Where is my love?

Beware of dating acquaintances.

The last date I went on appeared to be a good one at first. The guy was nice, tall, and handsome. He had brown shaggy hair that fell slightly over his eyes, a tattoo on his right arm of the outline of Florida, and wore tight, skinny jeans - he could have been an American Eagle model for all I knew.

Conversation flowed well as we both sipped on our Venti, double-shot, vanilla lattes with no foam, until the fatal question he asked that brought me back down to earth and slapped me on the face.

“So, I‘m just going to get this out on the table and ask you” he said. What could it be? I thought. Was he about to ask me out on another date?

“Would you like to try some cocaine?” he said.

Whaaaat???

I couldn’t believe the words that had just slipped out of his mouth. At first I thought it was a joke, but he was being completely serious.

He creeped me out so much that the date was over before the little receptionist in my head could scream…NEXT!

As my freshman year is coming near an end, I am baffled at my inability to find anyone suitable for a date. In high school, I wasn’t the most popular girl, but I did manage to score a date here and there.

In college, not only have I not found anybody worthy of a relationship, but the couple of people I have gone on dates with have turned out to be complete losers, like Mr. Cocaine Addict discussed above.

The thing is, I don’t even know where I find all of these losers. My friends have somehow managed to score cute and decent boyfriends. While me on the other hand, seem to be hanging out at the library by myself more and more.

“You have to go out more,” said freshman Elizabeth Gosein. “Go to clubs, parties - that’s where most of the guys are”

“Yeah, but I don’t just want to hook up with some guy for a night,” I told her. “I want something that will last.”

“Sometimes there are nice guys there - you just have to look for them,” said Gosein.

But I do look for them. I look for them wherever I go - the supermarket, the library, Starbucks, school, and just about everywhere. Not only that but I’ve also made a conscious effort to look better whenever I go out, in case I bump into my prince charming.

I’ve started to straighten my hair, wear more make-up, and I am even making an effort to lose the stupid freshman 15.

So what am I doing wrong?

“You’re worrying too much,” said freshman Clarissa Lowmark. “You have to just let it go and let it come when it’s supposed to.”

What my friend was saying was true.

In fact, on a recent article on the April issue of the Cosmopolitan (pg.84) psychotherapist Bella Dishell discusses that “if your only focus is on finding a boyfriend, your run the risk of coming off as desperate, a vibe that repels guys.
But when you feel at peace with yourself - you don’t think so much about how others can make you happy - you exude confidence, which is a magnetic trait,” said Dishell. “The key to getting to that place is focusing on the thing you got going for you and nurturing your interests rather than dwelling on what you lack.”

Still desperate about not being able to find a date, I asked some of my friends (with a significant other) how they managed to find their perfect guy and this is the advice they gave me on where to find my prince charming.

• The Gym (Arnold Swartzenegger): Guys like this one love to go to the gym and watch their muscles grow. They’re usually there for hours and there’s lots of them in one place. If you’re into these kinds of guys, make sure you start hitting the gym - not only will you get in shape but you’ll also increase your chances of finding your hottie.

• Whole Foods (The Hippie): If you’re a vegetarian and like guys with dreadlocks like me, then you should go to the Whole Foods Supermarket and get some tofu. It’s the perfect place to meet the healthy, anti-animal cruelty, peace & love, beauty you’ve always dreamed of. Trust me, you’ll love being a vegetarian even more.

• Barnes & Noble (The Intellectual): Barnes and Noble just happens to be the greatest place on earth if you love guys that love books as much as the opposite sex. Guys that hang out at these kinds of places are usually really smart but kind of shy. So if you want to find somebody like that, most of the time you have to make the first move. Try to start a conversation based on a book he’s looking at - trust me, it works most of the time.

• Rock concerts (Indie Superstar): I have met lots of guys at local shows. One thing though, most “rocker” guys smoke cigarettes, so if you don’t mind kissing someone that will taste like an ashtray - you’re set! These grungy, messy hair, tattooed beauties are usually pretty outgoing and if you catch their eye, they will surely approach you. Not only that but they usually play an instrument, what’s hotter than that?

Guys are everywhere. Don’t get desperate like me to have a dating life. It’ll come…I hope.

Bathing Suits and Underwear

It happens to everyone: bathing suit bottoms become underwear, socks become scarce, and jeans become crinkly and smelly -- but sooner or later you have to face the fact that you smell. After weeks of procrastination, its time to do your laundry.

“I don’t do my laundry,” said freshman Alejandro Garcia. “I go home during the weekends and let my parents do it.”

