, I was working on my third degree black belt. As you can imagine, I couldn’t afford to get left behind and the material I was learning was mentally and physically tough. Being out of shape wasn’t an option, but it also wasn’t an issue. By that point, I was spending 5-6 days a week at the school working on my material. Strength training and aerobics were part of the fun. You couldn’t spar if you didn’t have endurance, and I loved to spar. You couldn’t do crazy kicks and punches without an inordinate amount of muscle and control. So I exercised and thought nothing of it. It was part of the sport I loved. I didn’t even notice that the reason I was a teenage girl with the abs of an Ab Cruncher worshipper was because of Tae Kwon Do, just that my abs allowed my to do Tae Kwon Do without much effort. But when I quit, I kept eating at the same level and cut almost all activity. I went from 160 lbs of straight muscle to 185 lbs of flab in a few months, but the image still persisted in my head of who I thought I was.

There are two ways I could look at this. On one hand, as long as I stay away from mirrors or scales I’ll never think I’m fat. But not only is this unrealistic, it’s unhealthy. The second is that my so-called reverse anorexia not only undermines my motivation to exercise but also means that my weight could get dangerously out of control before I really took notice. So while you may say “well I’d love to think I’m skinnier than I am!”, think again. This could be just as much of an issue as always thinking I’m fat.

Luckily I love food way too much to become anorexic and hate throwing up too much (you have no idea how much) to be bulimic. So I think I’ll just trot off and find myself some exercise to do, always keeping an eye on my food intake, the scale, and the measuring tape. And once my body is equivalent to the image in my head, I may even feel good about myself again. What an idea!

The iPhone 4 was just announced about an hour ago and already the uproar is incredible. It’s a completely new kind of iPhone, with features that will knock your socks off. For a really good summary of the new features, release dates, and prices, please visit this page. And for the best photos I’ve seen and a liveblog transcript please visit Engadget.

So the question ends up being this: is it worth the upgrade?

It all depends on your contract status and the state of your current iPhone. For example, I currently have an iPhone 3GS that is essentially new (I got a replacement from Apple under warranty for some damage) and I am only six months into my AT&T contract (aka NOT eligible for an upgrade at the moment). So no matter how much I want this new phone, it’s just not possible at the moment unless I care to shell out the big bucks (which I don’t). If you are eligible for an upgrade, however, (and please visit the link above for news on AT&T’s new and very generous upgrade timelines) it may be worth the $199-$299.

And here’s how you should go about it: Go to Gazelle.com and sell them your phone. For my brand new iPhone 3GS 16GB in perfect condition they offered me $226 (as of five minutes ago, but this WILL go down as we get closer to the iPhone 4 release). This will take a huge chunk of the cost off of your hands and if you are only getting a 16GB iPhone 4 you might even make some money off of your upgrade!

But if you’re not so sure you want to upgrade (or, if you’re like me and can’t at the moment), here are the pros and cons to help you make up your mind (or justify your decision):

Reasons to Upgrade to the iPhone 4

• Not expensive if your timing is right (see above)
• Cool new look
• Better camera
• Front-facing camera with chat
• Much better screen resolution
• Thinner
• Longer battery life

Reasons NOT to upgrade to the iPhone 4

• The iOS 4 operating system is where most of the cool features are, excluding the camera, and that will be available for free. It will have full compatibility with the iPhone 3GS and partial compatibility with the iPhone 3G and iPod Touch (excluding 1st generation touches).
• Some may not like the new design
• You can live without a screen resolution that is better than our eyes can recognize
• As of right now, the main two killer things the iPhone 4 has that the 3GS doesn’t are the front-facing camera for chatting and a better battery. If you’re honest with yourself, you can live with the 3GS battery (I have been quite happy for six month without an issue). And the front-facing camera is only good for chatting, which as of this moment only supports iPhone 4 to iPhone 4 chatting and NOT any other chat services such as Skype!!! This makes the camera much less cool, as you will most likely not have anyone to chat with even if you do get the new phone.

