Paying for college.

I just got a second job today. I'm going to be a take-out girl at a restaurant. It's basically like waitressing over the phone. I start on Friday. My minimum-wage, minimum-hours job at the Admissions office is just not going to cut it anymore. It's really nice not having to work all the time, but it's also really nice being able to afford things like rent for next year.

So for the second summer in a row, I will be working more than one job at about 50 hours a week. Goodbye, life.

My dad made an interesting point this weekend. He was talking about how college tuition has gone up a lot over the past 10-20 years, but starting salaries have not gone up that much. Plus, today, college graduates have to pay for a heck of a lot more than our parents did when they graduated. Internet, cell phones, gas...none of that stuff was an expense back in the 80s.

He's right. According to the College Board, the average cost of tuition and fees for an in-state, public 4-year college is $7,605 a year. Out of state tuition averages $11,990, and private universities and colleges run upwards of $27,293. In 1980, it cost $2,373 a year to go to a 4-year public university. Granted, there's inflation and all, but tuition inflation is higher than general inflation.

So basically we are paying more for college, we are paying more for living expenses, and we aren't making as much money if we can even find a job when we graduate.

We're pretty much screwed.

Hence, the second job. I'm going to go start learning the 30 page menu now...

College Experience.

So this past weekend, I did Husker Hunt, a 24-hour scavenger hunt. I suppose you could call it fun. Definitely interesting and definitely epic. We had a list of about 200 things to find (100 right shoes counted as 1 item), another 100 or so things to take pictures of (you and someone with dreadlocks), and random challenges that included a dance-off, math quizzes at 8 am, and finding a stuffed dog hidden randomly around campus. We also went to the Red-White game wearing all green...

I was awake for about 38 hours straight...NEVER AGAIN.

I will say that I have probably never felt more terrible in my entire life, and I cannot believe I survived. Probably because we were running around literally the entire time, so we didn't really have time to sleep. Or eat. Or anything really. I think if I would have stopped moving long enough, I literally would have passed out. It was also freezing!

But college is about life experiences, right? I mean it was a lot of fun. I had an awesome team and honestly, how many people can say they've done something like that? Not very many.

Team Rapscallions!

Before the Hunt.
We are pumped.

After the Hunt.
We are dead.

We didn't win or anything, but sleep deprivation aside, it was a pretty fun weekend.

Going Home.

Last year, I never went home. My parents live about 20 minutes away and I hardly every ventured across town, not even to do laundry. I paid $1.75 a load to do it in the crappy dorm washers. I just wanted the "college experience" or something. I liked pretending that I was somewhere far away at college instead of just being downtown. I liked feeling like I was somewhat on my own.

So I had my "independent college experience" last year (it's in quotes because dorm life isn't exactly independent--people feed you and clean for you and you don't really have to be responsible for anything). It was great.

I'm completely over all that this year.

I love going home. I really enjoy not paying for laundry and getting to eat real food. I still don't go home all that often, maybe every other weekend or so, and I don't usually stay overnight. I did last night though, it was wonderful sleeping in a bed that wasn't lofted.

It's not that I'm getting sick of college or anything. I just really like having some more space and freedom than I get in a dorm room. And real food is always wonderful.

I can't wait to live in an apartment next year.

Blogging.

Yes that's right, I'm blogging about blogging. I'm...metablogging.

Scrolling through my facebook news feed, I've noticed that an increasing amount of my facebook "friends" have started blogging, either though inadvertent creeping because facebook gives tells me what people write on each others' walls or because they post links to their blog posts.

Since when has blogging become so popular? I know it's been a "cool" thing to do for awhile, but it seems like now that everybody does it, it's much less cool.

Why do so many of us feel the need to tell the internet about every detail of our lives? Is it because no one in real life cares? Do we really think that what we have to say is that important? Are we really contributing to society by posting all this stuff online?

I'm completely guilty of this. I started this blog about a year and a half ago, and when I first started, I didn't know anybody else who blogged. I don't think I'd ever even read a blog before. I started blogging because I was going through my freshman year at college and I wanted people to read it and learn how to survive college themselves or something like that. I thought that I had this wonderful, unique perspective and experience and that this experience made me some kind of an expert.