He’s not the only one…

In fact, I asked 15 freshmen if they did their laundry and sadly, only three of them replied with a “yes.”

Laundry has never been a problem for me (not that I even know how to do my laundry) but it’s just that before I even try to learn, my mom has already taken it out of the laundry basket, washed it, and folded it on top of my bed for me.

In all my 18 years of life, I have never done my laundry and probably won’t have a chance to do it until I move out. As a freshman I am considered an adult in the real world and I don’t even know how to do my own laundry -- how pathetic.

“It’s not that difficult,” said freshman Kareeme Shorter. “Freshmen are just lazy and we’re just used to our parents doing everything for us.”

But I need to start somewhere, so in hopes of learning how to do my laundry I went around and asked upperclassmen what they would do in my situation.

These are the responses I got:

• “Do not mix colors with whites.”

• “Don’t wash colors with hot water.”

• “Wash only the towels and underwear with hot water.”

It was all so confusing. My head hurt with all of the do’s and don’ts of laundry. Who knew it would be so difficult to wash my clothes.

So instead of giving you a “How to” guide on your laundry, I am going to give you a “How To” guide on how to prolong the horrible and annoying task of doing your laundry.

Hey, we might as well take as long as we can to do it. After all, we’re college students.

WARNING: The advice I’m giving on how to prolong doing your laundry will only work for a maximum of three weeks. Eventually you will have to do your laundry.

1. Only wear underwear when needed: Yeah, that’s right. Underwear is not that necessary. Unless you have your period, you can easily get away with not wearing underwear with those really tight, skinny, jeans you love so much. Trust me, your butt will look better and you will be saving clean underwear for when you really need them.
   
   
2. Tide to Go was created for a reason: Try not to spill things on your shirts and pants so that you won’t have to wash them, but if you do, use Tide to Go, and it will be the answer to your prayers. Just spray that little sucker directly on the stain and within minutes you’ll be clean again!
   
   
3. Dryer Sheets can save your jeans: To avoid washing so many pairs of jeans more than twice a week, put a dryer sheet in your pocket and carry it throughout the day. It’ll give your jeans that freshly washed scent and it’ll allow you to wear them more times throughout the week.
   
   
4. Forget about socks: One thing that’s really annoying to wash when you're doing laundry, are the millions of pairs of socks you probably own. We live in Florida buddy, it’s not like it snows here, that’s why flip flops and sandals are the official shoe of Florida.
   
   
5. Bathing suits are in: If you feel uncomfortable not wearing any underwear then by all means wear your favorite bathing suit as your new piece of underwear. They’re easier to clean, you can shower with them, and they would probably still go with your outfit.
   

Freshman under House Arrest

No, I’m not under house arrest…but certainly close to it.

My name is Irene and I am grounded - for a month to be exact. (You can stop laughing now.)

My friends have all taken the liberty of making me the practical joke of the day by laughing at me every time they see me, still in awe that I can actually get grounded at the age of 18 - well, it is possible…just ask my mom.

“You’re grounded for a month,” my mom said angrily once she found out I had wrecked the bank accounts.

I was in shock. I couldn’t breathe and I could feel my heart palpitating its way to my mouth. I pushed out the only words I could come up with.

“What do you mean?” I said. She gave me one cold look and replied, “It means, you can’t go out with anyone for a month - that’s what it means.”

And so for the past week my life has felt like something that was taken out of a scene from Groundhog Day. Every morning I angrily stumble out of my bed, take a shower, blast music in my car, get stuck on I-95, go to school, politely decline invitations to go out, come back home, do the dishes, do my homework, and repeat the cycle all over again the next day.

Long gone are the days of my so-called “college freedom,” of enjoying a curfew of 1 a.m., parties on Friday nights, and Sunday afternoon lunches with friends. Not to mention the fantastic Easter week sales that I’m going to miss thanks to my newfound lack of freedom. (Bye bye, Old Navy...)
“Don’t worry, I get grounded too,” embarrassedly admitted Karina Da Luz, a fellow freshman whom I’ve known since high school. “I think it might be because we don’t have any brothers or sisters.”

True, we don’t have any other siblings, but I thought grounding was more of a cultural thing. Ever since I was in high school, it always seemed that among my friends, I was the only one who ever got grounded. Sure, their parents got mad at them occasionally but never really grounded them.

I don’t blame my mom for being angry at me after what I did with the accounts though. Thanks to my poor judgment and my inexperience with money, I spent $330 more than what I had in my account. Now I owe the bank money, don’t have a job, and have absolutely no way of paying my mom back.

