Shopping for college can be stressful: you don’t know how much room you will have in your dorm, how much is too much, if you’ve brought enough, and if it will match the stuff your roommate has.

Shopping for elementary school supplies was so much more fun - you got to stock up on your favorite Lisa Frank supplies and you begged your mom to buy you a few gel pens because everyone was using them.

This year, instead of making a quick pit-stop at Staples on the way to school and buying a few notebooks and black pens, why not bring some of that grade school excitement back with fun school supplies?

Remember how excited you were to use those gel pens to fill out worksheets in the first couple weeks of school? How cool it was to start a brand new notebook? Here are some funky school supplies that will make you want to head to class, take some notes, and do some hardcore studying. Or at least they will help you make friends by serving as a good conversation starter for the girl sitting next to you.

This stuff puts the “cool” back in school. Yeah…I went there.

Calculator - You will probably need to bring one of those nerdy graphing calculators to your Advanced Stats class, but why not buy one of those enormous & brightly colored calculators for when you just need to add, subtract, multiply, or divide? Math sucks, but bright pink makes everything better. Read More »

Days a Freshman: 109
Mood: totally surprised

“At first I thought I didn’t remember anything.” Sammy walked over to her desk, touching the knickknacks and papers surrounding her small laptop. “But every couple of days or so little bits of sound or a weird flash of a picture would pop up out of nowhere.”

“Your hallway bathroom is disgusting.” Rebecca pushed through Sammy’s door, droplets of water falling onto the carpet from the hot pot. “I didn’t want to touch anything.”

As soon as she closed the door, the energy must have hit her, because Rebecca stopped walking and stared at the back of Sammy’s head. “What?” she asked, letting her eyes slide over to me. “What?”

“I started telling Grace about what happened.” Sammy kept her attention on her desk, playing with a small green stapler. “I think she should know.”

“Oh.” Rebecca set the hot pot on Sammy’s puffy comforter. “Okay.”

“If it’s a big deal…” I leaned farther against the dresser, wishing I could lean myself right out of the room. “If it’s a big deal you really don’t –”

“Well, I was super wasted, so it’s not as big of a deal as you would think.” Sammy picked up the stapler and spoke to it. “Its not like I have all the gritty details. I got to the party drunk, hung out with Justin and some of his friends in the house, smoked some pot…and then I was sitting on a couch…” her voice wavered, fading in and out like a radio with bad reception. “And everyone tells me I was making out with some guy for a while…Sasha, I guess…”

Rebecca’s eyes slid over to me, but I looked away. Read More »