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 »

I was pre-med once. I had visions of being Dr. K and white labcoats (which you can buy at any university bookstore for Halloween… please note that medical supplies are non-returnable) dancing in my little blonde head. I had my 8 semesters broken down into manageable-ish class loads before I turned 19. I went through labs and calculus and was finally thwarted, my dreams all but crushed, by organic chemistry, one of the more infamous weeder courses at my undergrad university.

Orgo was my wake-up call. There was one exam where I literally laughed the entire two hours (crying wouldn’t help and there was no way I was passing). When the curve was being set by less than 30% scored on a test, and no matter how many hours I kept my head dutifully in my books, I decided to bow out gracefully. It wasn’t worth feeling like a moron and beating myself up anymore. At the end of the day, I was happiest reading, analyzing, writing, as opposed to drawing benzene rings. And I was pretty damn good at it. (In college. Judge as you deem fit at present.)

This is NOT to say that people who stick through courses like these, no matter how much they hate them, are wrong in doing so. Au contraire, dear readers. If you can see the big picture and are content knowing that your hard work will make for a better, happier future, stick with it by all means. Ultimately, no one but you knows what’s going to be best for your future, not your parents, your friends, or your advisor. Read More »

We’ve almost hit the twenty four hour mark on the countdown to 2008 and you’re still standing there scratching your head.

What the HELL will you do to celebrate?

No enticing invitations, no parties planned in the small town suburb you’re forced to revisit for an entire month.

Sure it’s home and of course it’s nice to be back, catching up with old friends and of course the good ol’ folks, but new years back at college seems like such a more reasonable route to F-U-N. So now what? How do you ring in the new year when there’s absolutely nothing cool to do?

Don’t give up just yet. No matter what you do there’s three important things to boost your boring bust of a bash.

1. Be with Besties
If you’ve got nothing to do that means all your friends are stuck too, right? As cliche as this is, the fun is not where you are it’s who you’re there with. You can stand around all night in your friend’s basement, garage, wherever you’ve all hopelessly congregated and cluck about how much ‘this sucks’ OR you can have a little lack-of-plans-laugh and make the best of it. Read More »

New Year’s Eve. One of the biggest party holidays on the calendar. A time to wear something sparkly, drink pink champagne and not feel like a lame idiot, and count down the last remaining seconds in a year that was hardly what you imagined it was going to be this time 365 days ago.

If, like me, you live in a large city, you’ve been hearing about New Year’s Eve for almost as long as you’ve been hearing about Christmas. Giant parties in giant clubs, complete with open bars, fancy food, and “hot people!” have been pushing themselves into your email inbox and popping up in conversation; urging you to fork over $100-300 for a place on the guest list.

Even if you don’t happen to reside in a metropolitan area, you’ve undoubtedly heard about a house party here and there, polling your friends to find out where and how they’ll be saying goodbye to 2007.

The point I’m trying to make is—everyone always seems to have something to do on New Year’s. Some house to crash, some club with a bouncer who can get them in, some party of a friend of a friend’s, a First Night celebration out in the frigid cold…staying home just never seems to be an option.

But what if it is—at least for you? What if you don’t have any plans this year? What if the plans you do have don’t sound as appetizing as they usually do? What if spending a night sloshing in high-heels and trying to grab someone before midnight isn’t your idea of a good time? Read More »