College Life, Week 1

One week ago today, I moved onto the campus of Olivet Nazarene University in Bourbonnais, Illinois. In light of this recent change in my life, I'm going to start posting five observations about life on a college campus every week. That being said, here's my top five things I've noticed about college life in my first week here:

  1. Dining halls/block parties/etc. are not for introverts...or ambiverts. I'm not a strict introvert, but I really don't like large group events all that much. Large crowds of people I don't know intimidate me. There's a lot of those on a college campus, especially in the first couple weeks of school, so be prepared to be pushed out of your comfort zone if you're at all like me. That being said...
  2. Get to know your floor and force yourself to hang out with them. This is a big way to help fix the issue of #1. I've found a lot of cool guys on my dorm floor who like to have fun. It also gives you someone to eat lunch or dinner with. Trust me on this when I say this is the best way to meet good friends. 
  3. Eat as much healthy and natural food as possible. Dining hall food here is average at best. Most of it is not healthy. Eat a salad every meal if possible, only get one helping, and skip the dessert line if you don't want the dreaded "freshman 15." Also, eat fresh fruit. Here at Olivet, that's the best option for me. I always take one piece of fruit from the cafeteria when I leave. I've got four or five apples in my fridge for the weekend right now. Speaking of the dining hall...
  4. Man/girl/pony up and just sit with someone. This goes back to #1. I've met a few people who I never would have encountered if I hadn't just sat down and started talking with them. Some of them I might never see again, while others I quite enjoyed spending time with. Pick a smaller group and just get to know them. It doesn't matter if they're in your dorm, your class, or if you've never seen them before in your life. Just sit down, introduce yourself, and eat.  
  5. Don't be the guy playing guitar on the quad. And no, I haven't done this. Everyone hates these guys. Just don't do it. Play in your room. Go to a practice room. But for the love of all that is good, don't go on the quad with a guitar. It's just a bad idea. 
That's it for this week. Be sure to subscribe to stay updated on my college experience, along with the best in music and movies.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Needtobreathe - H A R D L O V E (2016)

Image
It's always interesting to hear a band dramatically change their sound after years of doing pretty much the same thing. U2 did it with great success in the early 1990s with Achtung Baby  and Radiohead did while garnering massive acclaim with Kid A , as did (to a lesser extent) Hillsong UNITED a few years ago with Zion . It's a risky business transforming a style, however, because fans can react with great dismay after having fond memories of a band's past work and sound and seeing that go by the wayside for something "trendier." With that in mind, I took a listen to Needtobreathe's new album H A R D L O V E . The band is a Carolina-based Southern rock outfit much in the vein of Kings of Leon with more roots, but this new record scraps a lot of that for something much more produced and sonically polished. After having two albums in a row be very, very introspective and heavy ( The Reckoning  and Rivers in the Wasteland ), the band is ready to have a little
Read more

Unfriended: Dark Web (2018)

Image
I don’t see many horror films. Part of this is due to films like Hereditary that scare the living daylights out of me, as I, like many normal people, don’t often choose to scare myself. A larger portion of my aversion to the genre, perhaps, is the reputation mainstream horror films have these days. Especially when looking at Blumhouse-produced films, they are plain garbage. The characters make the worst possible decisions every time they have a choice presented to them simply to drive them into a terrible situation that will somehow kill them mercilessly with blood and gore everywhere, and often the scares used are cheap gimmickry and fake jump scares that do nothing but relieve the audience and bore them into their seats. Seeing Unfriended: Dark Web yielded almost that exact response from me. I was either laughing or scoffing at this movie for all of its eighty-eight minutes because of how ridiculously stupid its characters are. It made me furious yet enthused because Dark W
Read more

The Search for the Holy Grail of Music Streaming, Part 2: Google Play Music

Image
I'm back, after trying out another music streaming service. In my search, I'm continuing to find different ways that different services work with my ways of listening to music. This time, I'm going to the one made by my favorite software company: Google Play Music. If you're thinking that I have some kind of bias towards Google and their products and would choose Google Play Music just because of that, I wouldn't blame you one bit. I'm publically in support of Google and unashamedly tout Android as the best mobile operating system. So, when coming over to Google Play Music for a month-long free trial, I expected a lot. Instead, I got a little less than I wanted. Now, Google Play Music works much better for me than Spotify did, mostly because of the way it handles playback. It's very easy for me to use with my preference of listening to albums. I can search for an artist or album on either the mobile app or the web player, select an album, and place i
Read more