So all in all, my assessment is to wait a little while. Apple isn’t as crazy as others (RIM *coughcough*) about getting new devices out there lickity split so you’ll have some time before this new device is surpassed. That’s not to say that if I had everything line up neatly with my contract and such that I wouldn’t be the first to pounce, but I don’t feel a great sense of loss that it’s not the case at the moment.

So what do you think? Did I miss something? Are you going to get the new iPhone 4 when it comes out later this month and why/why not?

With Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference taking place June 7-11, tech-obsessed people like myself are getting cranked up. But unless you got a ticket, there’s no hope of seeing this conference live.

Apple is not going to be streaming the happenings live, so there is no way to legally (or illegally, unless you have a spy at the conference) to get your kicks in real time. There are, however, tech blogs that are sending reps to the conference who will supposedly be blogging details from the conference from the audience. This seems to be the closest that any of us will get to a live showing. Here are some of the blogs that will be there (thank you www.thegeekengineer.com for these names):

• iPhonealley
• TheAppleBlog
• MacRumours
• Engadget
• Technologizer
• Arctechnica
• Textviff
• Gizmodo
• live.gdgt.com
• Macobserver
• Ars Technica (my personal favorite; they have the option to set up a reminder that will be emailed to you when they’re ready to begin their live transcriptions and pictures blog. Find the info here: http://arstechnica.com/apple/news/2010/06/wwdc-keynote-steve-jobs-liveblog.ars)

Just Google up these blogs and get to readin’! The Keynote starting timing for the East coast is 1:00PM.

Thank you for your patience.

You’ve gotten into college. Congrats! But…now what? You’ve most likely got a while before you move into your dorm room. What should you do with all that time? I mean, you’re already in so why waste time with all this high school nonsense, right?

Wrong. Getting into a college and all the pain before it (getting your grades up, balancing a bazillion clubs, and all those painful applications) was the easy part. Seriously. Once you get your acceptance letters and send off your deposit it’s like you’ve hit the jackpot and can finally relax. And you can, for a little bit. But then the rest of the work needs to start.

Senior Year. A joke, right?

Actually, your senior year in high school can make or break your college experience. Your college will want mid- and end-of-year grade and disciplinary reports to determine wether or not you’re still the kind of student they want at their college. It isn’t unheard of for students to lose places at competitive universities because they screwed up senior year. Now, this doesn’t mean that you have to have a 4.0 at the end of high school. As long as you make an effort to pass all your classes and stay out of trouble, you should be fine. Be careful, though; if you were admitted into an honors college at a university, some require certain GPA’s to maintain membership, and your senior grades count towards that.

Also in senior year, you’ll want to contact the school and make sure all the paperwork, deposits, and signatures that are needed are sent in. You may also want to ask about orientations. Most schools have an orientation day, weekend, or even week during the school year or the following summer before you actually move onto campus. These events can be for students alone or students with their parents. Some are required and some are optional, but you usually have to register for either kind so get a jump start on that!

Otherwise, use your senior year to wrap up your high school experience. Thank teachers who have been a big impact on you, meet with your counselor to make sure you’re all set for graduation, and have fun with your friends!

The Summer Following Senior Year

This is the real crunch time. There are so many things that need to be done and they will vary from student to student. But here is a generalized list of things you need to take into consideration.

