Frat party. Bar. Frat Party. Bar. By midterms, the same-old routines are starting to get played out. Sick of chugging watered down beers, shoulder-to-shoulder in a too-loud, too-packed college bar? Have you gotten so good at beer pong it doesn’t even feel like a game anymore? Here are some sure-fire ways to put the sizzle back into your Saturday. Just don’t forget your cameras!

1. Check out a Concert
No, I’m not suggesting you sit on Ticketmaster for hours to pay hundreds of dollars to see Fall Out Boy. Check out a band you’ve never heard of. Scour the web for open mic nights and underground punk shows. You might end up catching the next big thing to hit MTV. If there’s a venue nearby that’s known for being a breeding ground for legendary rockers, join their mailing list. Otherwise, check out sites like Underground Hip Hop Dot Com or Open Mikes to find some decent music at a cheap price. Stuck on campus without a car? See if your school sponsors its own concert series, open mic’s or talent shows, and hit ‘em up, son.

2. Pee Your Pants (Not Literally)
Underground concerts too loud for you? Hit up a comedy club or try to catch an improv troupe in your area. Comedy shows run fairly cheap, and you can bust a gut without waking up with your ears ringing in the morning. Sites like The Improv list venues in several different cities, or you can Google “improv” and the name of your town to see if there’s anything nearby. Did you know that tons of Saturday Night Live regulars got their start at improv clubs like LA’s infamous Groundlings? Or that comic messiahs like Adam Sandler used to tour college campuses before making it big?

3. Take Center Stage
My personal life motto? You haven’t lived until you’ve Karaoke’d. Find a local dive bar that hosts karaoke, and hit it up. You don’t have to worry about being embarrassed in front of townies who are doing renditions of the Dixie Chicks and Metallica, and if you can force yourself onstage without boozing it up, you really won’t have to pay anything for a kick-ass good time. Karaoke in the states is at an all-time high, so there’s bound to be someplace nearby that will let you croon “Total Eclipse of the Heart.” Read More »

[College kids are notorious for being poor. And why shouldn’t we be? We take out student loans to pay for private universities, can barely balance a part-time job with our full-time courseload, and the only “balance” we’re familiar with refers to the number of points left on our dining hall cards. Oh, did I mention many of us tend to splurge every extra penny on PBR’s at the campus bar?

If you disagree with everything I just said, you probably don’t need this column. But if you’re nodding along because you’re officially an adult and still don’t know how to manage your money, then you might want to pay attention every week, because I’m going to (try to) get you through this, and make you a successful saver and a wise spender.]

I’ve been writing a lot about how to manage your money in bank accounts and with credit and debit cards. That’s the tricky stuff. As poor students, we are good at finding bargains and at least trying to make our money go a long way. That said, it’s easy to fall into certain traps when what we think is a good “deal” comes our way…and we end up paying dearly. Here are some scams to avoid in order to really save some dough.

1. Gym Memberships.

Beware of whatever type of deal a gym is trying to pitch to finagle you into joining. Why? Because they are probably lying. Okay, I’m bitter about this one. I needed to join a new gym at home for a couple of months, so I signed up for free guest passes at all the gyms in my area so I could work out for free and not buy anything. Next thing I knew, a Bally’s rep was selling me a special offer: $25 a month for a membership that I could transfer anywhere. He told me that if I got back to school and didn’t want to make the trek to the nearest Bally’s, I could freeze my membership for $4 a month, and when i started using their clubs again, I could continue to pay the dirt cheap fee.

The reality? Only the first transfer would be free, so I’d be paying in the future for every new Bally’s I tried to switch to; the “freeze” thing didn’t exist, and I was forced to pay the monthly fee even though I wasn’t working out; I’m stuck in a year contract, and now I have an express hatred for Bally Total Fitness Clubs. Needless to say: gyms are definitely places to read the fine print. Read More »

[It doesn’t matter what school you go to, what state it is in, how big it is, whether it is public or private, all girls or coed…there are experiences that all college students share. No matter how crazy you think your personal situation is, it is not just you.

So, let’s bring it all out in the open. Right here. Because you are not alone - we’ve all been there before.]

The Awkward Call:

You wake up to the sunlight shining into your eyes. You open them and – whoa – the killer hangover sets in. Headache, nausea and a mouth filled with cotton. And then you roll over to find a man lying next to you.

And the entire evening comes flooding back: the drinks, the sloppy make out sesh in the kitchen of the bar, the striptease in the cab.

You lift the covers; yup, completely naked. Your bedmate stirs, opens his eyes and smiles at you. “Phew,” you think to yourself. “He’s pretty cute.” You begin the usual morning-after conversation – hangovers, “what the hell did I drink last night”s, and other niceties – before he starts rubbing your back.

You know where this is leading, but before things start heading there you need to brush that so-drunk-I-smoked- a-cigarette taste out of your mouth.

And then the phone rings. Your rifle through the pile of jeans and underwear on the floor and flip it open before you realize who it is: your grandma. Read More »

[Our writer, Kelly, has made it her goal to quit smoking and share her experiences with you. We have been following her for two weeks now. Here is her latest progress.]

