Things I Learned in College

December 25, 2018 ~ JodiLea

But Not in the Classroom…

I learned a lot of stuff I didn’t really need to learn. If for some reason I actually need to know some of that stuff, it’s too late. I’m sure it is forgotten by now. This doesn’t bother me, because I don’t plan to return to college and be forced to remember. I took classes to get my degree, and I did.

It’s the obscure, not mentioned in class, or by professors, knowledge acquired by life’s circumstances & choices that I feel the need to pass along to my young adult readers. So they won’t be as naive and clueless as I was, upon entering college.

This 12-story building is actually four towers (North, South, East & West), they connect in the center. My BFF and I were room mates in North Tower, third floor, room 302. The streetlight closest to the building could be a flashlight shinning from our floor manager’s room. Oh, that reminds me …

If you must ‘moon’ out a dorm window – do it from someone else’s room.
Do not ever, no matter how much they whine and beg, do a guy’s laundry for him. Ever!
Think twice before sliding sideways wearing socks, on a waxed floor in order to pass by a friends room, while looking at them. It only worked for Tom Cruise, in Risky Business and that could have been faked. It did not end well for me.
Ideas you come up with as you drive back to the dorm from a beer bust, are usually not good to act on. Sometimes they could be considered crimes. But those can be hysterically funny. Pee your panties funny.
Coke-cola, or hot cocoa, will remove old bleach stains from ugly green floor tiles.
Barfing into a planter, outside of a Burger King, is humbling.
Do not accept a ride home from a guy you met at a Hoe Down [a.k.a go home with the person you came with]
Don’t date someone that treats you like dirt. No matter how cute they are
Vinyl record albums will not break when thrown from the 12th floor in anger
Good table manners you learned at home are not appreciated by your friends who want to “get to the party already!”
Don’t lean in when you are asked to smell someones ice cream. It’s a trap.
Small town drive-in movies do not show wholesome entertainment.
Frat guys will promise you anything to get you in their room. Then they pout when you really wanted to watch “The Grinch who stole Christmas” on their TV.
Chinese Fire Drills should make a comeback. We all can use more exercise.
Oh, and the most astounding thing of all? I had a 4.0 that year and the internet had not been invented!

TTFN

Things I Hope People DON’T Remember About Me

November 22, 2011November 22, 2011 ~ JodiLea

Deja Vu: Original post from Nov 2010

While pondering topic #11 “what do you most want to be remembered by”, things I did not want people to remember came to mind.

When I was a preschooler I was terrified of butterflies. They flew at me, circled me. They were glorified, day-time moths. There was something evil about them, but no one would take me seriously. My parents were embarrassed and told me I was being stupid.

In Junior High I was a nerd with horrible acne. In High School I was an older nerd with terrible acne. There were no ProActive products around then. My dermatologist could not even help me.

College flashbacks are starting to hit me now – like the time a bunch of us girls went to a party and everyone was hungry and wanted to stop somewhere. I voted not to stop because I was not feeling well and I wanted to go back to the dorm. I was outvoted. While they were inside ordering burgers and fries, I was outside barfing into the decorative planters in front of Burger King.

A different party, where I got blasted because I got dumped by my date to said party that morning because his girlfriend was in town. Surprise! I thought I was his girlfriend. I even did his laundry the night before for him. (Oh man! Did I get a severe talking to by my dorm-mates regarding this uncalled for domestic behavior) I was so out of it, that my friends, who were not ready to leave the party, entrusted a guy we all knew to take me back to the dorm. The poor guy had to practically carry me. Then, I did not have my key to the after hours door to my dorm – so I could not get in. He had his key to the boys dorm. Risking expulsion, he snuck me through the boys dorm to get me to the main entrance of girls dorm, where a gal heard him banging on the door and let me in. I wish I could remember my knight in shinning armors name.

Or how about the time my (I thought) new boyfriend took me on a camping trip. I was naive and figured we would camp under the stars, float the river on canoes, snuggle by the campfire. He had other plans that I messed up. During the entire float trip the next day he treated me like crap. Made me do all the paddling, saying (repeatedly and loudly) that virgins “needed to be good for something”. Then the jerk steers us off the main river and we broadsided a fallen log and lost the canoe. No one in our group of friends were around to hear us call for help. The water was rushing so fast it was hard to hang on. We dared not let go and swim under the log either, for there was debris and God knows what under the water.

We must have hung on for dear life over 20 minutes before a river patrol found us and pulled us to safety. Waterlogged and bruised I spent the second worse night of my life sleeping in the jerk’s car. Did I mention he was too cheap to rent a tent? Some camping trip.

My roommate was thrilled when he dumped me. She had always hated him, suspecting he was a jerk. (Yeah – He did the dumping. I don’t know where my brain was. I even wrote love poems to the guy the week before. Gag!) I wonder what he is doing now.

These are just a small sampling of incredibly stupid moments in my life. The scary thing is – there are probably some more to come. I hope I can keep my granddaughters from finding out most of them…

♥

Memories of Being Snowed In

January 10, 2011 ~ JodiLea

.Towers North Dorm – Before Snow

Since I live in the SF Bay Area I don’t get snowed in. We don’t even get snowed on. That doesn’t mean I have never been snowed in. I went to College in Missouri, Southeast Missouri State University to be exact. We were snowed in for a whole week once. The town of Cape Girardeau only owned one snow plow so it was busy with the public streets. The college streets and parking lots were no priority at all. It took days for my roommate to even find her car, not that it mattered. We could not dig it out for another 3 days anyway.

So what did we do? We could not go home for the weekend like usual. Could not get across the Illinois border to buy liquor (we were freshmen and only 18). The upper-class~~men~~women on our floor that were over 21 could purchase liquor from the grocery store down the street. For a price they would smuggle said purchases into the dorm (big No-No) and supply us lowly freshwomen with our booze of choice.

When I think back on it now, that was so dumb! Boys were not allowed in our dorms, so we sat around drinking and getting melancholy and horny. Some gals were lucky enough to have a TV in their room and we would pop popcorn and gather around to watch girl stuff. In our pj’s and curlers.

I feel sorry for the modern freshwomen – the dorms are co-ed and you live in a “suite” with 3 other roommates. No running about in curlers down the hall to grab some popcorn. Well, you could I suppose if there were no boys you wanted to impress. Anyway, I digress..

We were a captive student body. We still had to climb “cardiac hill” to get to most of our classes in the ice and snow. The ice was so bad one day that a guy behind me had to literally shove my ass up the hill. I was not strong enough to pull myself up using the railing.

There was a great tradition at the college we had heard about, but until the big snow we could not experience it. One of the coldest, high windchill factor days the college called a “snow day”. Did students stay indoors where it was safe and study? Hell no. We sledded down cardiac hill on cafeteria trays. Despite all the big signs posted in the cafeteria – “DO NOT REMOVE TRAYS FROM THE CAFETERIA”.

I wish I could remember how we managed to sneak the trays out. I DO remember the sledding. It was so fun until you hit a rock. Flimsy plastic trays do not provide any cushion. You feel every rock, stick, whatever you sled over. But we were young and silly. We all compared our bruised butts in the shower room waiting for a shower stall to free up. We were chilled to the bone, sore, and hungry.

It was one of the happiest days of my life. Go figure.