• Find your roommate. If you haven’t already, try to determine who your roommate for the coming year will be. Many colleges have matching processes of their own, but if you have a particular roommate in mind then you can request to be put together. There are no promises, but I’ve never heard of a mutual roommate request that has been denied (mind you I’m only two years into the college experience).
• Start to coordinate with your roommate. Who’s bringing what? If you’re bringing the TV and they’re bringing the rug, who gets to keep each when the year’s over? Should one of you buy a minifridge? Should you both chip in? Do you want to coordinate bedspreads and color schemes? I know that for girls this is one of the most exciting aspects of going away to college: the chance to express themselves through redecorating with their new living mate. As far as guys’ dorm rooms…well, let’s just say there’s a reason that they have a reputation of being messy, uncoordinated, and stinky…
• Keep up with the college’s requirements. I believe that most colleges give you a school email address upon admission. You need to check this frequently. Updates and official (and often time-sensitive) communications will be sent to you this way. These emails could be as casual as updates on school sports teams or as important as letting you know of missing paperwork. Keep up with it and you should be good.
• Start packing up. You need to start thinking about packing up your things pretty much right away. The process is much more difficult than just throwing things in a suitcase. This isn’t a trip to Disney World, it’s 9 months of living entirely away from home. I would recommend that when you get home from high school you start immediately. For my recommendations on packing and getting ready to go, please visit this post.
• Talk with your parents. There are things to be figured out between you and your parents. Who’s coming on move-in day? Who’s paying for your flight home next visit? Will they keep paying for phone bill? How much spending money do they want to give you (if any)? Are you expected to get a job and to send home grades? This conversation needn’t be as complicated as it may sound; your parents have probably been thinking about these things for far longer than you have and will have some things to share.
• Take time for your friends. As sad as it may sound, you’re most likely not going to see a whole lot of your friends once you head off to college. Hang out, get new email addresses and phone numbers if there’s been a change, and even get mailing addresses (the best gift I ever got from my friends was a hand-written letter). Have fun and stay out of trouble–you want your last summer to be amazing!
• Inform your parents and other family. Just like your friends will want to keep in touch, so will your family members (whether you like it or not). Send out updated addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, and even the time zone you’ll be in. You don’t want your aunt to check in on you at 2:00 in the morning when it’s noon where she is! Families also like to send care packages, so if your school has special care package programs or policies about packages then be sure to pass those along.
• Go to the doctor. Every school that I have heard of requires a pre-college physical and vaccination checks. In addition to regularly scheduled boosters that may be coming due, a common pre-college vaccination for meningitis is highly recommended. My school gave me an option to get it, but others require it. Even if it isn’t required, it’s a good investment into your health and is a very safe and effective vaccination. (Another thing regarding medical care is to check with your parents’ health insurance provider and see how long you’re covered–I’ve had friends who’ve run out of coverage in college and friends who are covered until they graduate.)

More things than this will pop up, and this process with be different for everyone. Don’t worry–schools are usually pretty good about giving you a list of things to get done before you get to them.

Real Life 101: Ten Things You Must Do After College

When searching for the college for you, there are a few things you need to consider before your fingers even hit the keyboard. And yes, most of you will be doing your searches online. The brochures you get in the mail are pretty and the letters you get are flattering, but most college and university websites are so detailed and informational that the cost and effort of physically visiting each and every choice seems silly. More on this later.

For now, here are the colleges that I will be using as examples in this post:

Sewanee: The University of the South

University of Georgia

Yale University

Georgia State University

Emory University

Before you head onto the world wide web to find a college for you, you need to consider the following things. Not just give them a passing thought, but really sit down and hash things out. Write the answers down so you can see what you think. Next to each thing (they’re coming, I promise) write how important that consideration is to you. You can use a number system to indicate categories of most importance to you, or you can simply write things like “must have”, “nice to have”, or “flexible”. This lets you know right away if a college is a fit for you. If you really seem to love a school down the road but you’re absolutely not willing to be within 100 miles of home, it’s a hint that the university may not be right for you. If your mind changes, don’t be afraid to change it. You will probably do a lot of waffling in this search, and with all the information you will be absorbing it will get worse before it gets better.

Now finally, the considerations:

1) Size

Colleges range in size from a couple hundred students to over fifty thousand. That’s right, over fifty thousand. For example, I applied to the University of the South, which fell into the couple hundred category, and the University of Georgia, whose bus system was second largest only to the statewide public transit system. That’s a big college.

