Advice for the college-bound

Even thought this may seem like Natural Disaster Week, it's actually Back to School Week here at Five! 

Fourteen years ago this week, when I was just about the same age as Five, I was wandering around the same campus, pouring over the same blue course catalogue, filled with a similar sense of awe and excitement and trepidation.  And if I could go back and talk to my 17-year-old self, these are the Top 5 nuggets of been-there-done-that back-to-the-ivy-covered-ivory-tower wisdom I would share:

1. Revel in it! This is maybe the only time in your life when your most significant duty is to learn new things, stretch your brain and become a more complete person.  Try to let that sink in, and enjoy every delicious minute.

2. LOVE the Semester System.  Life in college gets crazy. Each term starts off with a bang, and builds into a frenzied crescendo of activity and obligations.  In the weeks between Thanksgiving and holiday break, you'll probably feel like there isn't time to breathe.  And you'll probably be right.  But then, just like that, you'll wake up one morning afternoon to a room littered with papers and Diet Coke cans and realize: you're done. Your tests are taken, your papers are in, the glowing shower stall you constructed out of neon lights and hula hoops in the basement of the art building is... glowing (true story).  You did your best and it's out of your hands.  The slate is clean (even though your room might not be) and in a couple weeks or months, you get to start fresh.  Post-college life seldom offers such new beginnings, so enjoy it while it lasts!

3. Pick your passion.  This one is tough -- at one level, I want to say "try everything!" At the same time, I think you'll be happier if, from the din of political clubs and theater groups, animal rights societies and juggling guilds, you're able to find one or two things to do really well.  Maybe choose ONE thing to which you really want to be devoted, and then cram the remaining space in your life full of bits and pieces of everything else?  This isn't something I ever figured out, and I still struggle to focus my energies in a meaningful way.  I'm not sure this is actually very good advice...  Moving on!! 

4. Date, (with caution!). This goes for you, too, Five. Dating was, without question, the best and the worst thing I did in college.  The funny thing is, I kinda knew it at the time.  The year I spent dizzy with love for 19-year-old (future) Mr. One was one of the most amazing and growth-filled times in my life. I knew that he helped me to be a better version of myself, which was an amazing gift during that terrifyingly malleable time in my life.  Later, after my True Match graduated and I convinced myself I couldn't possibly spend eternity with the dude who had been my first real boyfriend, when I was suffocating in a relationship with a too-old, too-needy grad student, I knew it was a bad use of my time and energies.  But I didn't have the backbone to tell him that, which was really unfair to both of us.  If only he hadn't have been so dang persistent.  And good looking....  Anyway, listen to your heart and then do what it tells you. And if you're not sure what it's saying, listen to each other. 

5. Be/come yourself!  College shouldn't change you.  But it should give you the space to grow and become more completely the person you really are.  Shed those parts of you that were adopted to make someone else happy or emphasized to help you fit in somewhere you may never have belonged in the first place.  Explore new things and satisfy your curiosities.  Seek out friends with whom you are appreciated as your authentic self, and then treasure those relationships.  I have a hunch that as you settle into the person you really want to be, you're each just going to become more and more delightful/amazing.  I can't wait!

Disaster Preparedness

So, as you may or may not know, there's a storm a'coming to the East Coast. Right when we happen to be on the East Coast. In fact, I think that natural disasters have an unhealthy obsession with Momo, Four, Z, and me, because they've kind of been stalking us (earthquake in Colorado, then DC, and now a hurricane in New Haven? I mean, come on nature. Get a life.) Anyway, I thought this provided an excellent opportunity to teach Disaster Preparedness 126: Dorm Room Food Storage.

Lesson 1: Get a lot of crap food from your dining hall

Lesson 2: Feel guilty

Lesson 3: Go back and get some fruit

Lesson 4: Get an egg, too

Lesson 5: Don't die

If you haven't already guessed, this is a very popular class.

Thanks Everyone. . . but mostly Z (and, of course, Momo)

So, we've been fluttering about for the last few days preparing for the coming semester at mine and Four's new alma mater. It's been hectic, nerve wracking, exhausting, and thrilling. The people I love the most have been unendingly supportive and sweet, and Z in particular has gone the extra mile. Actually, a few thousand extra miles.