Do you know how many people in the United States are in college right now? According to the U.S. 2009 census report on school enrollment, about 14 million people are enrolled in some type of post-high school education, with about 2 million of those being first year students at a 4-year college, aka college freshmen. Definitely NOT a unique experience.

People have blogs about things like vegetarian cooking, fixing up a home, raising a family, traveling, running a marathon, photography, any number of things, but ultimately blogging boils down to people publishing things about their life on the internet. I do it too, but why? Why do we feel the need for people to read our every thought and daily agenda?

We have such an overload of information sharing: Facebook, Twitter, blogging, and now you can even find out where your friends are with sites like Foursquare. Remember when facebook status updates were just that, status updates? It literally said "Cara is...." and you would fill in "happy" or "tired" or "excited for the weekend." Now they've dropped the "is" and it's become basically like posting on your own wall. You can write as much as you want about whatever you want. It's like one big online demand for attention.

I post my newest blogs to my facebook page so people will see them and read them. I monitor my blog stats to see how many people view each page and how many views I've gotten. Why do I care? I don't know. It makes me feel accomplished or something?

And see the weird part is, I never used to care who read this. I didn't publish it to facebook or "follow" any other blogs and I didn't care about getting hits. I've always loved writing, so blogging was a perfect outlet. I still love writing and I'm not gonna lie, I like blogging. I like knowing that other people like what I write. I want to be entertaining.

So is that why the blog community exists? Because we gain satisfaction from other people caring about what we write? Probably.

Resolutions.

Yes, I realize it's January 11 so I'm a little late jumping on the New Year's resolution bandwagon, but I'm finally getting around to making them and I figure by putting them on here it'll actually make me somewhat accountable so I actually try to stick with them.

That's the idea anyway.

I've never actually made a New Year's resolution, and this year someone told me that I had to make three. I can't remember what the categories were supposed to be, so here's three random ones that I think are good.

Resolution #1: Be healthier. I know it's vague and cliche, but it's a good goal. I'm running a half-marathon in May and hopefully going on another bike trip this summer, so I really need to keep my body up for it. This includes getting (and staying) in shape and eating better. I'm already a runner, but I need to step it up so I can run 13 miles without dying.

Coconut milk is healthy, right?

Resolution #2: Make this semester a damn good one. Another vague one, but I'm still a little bitter that I didn't get to go to France, so I'm going to milk Lincoln for all it's worth. I know it's not going to measure up to a study-abroad experience, but I'm at least going to have a good time.

Resolution #3: Be more spiritual. I don't know exactly what that means, but I'm going to try to figure it out. I have pretty strong beliefs, but I've never considered myself a spiritual person so I'd like to become more so. I'm not really sure how to go about doing this, but it's definitely something to work towards. Suggestions are welcome.

Resolutions start tomorrow (maybe I should have made one to procrastinate less...?), but no resolutions start tomorrow with yoga class. I figure yoga is a perfect way to be healthier, have fun, and I'm sure it can be a spiritual experience. It's not the only thing I'm going to do for my resolutions, but I figure it's a good start.

The Rec has free classes all this week and they have one called Yoga for Runners. Yoga 101 is tomorrow, so I'm going to go to that and hopefully learn a little about it (I don't really know how to do yoga...) and ideally I'll be ready for Yoga for Runners on Thursday. We'll see how it goes.

Wish me luck!

Happy Halloween!

One of the more important things I've learned recently is that everybody makes bad decisions from time to time. And that's ok. College is about experiencing life and figuring things out. You make mistakes, learn from them, and then have a good story to tell when all is said and done.

I'm not condoning wild risky behavior or suggesting irresponsibility or anything like that. I'm just saying, stuff happens, and you just gotta roll with it. Move on, it'll all be ok.

On a semi-unrelated note, today is Halloween! I'm so sick of candy already, and I don't even get to go trick-or-treating anymore. Sad day. Oh well. I'm going to my first frat party tonight though, so that will be...interesting? (By the way, I'm really not a party girl.)

I talked to my mom on the phone this morning and she told me to be safe and responsible. Thanks mom, I'll try =)