This kind of consideration may not seem of any importance now, but when you get to UGA and are surrounded by a veritable city in its own right, you may feel lost and overwhelmed. But the opposite is true, as well. The reason I didn’t end up going to Sewanee (University of the South) was because I didn’t want to know everybody. I may not be a busybody, but with a total undergraduate population smaller than my high school graduating class, it wouldn’t be long until everyone was in everyone else’s business.

Another thing to take into consideration with large schools is the size of honors colleges or special majors. At UGA, the honors college was only a few thousand students, a more manageable number but still huge. I would be taking classes, living with, and hanging out with these people. But did I really want to restrict myself to that group? At other colleges, certain majors are grouped together (in housing, classes, and social circles). This is something you need to ask colleges and think long and hard about.

2) Location

Just like any kid experiencing teenage life at home, I wanted to get out of my parents’ house and as far away as possible. But as the time grew nearer and nearer to leaving, I realized that going to California (from Georgia) wasn’t exactly what I wanted. I wanted just enough separation that I didn’t run into my parents, but not so much that I couldn’t get home if I were to get sick or want to spend a few nights in my old bed. My solution was Emory University in Atlanta. Atlanta was far enough away from the suburb where my family lives to give me that sense of separation but only an hour’s drive for when I missed my Mommy. I can’t tell you how important to make location for you, but my recommendation is that you don’t cross a college off your list solely because of its proximity (or lack thereof) to home. You may surprise yourself and end up wanting to stay nearer or go farther than you originally thought.

Another consideration is international schools. American students tend to stay in the US of A for college, but we’re not the only country with good schools. It can be an amazing and eye-opening experience to go to college out-of-country (and cheaper, too). Since I have no experience with international schools, here are a few links to help you along if you’re interested:

CollegeAbroad.com

NYT Article “Going Off to College for Less (Passport Required)”

Smart Money Article “College Abroad Can Be Cheaper and Faster”

3) Campus Type

Just as important as where a college is located is the type of physical campus that it has. This determines the setting of your college experience and can determine where you live, what types of transportation you need, and how worried your mother needs to be about you. Here are some common types of campuses:

• Urban: City campuses. These are often integrated right into the city that they’re in with very little distinction between city and college. The campus buildings can be spaced out around the city or grouped together. They usually have little to no green space and often have the same amount of vehicle and people traffic as the rest of the city. Be careful when you look; many college campuses are commuter schools or require students to find their own housing due to space limitations when planting a campus in an existing city. The perfect example of an urban campus is Georgia State.
• Rural: These campuses are for nature lovers. The best example that I can think of is Sewanee, where there were something like 18 acres of land per student and the website was filled with pictures of mountain lakes and hiking trails. These are often far from cities and are very self contained. If you like to hit the clubs, these are not the colleges for you.
• Suburban: Somewhere in between urban and suburban.
• The confused ones: The only way I can explain these is to use the example of Emory. While the address places Emory smack dab in the middle of downtown Atlanta, you wouldn’t know it if you were on the campus. It’s a very lush campus with beautiful stone buildings and lots of green space, but take a short walk and you’re in the middle of the bustling ATL. Be on the lookout for colleges like this; they can be tricky to pin down.
• Online: These are college courses taken from the comfort of your own home. I won’t talk about those here, as the grand majority of undergraduate students will (and prefer to) go to a college with a campus. But in case you’re interested, here’s a link to an online college search site.

The websites won’t say outright which type they are, but you can usually get a pretty good feel for a campus by the pictures on the websites and the descriptions of transportation costs and living expenses. This is one area, though, where a personal visit cannot be beat. Beyond how pretty a campus is or isn’t, there’s a feel that can’t be translated into pixels. I’ll talk more about visits later.

4) Majors

If you have a major in mind, make sure the schools you’re looking at have it! And don’t stop there!!! If you’re a mathematics major, you need to go to the Mathematics department site and look at major tracks, class descriptions from previous years, and graduation requirements. Make sure you’ll be happy doing your work there!

