By Amanda DeLuise

It feels like summer is coming to a close.  We received all of our “Back to School Sale” signage at work, all I see on TV are commercials for K-Mart backpacks and the MTV VMAs (a classic sign that it’s almost September).

Most of my good friends from school have either been living in the city over the summer or have just arrived back, moving into junior and senior year apartments.  Since this will be my third time “moving in,” I’ve definitely become a lot smarter with my packing.  Freshman year, as I’m sure anyone will say, was by far the worst move-in experience ever.  Though your college and Bed Bath & Beyond flyers will try to provide you with “College Checklists”, I feel like most of these items are completely useless.

A paper shredder?  I’m not sure I know anyone at school that has ever kept a paper shredder in a dorm room, except maybe if you’re an art student who specializes in paper mache, but do those even exist anywhere?

After work last night, I met up with my friends Allie (who will be a freshman at MICA) and Taylor (who will be a freshman at Rutgers, featured in my post from a few weeks ago) who are both less than a week away from moving into school.  Their best friend Tina had just left that day and Allie said watching Tina pack made her nervous because she had so much stuff.

I gave her this tip: You don’t need half the things you think you need.  I was definitely an overpacker freshman year.  I had an incredible amount of stuff that I could barely cram into two cars.  Of course, it didn’t help that I packed the morning of my move-in.  I was supposed to do it the night before, but I was too overwhelmed.  I ended up packing almost my entire closet.  So unnecessary.

So here are a few tips that I can think of for preparing to move (freshmen should take note!):

• Don’t leave it until the last minute.  You’ll grab anything and everything in your room at home because you’ll probably be too stressed out to think it through.
• Start taking note of things you use everyday, especially when it comes to beauty products.  You don’t need twenty different kinds of body lotions.
• I know everyone wants to bring every little thing from home that reminds them of their friends (”Oh yeah, I totally want to bring this menu that Dan and I stole that one time he and I visited John junior year of high school.”), but don’t.  Bring small things that mean a lot to you, or just get some picture frames and fill them with pictures of people you’ll be missing the most.
• DON’T BRING BOOKS. DON’T THINK YOU’LL HAVE TIME TO READ FOR PLEASURE.  They just take up unnecessary room and will make you sad that you have no free time anymore.
• Please, shop at the Container Store.  It’s awesome and has some great organization tools.  You’ll need those, trust me.

By Amanda DeLuise

When my roommate Manoa transferred out of NYU to Georgia State University, she found herself quickly losing interest at the prospect of going to school.  Because GSU’s and NYU’s general ed credits didn’t match up, she was required to retake classes she had already passed and done well in. Even her A in Microbiology at NYU didn’t keep her from having to retake it at GSU this fall.  After taking three summer semesters, she’ll still be entering GSU as a sophomore (though she would be a junior at NYU this year).

Long story short, she was incredibly frustrated (as anyone would be) with college in general.  She had hoped to get her nursing degree in four years and then travel as a nurse all around the world.  After a long summer of setbacks and replanning, Manoa decided to take a semester off.

A lot of adults and even some college kids believe that a semester off is code for never going back to school again, but I’ve seen cases first hand where I know that isn’t true.

My best friend and current roommate at school, Dann, took an entire year off after graduating high school.  He spent half the year working and the other half traveling in South America.  Come September of the following year, he was enrolled at NYU as planned.

Like Dann, Manoa wanted to travel in addition to doing some sort of medical volunteer work.  She was accepted into a medical internship with Jubilee Ventures a few weeks ago and is decidedly going to Africa next spring instead of taking spring semester at Georgia State.  Her program won’t be offering any college credits and she won’t be taking any classes, but she’ll be gaining real life experience working at a Hospital in Kenya.

When she comes back, she’ll have almost three more years of school to attend, but she believes that taking a semester off will clear her mind and get it back in gear for school, once she sees her nursing degree in action.

By Amanda DeLuise

After my experience this past Sunday, I have, once again, reached the scary conclusion that I may be growing up.

A few months ago I agreed to help out Bridge Nine Records with their
booth at the Vans Warped Tour, a typically skater punk filled summer
festival that annually tours the country.

I really like the music on Bridge Nine, it’s a little bit of punk, a
little bit of hardcore but all are generally my type of music.

Which is what the Warped Tour used to be; bands and people that I
thought were cool. Like Rancid, noFX, etc. I thought I was amazing
the first year my mom let me go. I was about fifteen and I wore a red
Blink 182 t-shirt and a metal ball necklace. That’s generally what
most kids at Warped looked like plus a few Mohawks and tattoos sprinkled about here and
there.

I no longer own the red blink 182 t-shirt, but this year I wore a Johnny
Cash shirt and a pair of Nikes.

I’m fairly certain 90 percent of the warped patrons had no idea who it
was on my shirt that was casually flipping them the bird. I’m fairly certain 90
percent of them were under seventeen and drunk out of their minds while
half naked, listening to bands that didn’t even sound real–suicide
silence and bring me the horizon.

I couldn’t wait to leave and just kept thanking the lord that I wasn’t
the one who blew 70 dollars on a ticket to bake in the sun all day and
buy 6 dollar bottles of Dasani.

As Bob Dylan said, the times they are a changing and there’s proof of
this in the absence of punks and abundance of preteen whores at the
Vans Warped tour.