But grounding me? Isn’t that a bit extreme? No one even gets grounded anymore.

I was determined to prove that getting grounded was in fact a cultural thing - that maybe it was a “Hispanic” thing. I talked to eight other Hispanic freshmen who lived at home with their parents, asking if they still got grounded while in college, and to my surprise, they didn’t.

“Grounded? Is that a trick question?” asked Ana Valles, a political science freshman who was part of my survey. “I haven’t been grounded since I was in middle school, much less in college.”

At least she answered the question. All of the other freshmen I asked took the liberty of making me listen to their laughs and ridicule me for being the only person in college they knew was grounded.

I was wrong, it's not a cultural thing. In college, nobody gets grounded anymore - except for me, of course.

I now have to endure 20-something more days in my house while fellow freshmen are out and about clubbin’, partying, and enjoying freedom while I sit in my house watching reruns of Scott Baio is 46 and pregnant and eating buckets of ice cream.

I can’t wait to come back to the world of freedom, but for now VH1 is definitely my best friend.

Let's be Safe

Help - I’m scared!

I usually don’t pay attention to the emails that I get from FAU and on most occasions, they’re just one click away from the “Trash” icon in my email account. But just a couple of weeks ago, I received an email with an alarming subject from FAU that read: “University Timely Warning,” which of course…I just had to read.

The email said that there was another rape reported on campus.

I don’t live on campus, but when I read this email, not only was I scared for my own safety on campus, but for all of my friends and fellow freshman who live in the dorms.

In high school, nothing like this ever happened. Probably the “scariest” situations were the daily fights that erupted between students during our lunch hour. They usually lasted about five minutes and were more of a show than anything else - nothing too serious.

This is not the first time that FAU has gone through something like this. There were three other reports of sexual assault last year and one already this year according to an article by WPTV News Channel 5

“In the beginning of the year, I didn’t really pay attention to those stories because I was so caught up on living-on-my-own kind of thing,” says communications major Nadia Ismael. “But now, I’m actually scared for my safety and I’ve become obsessed with locking the doors in the dorms - I’m considering moving back home because of this situation.”

Unfortunately, Ismael is not the only one considering moving back with her parents because of the situation. There are other freshmen who want to move out of the dorms because of safety issues.

But whenever a rape is reported at a college campus, students get flooded with vague and useless advice. On the same WPTV News Channel 5 article FAU's Police Deputy Chief Keith Totten advises that “the most important thing that we always have to stress is, don’t put yourself in a compromising position and always have a friend close by who know what’s going on.”

Thanks, that really helps!

Police might as well be telling us to put on T-shirts that say "Don't rape me" because of how pointless their advice is.

So, forget about the "don't put yourself in a compromising position," advice and take a look at these pointers to feel safer on campus.

Night Owls: They are a service at FAU that offers to accompany you to any location on campus whenever you are alone or don’t feel safe. I've personally used them before and they have even waited until I get inside of my car to leave - plus it doesn't hurt that they also have direct communication with the Police Services Department in case of an emergency. Night Owls can be reached at (561) 297 - 6695

Code Blue Phones: You might have a cell phone, but what if it happens to die just when you need it. The Code Blue phones are located at various points throughout campus and there’s absolutely no way you can miss them. Use them in case of an emergency or when in need of information. They are direct lines to FAU Police Services dispatch.

Rape Aggression Defense: This program offered by the FAU Police Services Department and is designed to help women improve their self-defense skills and improve their chances for avoiding or survive assault encounters. For more information call (561) 297 - 3500

And in case these services are still not enough, I also have some tips for commuter students as well as resident students on how to be safe on campus and avoid dangerous situations:

Never Walk Alone: If you have a late night class and parked on the fifth floor of the Parking Garage, ask one of your friends to walk you or offer them a ride to their car. It’s harder to take down two people than just one person walking alone in the dark.

Have your keys in hand: It might not be cool to have your keys in hand 45 minutes before you actually even get to the elevator, but hey it might save your life. Some students like to take their time looking for their keys when they finally get to their car. Avoid dangerous situations by having your keys in hand and ready to open the door of your car. Don’t waste so much time looking for them.

Lock Your Doors: Seems like a “no brainer,” but as soon as you get in your car, lock your doors immediately, and try to not take a long time to get out of the parking lot or parking garage. Always have your phone on and in hand and make sure you check your surroundings.

Take a different route: Take different paths to get to your car or class. This will prevent offenders from following you and getting used to knowing where you're going to be at all different times.