And if you’re still undecided, don’t worry! If you have a general idea of the area you’re interested in you can still apply to colleges no problem. If you’re a technology lover, an institute of technology with a wide range of offerings might be best. If you don’t know a processor from a peanut, you might want to apply to a liberal arts school where you’ll have lots of non-sciency options. If you’re an indecisive artist, a school with a specialized art program or even an art school may be the best way to go.

And if your GPA and extracurriculars aren’t the best, don’t worry. There’s no shame in spending a year or two at the community college to get on your feet. But don’t use that as an excuse to laze your way through your higher education: these things pay out in the end what you put into them.

5) Cost and Financial Aid

It’s never fun to hear that you can’t go to that perfect college because you’re broke. But to avoid this heartbreak, there are a few steps you can take. First, talk with your parents about how college is going to be paid for. Are they paying? Are you paying? Is Aunt Petunia paying? Will it be paid up front or through loans? Who will hold the loans? And on and on. Luckily, students, your parents have probably been thinking about this for a few years, now, and they should be able to lead the conversation. If not, there are financial aid counselors available at almost every university and at some high schools.

Secondly, be sure to look at the estimated average cost of attendance for multiple years past and compare that to the estimated average financial aid package awarded. Look closely at whether or not your college allows state or federal aid, loans, grants, university-specific or outside scholarships. All this can help decide if that college will be a good fit.

Another thing you can keep in mind is that most schools (even if they don’t like to advertise it) have an appeals system where you can challenge the financial aid package that they give you. Don’t count on this in your final choices, however, because it’s often the case that appeals dead-end for one reason or another.

The Process

Now that you’ve got those considerations (and any others that come to mind), it’s time to actually start applying. Here are the steps:

1) Look at schools

You may have schools in mind or you might not have a clue as to where you want to go. No worries! You’ll inevitably start being bombarded with brochures and letters in the mail. While these aren’t very informative, keep them around. They could be useful in looking up colleges later. But our main focus will be internet searching. Hopefully writing down the considerations above (and any others you came up with) have prepared you for the prospective college student’s best tool: college search engines. College search sites are usually pretty good at matching students to schools based on often quite detailed parameters entered by the student. These will more than likely include a good number of the considerations above, so it’s a good thing you’ve got that list written down!

In the end, though, search engines are just computer programming. If you aren’t happy with the schools that are coming up, try loosening your parameters a little bit or using a different search site. Here a few of my personal favorites:

U.S. News and World Report

CollegeNET

CollegeBoard

2) Narrow your choices down to less than ten schools

I personally used the tier system. I picked five schools to apply to because I didn’t want to pay application fees. I picked one backup or third tier school (Georgia State), three schools that I would be happy to go to and fairly confident about getting into or second tier schools (Sewanee, UGA, and Emory), and then one reach school (Yale). If you separate your schools this way it will make your final decision smoother and your rejections easier (“Well I knew that Yale was a stretch from the beginning”). I wouldn’t suggest more than ten schools because of high application fees and the difficulty of your final decisions. If you narrow it down to less than ten, you’ve already done a large part of your final decision process. You should have the most second tier schools and then either one or two reach and backup schools.

3) Visit

If possible, try to arrange at least one guided tour and some time to wander at each of your final choices or to help you narrow things down to your final choices. You may want to visit again after you’ve received your admissions letters to help you in your final decision. This is really when you get a feel for the school. You can talk to students, sit in on classes, go to information sessions, and go on fact-filled guided tours.

4) Find and fill out the Admissions and Financial Aid applications

A lot of American universities now use The Common Application, which is an online college application that links up to over 150 colleges. If a university doesn’t use the Common App, a link to have a paper application sent to you or to their own online applications. Applications will want information such as test scores, GPA, any AP or honors (or any other upper level) classes and test scores, extracurricular information, and personal information. If you don’t have your social security number memorized yet, you surely will be the end of the application process!

