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Find Your Lost Bike Fast!

With all the joy that a bicycle brings, it can also bring despair by lookin’ all shiny and getting itself stolen.  Yes, it’s the bike’s fault for looking so…takeable in that bike rack with the lock unfastened and dangling.  One could hardly blame a passerby who decides to borrow your bike for a while, with every intention of returning it, of course.

But they don’t return it.  They stole your bike.  Get your walking shoes on, boy, because you now have to actually walk to class.

Or do you??

The National Bike Registry allows you to register your bike with their online database and then sends you a tamper-proof decal/sticker to put on your bike, which makes it possible for law enforcement or other individuals to identify and return the bike to the rightful owner (you) if it is found! Pretty snazzy, huh? I’d sign up if I were you…that guy is staring waaay too long at the baseball card in your spokes.

Anyway, expect some updates soon.  We went to 10 countries on our trip, so I’m gonna try to write a little about each one and I’m sure there’ll be other random articles about the art of Eurotripping as well.  Until I can get those up, please enjoy this little video montage I made of our trip:

[COMING SOON]

See you in a few weeks!

The permitted items start off pretty normal, besides the fact that they state again I can’t have my radioactive play things.

It’s good to see they’ve finally loosened up and allowed nail clippers on carry-ons. I’d definitely not waste money on some new ones overseas so I would have probably come back looking like a Ripley’s Believe it or not freak.

What the hell are safety razors?! That’s like a family friendly minefield, it just doesn’t make sense. Thank god I’m allowed my personal lubricants though! Ummm…and apparently stabbing people is fine as long as they only can cause minor lung punctures 4-inches deep.

What the hell are safety razors?! That's like a family friendly minefield, it just doesn't make sense. Thank god I'm allowed my personal lubricants though! Ummm...and apparently stabbing people is fine as long as they only can cause minor lung punctures 4-inches deep.

I saved the best for last – this one is by far my favorite. My guess is that someone saw the part in the Transformers movie where a robot tried to sabotage Air Force One. I sincerely hope the airline got a call from a concerned parent calling to make sure their son and transformer toy wouldn’t be tackled and arrested for treason immediately upon entering the airport.

My only other question is: What about my Tickle-Me Elmo doll?! There’s definitely something sinister about those things.

I love this new Discovery Channel commercial.

Not only is the commercial very well done, but they manage to cram in a cameo from every Discovery Channel star I love. The list includes singing stints from:

The big cameos are from Mike Rowe, Bear Grylls, and Adam and Jamie from Mythbusters (Adam politely sets Jamie on fire while singing).

There are a few more appearances from some lesser-knowns, such as: a few fishy favorites from the Deadliest Catch, a flying Great White Shark you may remember from Planet Earth, and some chick with a hard-on for King Tut. My favorite, though, is definitely a singing…Stephen Hawking!

Here’s the (awesome) lyrics!:

I love the mountains
I love the clear blue skies
I love big bridges
I love when great whites fly.

I love the whole world
and all its sights and sounds

hoom-di-a-da X 4 (spelling?)

i love the ocean
i love the dirty things
i love to go fast
i love egyptian kings

i love the whole world
and all its craziness

hoom-di-a-da X 4

i love tornados
i love arachanid
i love hot magma
i love the giant squids

i love the whole world
it’s such a brilliant place.

hoom-di-a-da X 10

Decide which factors matter most to you.

If $$ is a major factor (like…if you’re broke, for instance), then you don’t need to waste your time researching schools with bad financial aid reputations or those artsy fartsy ones that cost $40,000 a year (+ fees, books, room & board, mandatory first-weekend keg, etc…). You need to find a school with either great financial aid/scholarship opportunities or one with tuition that’s more in your price range.

Money is just one of thousands of things you need to consider when deciding which college to attend; use your own unique top 3-5 factors to drastically narrow your pool of possibilities to a small group of colleges that are the perfect fit for you. Try to choose the factors that are make-or-break – use specific criteria that would make going to that college completely out the question for you – not just trivial preferences like an abundance of hot co-eds and a lax drinking policy. While these things can be important, the presence or absence of them shouldn’t be the big deal breakers.

For instance, don’t use the “Dining Hall food quality” as one of your main deciding factors; use something like “distance from home” if you don’t have a car, the money to fuel it, or if you absolutely hate making long trips. Ask yourself questions like “Do I care how well-known the college is?”, “What are my realistic chances of getting in?”, “Does the school even offer my major?”, etc.