Well, I’ve been trying to refrain from smoking at all, but - geez - it is tough. Last week wasn’t too bad - I smoked maybe one or two a day and had a day or two where I didn’t smoke a cig at all. Even better, I didn’t even crave one – score!

But, then, I went to a Halloween party last weekend where I buckled and smoked about ten cigarettes in one night. I know, bad girl, Kelly; but honestly, with all the liquor, I just let myself go with the smoking…again. There’s something about needing a smoke with my vodka soda, or my glass of red wine that I just can’t seem to shake. Am I the only one?

After my lovely smoking binge of Friday, I tried to calm down the rest of the weekend. And I did. I smoked only one or two cigarettes a day for the rest of the weekend.

On my way to work on Monday, though, I almost put my car in park and asked the guy in traffic behind me, who was smoking a cig, if I could bum one. Then I realized how crazy and pathetic I would have looked, so I stopped myself. I didn’t have a cigarette that morning, and I didn’t have one for the rest of the day. I made a conscious decision to either go big - and do it as close to cold turkey as I can until I can finally withdraw myself from the cravings - or not do it at all. And not doing it at all is not an option. Read More »

So, after last week’s steamy, scream-at-the-tv episode, it’s only fair to give the GG writers a break this week. Sure, tonight’s ep was full of underage drinking, fights, and Rufus trying to send Little J to jail, but it wasn’t as nail-biting as some of its predecessors. Of course, this only means that tonight’s episode was a vehicle to set up some MAJOR dramz next week and the week after.

Blair is still hell-bent on going to Yale, even though her little tiff with S. a couple of weeks ago may have maimed her chances. The solution? Serena gets Blair to babysit the Dean’s niece to earn brownie points. Only problem (and who didn’t see this one coming?) is that little Emma is on a mission to lose her virginity.

Gossip Girl put it quite poetically: Lady B…outsoxed by a young fox. Because, of course, if there’s a young, horny virgin on the prowl, she’s bound to get intercepted by the one and only Chuck Bass.

Favorite line of the night, courtesy of Mr. Bass: “The only thing I like aged is my scotch.” LOVE it.

However, Mr. Bass laments to Blair that he holds very few things sacred, and one of those things is humping in the back of a limo. How sweet, in a pervy Chuck Bass kind of way. Needless to say, the jailbait bounced and hit up a club in search of Mr. Right Now.

Meanwhile, Little J. is planning her big, risque fashion debut… at a charity gala being thrown in honor of Lily and Bart. Like that doesn’t have “disaster” written all over it. She pulls the “Do you care about me?” card with Nate…isn’t it a little early to try to whip your new boy toy, Little J.? Nonetheless, Nate takes the bait and the next thing we know, GG is loading Jenny and Nate’s second kiss into an RSS feed. Read More »

Well, we all – even the smokers like myself – know smoking is a bad habit. I have been smoking on and off since I was 14 and, not to date myself, with almost 10 years of smoking under my belt, I have decided it is time to try and kick the bad ‘ole habit once and for all.

Because quitting is really effing hard, I am going to share my journey with and you, CollegeCandies. I hope this inspires you to join me…and inspires me to stick with it. Smoking kills thousands and thousands of people each year and I don’t want to be part of the statistics.

So, week one, here is the progress to date:

After smoking a pack every two days, a few weeks ago I decided not to buy packs anymore. Translation: I’d only mooch my cigarettes, which I hate doing. I figured this would cut my daily intake drastically. And it did, for a few days. Then, one weekend after having a few too many cocktails (my prime time to smoke), I caved and bought a pack… and proceeded to smoke the entire pack in one evening.

Not so good for me considering I’m an avid runner who huffs and puffs on my daily run like I’m a 400 lb. man. Read More »

It’s no secret that drinking takes a toll on your skin. Dehydration, blotchiness and puffiness are just a few of the wonderful effects of alcohol–a moisture zapping diuretic– on your epidermis. So what’s a girl to do when faced with a serious liquor induced skin issue? Quit drinking? I think not.While that would obviously be the most effective move, it’s not one I plan on making any time in the near future (near future including this semester and every one after that until I graduate). Luckily, the makeup gods determined long ago that girl-kind should be able to have her cake (flavored mix drink) and eat it too (um, have nice looking skin).

The following products will salvage your face be you hungover and desperate for a quick fix, prepping for bed after drinks with the girls, or planning ahead for a night of partays (you overachiever, you). Read More »

You meet a guy. He’s cute, he’s charming and he makes you want to take off your clothes and jump his bones. And then - score! - he asks to come home with you. So, you finish your drink (read: chug that bitch), say goodbye to your friends (read: scream to them across the bar, “LATER, LADIES!), hail a cab and head back to your place.

As you fidget with the keys to your house you begin to think to yourself, this guy is too good to be true. There must be something wrong with him. Right? But what could it be? Bad in bed? Weird rash? Miniscule manhood?

Not that it matters - it’s the motion in the ocean, right? Well, now you can know exactly what you are dealing with…down there. Yes, ladies, someone has done the unthinkable: they took a condom and a ruler and put it all together into one handy dandy little (or, if you’re lucky, big) package. Read More »