***NOTE*** Be careful with admissions and financial aid deadlines because they are nonnegotiable. Also be wary of Early Decision and Early Action admissions. These are programs that get your decision to you faster, but they have earlier deadlines and they are often binding, meaning that if you are accepted you are required to withdraw all other applications and go to that school. Unless you’re 1000% sure that it’s the school of your dreams, I’d stay away. Not all Early Admissions programs are binding, so read the admissions website carefully.

5) Pay the fees

Most fees can be paid online, but mail-in checks are sometimes accepted. For those with exceptional financial need, fees can even be waived.

6) Wait for your letter or online decision

Some admissions decisions can be found online. At the time that your application goes through, the school will give you a website and a password to get into a site that will tell you your admissions status. In addition, most schools still send the traditional snail mail letters, some of which can be quite flashy.

There are three decisions you could get: acceptance, rejection, or wait listed. The first two are pretty clear, but the last can be tricky. It’s a no-man’s-land in the middle where you are placed on a list of “backups” that may or may not be taken to fill spots if the accepted students choose not to attend. I have known people who have waited on wait lists and gotten in and those who haven’t. You can do either, but be wary of admissions decision deadlines (explained later).

7) As soon as you’ve got your letters, apply for financial aid

Most US colleges take the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and many take the CSS PROFILE through the College Board. Check financial aid website carefully; they might need one, both, or additional forms.

Start making decisions

I can’t tell you how to do this one, but know that it has to be your decision alone. Not your parents’, not your boyfriend’s or best friend’s. Yours. You may want to wait until your financial aid decision comes back, if finances are important for you.

9) Send your admissions deposit to reserve your spot at the college or university of your choice!

This process is also done online or via mail-in check. These often have very specific deadlines so pay close attention. What a shame to get into the school of your dreams but miss out because you missed the deadline! You may want to save up for these deposits or warn your parents, as they are often multiple hundreds of dollars and constitute a deposit on housing, tuition, and fees.

You should also go through a process with the other colleges to let them know that you won’t be attending. This will avoid issues with their admissions offices and allow people on wait lists to have another chance. Most times a card is included with your paper letter or there is an online process to go through to tell colleges of your choice.

10) Celebrate!

And get a sweatshirt. Everyone has to have a college sweatshirt. It’s a must. Don’t upset the balance of the universe.

11) Do not get lazy senior year!

It’s oh-so tempting to slack off once you’re sure you’re into a college. But you are required by all colleges to send a midterm and final transcript and many colleges, especially selective ones, actually do look at them! And it’s not unheard of for them to take action against students with unsatisfactory finishing grades or a baker’s dozen in-school-suspensions.

In the end, the important thing is that you’re satisfied with your choice in college and that you start preparing for your college experience as soon as you know you’re in (see I Got In! College Timeline from Acceptance to Move-In Day)!

I’m experiencing what I like to call “the summer after syndrome”. There is no doubt that the transition from home life to one’s first year in college is tough. I experienced all the homesickness, insecurity, and general adaptation suffering. But what I didn’t expect as the year drew to a close and took a deep breath was the fact that I didn’t particularly want to go home.

Paul Armstrong, a college student finishing his first year, was interviewed by Collegebound.net about returning home. In the published article (found in full here: http://www.collegebound.net/content/article/going-away-to-college-is-it-for-you/228/), Paul comments that “You’ve become really close to your [school] friends — you all went through the same things right there in the trenches. Going home for the first time after going away to college is a big shock.”

But it’s more than a shock. It’s basically reversing your adjustment to college: from living on your own, holding to your own schedule, and letting the laundry pile up to sharing a house with others, following the schedule of whoever controls the car keys, and being forced to do chores once again. The people you’ve learned to live without, whether those people are parents or siblings or your crazy uncle Louie, are once again major players in your life. You’re finding time to spend with friends who may not still be the people you remember and your little brother (who most likely shot up by a yard or eight while you were gone) is spending less time tossing a ball around with you and more time swapping questionable amounts of bodily fluids with some girl.