Choose your Major

Did that last question scare you? If you haven’t already, you need to pick a major. Don’t freak out over it, but at this point in your life you should at least have an inkling of what you’d like to do. My advice would be to choose your major based on what makes you happy, NOT based on what promises the most money. Trust me – money follows happiness.

As a psychology major, I have read countless articles and research papers on quality of life and overall happiness. Whether you believe it or not, the facts speak for themselves, and the facts show that the happiest people, the ones that absolutely love their lives and feel truly fulfilled, are NOT the ones with the most money. They don’t mind getting up and going to “work”, and neither should you. It sounds cliché, but try to think of something you would continue to do even after you won the lottery and didn’t have to work ever again.

If you are the type of person who wants to attend the most prestigious college for your chosen major, the next obvious step would be to search for the colleges that rank highly for your major and create a list/spreadsheet of your top choices. Coming from the #1 ranked school for engineering will give you an edge if you plan to go on to graduate school or compete for an engineering job, but it’s not absolutely vital for your marketability as an employee. If you do really well in your classes and jump through all the other hoops to boost your résumé, even at a lower-ranked school, you should still do well in job searches and in graduate school.

Visit your top choices, if possible.

You’re thinking about spending 4+ years of your life at this place, don’t you think you should see if you can stay there for at least a few days? Call ahead of time and say you’re thinking about visiting, and ask about any visitor packages or opportunities. Almost every school has specific things they do for potential students, such as offering free lunches or giving free school apparel. I don’t know about you, but I’ll take pretty much anything as long as it’s free.

While you’re on the phone make sure to ask about tours or other special arrangements you can make as a visitor so you can learn as much about the school as possible. If you’re feeling frisky, some schools let potential students overnight with student hosts, which is a great way to experience a little of the college life you’d be living if you choose that college. Be warned, though – the students that sign up to be “hosts” aren’t always your typical students so don’t make your decision just on your experience with them. All the fun kids who have been caught for drinking or other debauchery are most likely discouraged/banned from signing up to host visitors, so don’t expect to be greeted with Jello shots and condoms when you walk into your hosts room.

In lieu of visiting, or in addition, e-mail current students of your favorite potential schools (look for any student listings with titles like “Student Ambassador” and the like on the school’s website). Once again, these students were probably chosen as student ambassadors because of their sterling reputation, so don’t expect them to be the “normal” student for that school. They should be good for all the basic questions you have, though, so you should utilize them. At the very least you should find some pictures of the campus and surrounding area to see if it meshes with your expectations and interests.

That’s it for now – we’ve barely scratched the surface so far so be sure to check back for upcoming parts to this series!

Ok, now the date you should actually start the application process is about 2-3 months before the date you chose, if not sooner. Don’t get me wrong, I’m a lifelong procrastinator; hell, I could write 100 articles on procrastination alone if I ever got around to it – but that fact does not make what I’m saying any less relevant.

Getting recommendations, writing entrance essays, and trying to compile a list of all your past employers and their contact info all take a ridiculously long time, so just do yourself a favor and pretend the due date for your application is far sooner than it actually is.

2. If your list of potential colleges is too long (10+), narrow it down so that you save time and money by not applying to colleges you aren’t considering as seriously as others.

Ask yourself if you really want to go there or you just put it on your list because you heard it had a large population of binge-drinking, hot coeds…

…actually, keep that one on the list.

3. It’s best to start an excel file or spreadsheet of your finalized potential colleges.

Put 1 college per line and then label the columns with things like “Application links”, “Due date”, “Tuition Cost”, etc…so you can compare all of your choices quickly and easily. Bookmarking any and every page you come across that has one shred of information on it will waste hours of your time and be hard to find when you need it.

Put the Excel file on your desktop and add info to it whenever you come across some aspect or characteristic by which you want to compare all of your potential colleges.

4. I’m kind of embarassed to admit this, but I chose my college using primarily www.princetonreview.com ratings and a few Google searches.

And I apparently disregarded what little research I did, because I still chose to go to the college whose dining hall was rated #1 on Princeton Review in the “Is it Food?” category, which meant I voluntarily chose to go to the college with the worst food in the country.

Write down or create a list in Word of the colleges that have a few of the top characteristics you’re looking for (size, student:faculty ration, location, academic prowess, etc). For instance, even though my college apparently had nasty food, it ranked highly in other areas I considered to be important, such as intramural activity participation and some certain social categories, which I decided were good enough to offset the occasional soggy slice of pizza.

In Applying to College, Part 2, we’ll discuss how you can find the right college for you by answering a few simple questions that put your college search in perspective. Look out for it in the next few days. Good luck and happy searching.