A few tips on how to keep your sanity when in college.
- Arts & Crafts - yes I know that this sounds childish, however it really is a way to go BACK to your childhood and have some peace and quiet.
- I really have enjoyed making terrariums over the summer because it gives my mind something to focus on while I'm not taking classes or working. Making a terrarium can take 5 minutes, or it can take 5 hours - and any and everywhere in between. They can be as pretty, ugly, wet, dry, humid, colorful, etc as you want them to be. Not only that, but terrariums are a nice green touch to any dorm room/apartment.
- Decorating/Rearranging - okayyyyy so I'm a sucker for redecorating my room. Ever since I was a child, every few weeks I would get bored with how my room was arranged and where things were, so I would rearrange them and move everything around. When I got to college, I lived with an international student in a fairly large room with a bathroom shared with the next room over (all females). Fall term I rearranged my room the way that I wanted it, put up pictures and decorations. Then after winter break, I came back to my dorm room and decided that I didn't like the way that my room was set up - so I rearranged it. I redecorated the walls, put curtains up (there had only been ugly blinds previously), and I even bought myself two little rosy red minnows and a little corner desk tank for them to hang out in. After spring break, guess what happened? Yep! I rearranged and redecorated AGAIN! However, this time I wanted more privacy - as I felt it was weird that I still had to change in my own bathroom just to get dressed in the mornings and at night. When I came back in the fall to start my sophomore year, it was a little bit better because my boyfriend at the time (now fiancee) hated moving my furniture around when it was perfectly fine where it was.
- Reading - not reading a text assigned for the class, but pleasure reading.
- I'm a huge reader....as in one year for Christmas, all that I had put on my Christmas list were books (not even kidding). My mom told me that I wasn't allowed to just ask for books, and that I had to add non book related things as well (she's a huge reader too, which is why I was surprised when she told me this). My freshman year at Oregon State University (from here on out, it will be referred to as OSU) I didn't have any motivation to read anything that wasn't assigned for the class. Nor did I read that summer...Or my sophomore year at OSU. However, I changed that this summer - Brian (my fiancee) and I moved into our very first apartment!! (I'm actually screaming on the inside with excitement) While we still have yet to get my bookcase from home, I've actually began to read for pleasure again. It was hard at first since I wasn't used to reading for pleasure, but within a few hours I was well adjusted. When I finished my first book of the summer overnight I remembered the sense of accomplishment that comes with reading a book for pleasure. I then realized what had been missing from my first two years of college - reading for pleasure. So, with that, please take the time to read for pleasure when you are in college - even if it is a book related to your area of study - it's still worth the exercise for your mind as well as just some down time to read for pleasure.
- Keeping in contact with family - not just the "hey mom/dad I need money because I've spent it all" type of phone calls. The "hey mom/dad I was just calling to see how you were doing. Any thing new happening?" type of phone calls.
- Facebook, Skype, FaceTime, Google Chat, etc they are all great for some face-to-face conversations with your family. Facebook is especially handy in keeping up on your own time. I have both my mom and my younger brother on Facebook, just so that I can see what's going on at home, even without having to call. Also - grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins are good people to stay in touch with. That may just be calling on their birthdays to say "happy birthday" or it may be just to say hi. I've even used my grandma for assignments for classes! Family is important in any stage of your life, and college is the time that you're most likely to drift away (in my opinion at least), and it's nice to know what is going on OUTSIDE of your college town. Corvallis (where I am currently residing) is a SMALL town of about 54,000. Coming from a metropolitan area - Portland, OR - Corvallis is small, with nothing to do. It's a college town, only really busy from September - mid June. Keeping in contact just seemed to help when I was down, or needed someone to talk to.
That's a pretty good list for now - at least for my first blog post. PLEASE, please, please let me know if there is anything that I need to improve on, or change to make my blog posts better!
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