So what can you do to help with this syndrome? Well, the easiest thing is to treat coming home for the summer just like you treated going away to college in the first place. You had to adjust to sharing a space with a roommate, to eating at different hours, and to finding things to do on campus. Now you’ll have to learn to keep your stuff to yourself at home, eat with the family (if your family does; mine does and I find it’s the best way to stay connected with them), and find places to go to have fun during the summer. If you’re cringing at the prospect of going through a rough transition every time you switch abodes, don’t worry. It will be significantly easier to fall back into one routine or the other than it was to create either of them.

Some things you should take into account:

• Your parents and siblings have gotten used to living with one less person to clean up after, cook for, and fight with over the bathroom. It will be just as much as an adjustment period for those already at home as it is for you. For  a smooth transition, talk about what your parents expect of your when you’re home and just generally try to avoid stepping on anyone’s toes.
• You most likely can’t stick to the same hours that you did at college. Wild partying at 3AM will most likely be frowned upon, as will sneaking in the window at 3AM after wild partying at 2AM. Just saying.
• You don’t have to try and revert to the person you were. If you’ve changed at college, you don’t have to try and be the person you were once you get back home. If you’ve lost your yearning to attempt every stupid stunt in the book, don’t feel pressured when you get home and all your old friends still want to go jump off the Golden Gate Bridge. Friends come and go, and if they don’t like you for who you’ve become then they aren’t worth hanging around.
• Give yourself something productive to do. To avoid getting into too much trouble, give yourself something involved to do. This could be reading that stack of books you’ve been unable to get to or volunteering or getting a job. Something to keep you off the streets and out of your parent’s hair (and out of range of their chore radar) will suffice.
• Enjoy your summer! What good is summer if you can’t enjoy it? Have some fun!

What do you find helps you get through the summer after adjustments?

For reference, I have three younger siblings from whom the majority of these statements come. The youngest is my brother, who shall be referred to as “D”. The next oldest is a sister, hereafter “A”. The eldest of my siblings is another sister, hereafter “K”. On to the hilarity!

1. “Mommy, I have a sore throat in my tummy!”

This was said by D, who had a stomachache. The only pain he could think of was that of a sore throat, which he then transferred to his upset stomache.

2. “Mom, I’m peeing through my bum!”

My sister, A, had a case of diarrhea and came running out of the bathroom exclaiming this wonderful phrase, not comprehending what was going on.

3. “Somebody threw up in my bed and it was NOT me.”

This is another phrase a la A, also having to do with less-than-solid rectal movements. We were at Disney World and she was 4. We had run her ragged, as only Disney World can do to a poor little 4 year old girl. She collapsed in bed and was so exhausted that she didn’t even feel her particularly disgusting bowel expulsions. She then awoke and freaked out, spitting out this wonder.

4. “What’s that old lady doing in that other old lady’s room?”

This beauty came from D. One of my grandmothers had spent a long visit and had slept in our guest room. Not long after she left, my other grandmother came to visit. Young D had associated the room with the first “old lady” and was visibly distraught when the second “old lady” took over!

5. “Betty!”

Nobody in my family is named Betty. Not even close. No Beths, or Bens, or Barrys. So imagine my confusion when my young brother kept referring to A as Betty. My parents kept pointing to me, asking “Do you mean Becky?” and D would be quite adamant that A was Betty. He has no recollection of it now, but it was a source of confusion for years.

6. “We’re being bombaded by the British!!!”

This is another D-ism. We were at Disney World (you’ll find we’re there a lot as it’s only the best place in the entire universe. But anyway…) and there were fireworks off in the distance. D was old enough to have heard “The British are coming!” and chose to adapt that phrase in his own particularly confused manner. Once we figured out what he meant, we all had a good laugh.