Z, whether by choice or not (probably not), you have racked up some major credit in the National Bank of Five's Good Will. So here's a brief list of some things that I owe you for:

• Driving across the country in a car so filled that making your 6+" self fold into it for hours of uninterrupted driving doubtless qualified as cruel and unusual punishment
• Wandering the inescapable corridors of IKEA and having your positive opinion used as the barometer for what not to purchase
• Transporting and assembling couches, ottomans, and most anything else you can think of on an empty stomach (sorry that we occasionally forget that food and its consumption are necessary components of life)
• Giving me tips on how to be as winsome as you are
• Fibbing, and then deciding a few moments later to tell me that/why you did
• Exploring with me
• Offering to buy me mace
• Working to be awesome (easy) and good (a bit harder)
• Your brothering skillz. You make a pretty great one.

I love you. I'm really going to miss you. Be good.

Moving in!

Five and I arrived in New Haven last night and--with the help of Momo, brother Z and a an honest-to-goodness saint (THANK YOU MR. M!!!)--were able to move into our dorm rooms. Which we kind of love.

Here are the deets:

We are in the same residential college (a happy coincidence as you're supposed to be assigned randomly). Our rooms are in the same entryway (perhaps not such a coincidence), on the same floor (is anyone else getting the feeling this was planned?), next door to each other (aha! I knew it was too good to be true! I kid, I kid :)! Plus, we have a door that, when opened, makes our two separate, but lonely, rooms into one giant party! (It's actually more of an emergency exit than a door, but what the hey! We like it :).

Anyway, we have lots of things to do today. We're on the market for luxury items like trash receptacles, shampoo, and an iron. But, what I really want to get are some plants! Each room has a big block of windows and I want to fill them up with green things! So, I guess the real question is this: what types of plants are the most difficult to kill?

Source

Shaken, not Stirred

On Faith

So...

Last week, the leader of our congregation asked us all to fill out this thing about what we believe.  I'm a pretty big fan of my faith and so I happily obliged.  But it got me thinking about some of the complexities of religion and faith.

Religion's in the news, on tv, even on Broadway.

Religion has been in the news a lot.  People love it.  People hate it.  People don't think it gets enough respect.  Some people write funny musicals about it.  People kill in its name and heal through its power.  It tears families apart and binds them together.  It's a source of tremendous wisdom and ignorance.  It's one messy ball of wax.

Even in our own family, we have different takes on the role of faith and God in our lives.  Some of us pray morning, noon and night, making religious zeal the favorite past time while others are more straightforward about the faith we were brought up with.  Some of us don't practice at all and sometimes, we fight about the best or right or correct way to be, i.e.,  your skirt is too short, you're too judgmental, that movie is inappropriate, what you believe is crazy.

But one thing we all agree on, is no matter what religion a person prescribes to, at the beginning and end of the day it is the love, respect, decency and kindness we share that matters.  It doesn't matter what tradition you come from, what religion you have or don't, what culture you were brought up in or what God you ascribe to: Faith is worthwhile as it helps us to be kinder, more generous, more loving and forgiving people.

We can't even agree on appropriate hem lengths. But we can agree that we are genetically prone to the whitest legs in the history of white, pasty, chalky legs... Except for One. Her legs are blue.

Whether we're talking about Jesus, The Buddah, Mohammed, Krishna, Ghandi, go on down the list.  The effects of their teaching might have been revolutionary, but the teachings worth following are  based in charity.  Many atheists are simply disenchanted with religious bickering and feel like people should be able to be decent without some All-Powerful Deity telling them to do so.



I, for one, am profoundly grateful to feel the hand of God at work in my life.  But at the beginning and end of the day, when my default setting is to show kindness and love to others, I never regret it.  And to me, that is what faith is all about.

I think the editors of BRIDES and GLAMOUR have been reading the blog...

So...

A while ago, we had a post on moving onto things other than diamonds for engagement rings and shared a variety of our favorites.

Well, it seems like the ladies at BRIDES Magazine and GLAMOUR had the same idea, seeing as they just came out with a new selection of their favorite non-diamond engagement rings.  Pick which ones you like more!

And just for fun, here are a few more of my favorites...