7. “Get the defectant!”

This exclamation, yet another D-ism, happened on the same night as #6. One of my sisters had just…erm…”passed wind” and D shouted out this jewel, clearly meaning “Get the disinfectant” and not “Get the spray that makes people defect from their posts”.

8. The armpit of my knee

A curiously commonsensical reference to the back of one’s knee. Isn’t it strange how these things can sometimes make so much sense? This is yet ANOTHER D classic.

9. Give you a touche

My uncle was visiting and D and K were drawing pictures. D decided to draw a picture of my uncle and upon unsatisfactorily completing his portrait he asked permission to give my uncle a touche. After much confusion and frustration on D’s part, we finally understood that he meant “mustache” only after he stuck his finger under his nose and yelled “a touche!!”. Oh, yeah. One of those…

10. Evil Daddy?

Finally, we get back to a remembery that isn’t from D! This one comes from A and was from when she was barely able to toddle around. When our dad would come and go, or A would come and go, she would always ask “Evil daddy?” with the sweetest little innocent face. Which of course freaked the living daylights out of dear ol’ Dad. Finally we ascertained that she meant to ask “even Daddy?” as in “even Daddy’s coming with us?”. Bullet dodged, Daddy dearest!

11. Food confusion

I’m sure all kids do this, but we seem to have issues with foods. For the longest time, K couldn’t keep tomatoes and potatoes straight. I was determined to call milk “juice”. And D would call any meat chicken. And you know what? One of us still does this, but that’s for me, myself, and I to know and you are not privy to that family secret (it’s D *cough*)…

Do you have any funny stories like this? Don’t be shy; share!

Last night I fixed my computer’s many issues. I started Skype to see if it would work (because it hadn’t been…TMI, I know, moving on) and the first chat conversation that loaded was one from none other than my ex. Joy of joys. Our breakup was exactly what I wanted to be reminded of after a long night of fighting with drivers and downloads and reboots. We hadn’t had a particularly messy breakup and I was the initiator, but it was still a confusing and painful process that I thought I had begun to get over.

So now that my mood was completely soured and I couldn’t even enjoy the fact that I had conquered the evil computer, I decided to call it a night and went to bed. There I lay, thoughts spinning like a cyclone and settling all too painfully on my ex, when I finally (and out loud, which is odd for me) prayed that God would give me a definitive sign: did I want to go back or did I make the right decision breaking up and was I going to be okay?

Well, I fell asleep soon after and had the strangest dream. (NOTE: This dream is as strange as I said. Please, no judging. You all know you’ve had weird dreams…) I was sitting in a school auditorium or lecture hall and a friend was sitting next to me. My ex was sitting behind me and another friend beside him. We shall call my ex “K” and call that friend “F”.

Not long into the dream, the doors of the auditorium burst open and a crowd of people rushed through. In that certainty that only dreams can bring, I knew that they meant harm. One threatened to shoot F and I tried to knock the gun away. The bullet missed F but hit K in the neck. Panicked, I jumped over the seat and started to apply pressure. A frantic “I love you please don’t die!” slipped from my lips and K looked at me with all the composure in the world and said “No. You don’t love me, you’re just saying that because I’m dying”. He then proceeded to give me a beautiful speech about how I could let go, that everything was going to be okay, and that I could let him die. He wasn’t angry with me and everything was going to turn out right in the end. And then he died under my hands.

The dream kept going from then on but the rest isn’t important. What’s important is that I woke up with tears streaming down my face and a strange feeling of release, like I was somehow lighter. Was it a message  from God? I’d like to think so. Did it scare the H-E-double-hockey-sticks out of me? H-E-double-hockey-sticks YES! Is my battle with my emotions over? Probably not. Do I subconsciously want my ex to die in my arms? Definitely NOT.

But for the moment, I like to think that God answered my prayer in a time of real need and took a little of my suffering away.

So what do you think? Do you have a prayer story to share? Feel free to comment!