Dorm Essentials: The Toaster Oven

With the majority of the country’s colleges starting school this week, I thought I’d take some time to drop a little piece of helpful advice. I’m aiming this primarily at freshmen, or those who are moving into an on-or-off campus apartment for the first time.

               

 Get a toaster oven. Seriously, do it. These are one of the most versatile appliances money can buy, and as a busy college student, you’ll love it. Toaster ovens can be used for all sorts of things: you can roast a chicken, warm up some leftovers, or make some delicious, homemade toasted sandwiches. Forget about Quiznos! Pro-tip: for those of truly entrepreneurial spirits, you can open up a dorm-room sandwich shop! Most dorms don’t allow this though, so you’ll have to be shady about it.

               

There’re a whole plethora of delicious toaster oven recipes you can find online if you want to put a little time in, but that’s only an added bonus for me. The best thing about toaster ovens are that they offer the convenience of a microwave, yet make your food exponentially more delicious! Heating up some bagel bites, but don’t have time to put them in the oven? Toss ‘em in the toaster oven for delectable crispiness in only a few minutes. Want to heat up some left over pizza, but don’t want it to get soggy in the microwave? Put it in the toaster oven and twist the knob; I’ve documented more than one case in which the pizza was actually better after heating it in the toaster oven than it was originally.

               

I love toaster ovens because you can get creative with pretty much anything on-hand, and have it near-consistently turn out delicious every time. If you find yourself with a gang of friends over after a night of drinking, you can take some bread, cheese, and sandwich meat and toss it in the toaster oven. Even the simplest of creations will come out warm and toasty, which is often a welcome relief to the late-night revelers. Some of my *ahem* inspired creations have been Eggo-waffle pizza, cheesy pesto bread, and cheesy garlic naan (yes, I like cheese).

                 

You can even use them to make fancier, real meals. A toaster oven can essentially do whatever an oven can do without using nearly as much energy, which is great if you’re responsible for paying utilities. The only downside is that it’s too small to fit a lot of things, but there are some great toaster oven recipes you can find online if you want to put a little more time into your meal.

             

I hope you take my advice and get one of these! You can get a basic one (that’s all you need, really) for as cheap as $40. If you have any great toaster oven recipes, share ‘em below in the comments, and please subscribe!

               

Effective Time Management in College

Before coming to college, I had this funny idea in my head that somehow everything was going to work out perfectly: I’d get killer grades, get involved in a whole slew of extracurriculars, and of course, live a ludicrous, raging social life like John Belushi in Animal House. I got so swept up in imagining these great things that I never had the mind to look at things from a realistic perspective. As one might imagine, I was in for quite the surprise. Upon arriving at college, reality – unforgiving as ever she is - slipped on a white glove, powdered the mother up, and slapped me right across the face in an explosion of baby powder and shattered expectations.

The unfortunate reality is that there’s only so much time in the day, and we only have so much energy we’re capable of expending. And, with that being said, I didn’t exactly have the time management skills to efficiently distribute that time and energy. I was faced with the all too common college dilemma: I could either get good grades and achieve academic success, or I could have an awesome social life and make a lot of friends. Having both didn’t seem to be an option; at least, not at first.

But as I became more and more acclimated to college life, and as I began to push myself into more and more extracurriculars, gradually I began to develop some important time management skills that made me realize that I really did have a lot more time on my hands than I had previously thought. Having developed these skills over my years at school, I found that I truly could balance my academics with a healthy and fulfilling social life. Employing effective time management skills is crucial if you want to get the most out of your college experience. Below I will impart a few time management tips and tricks that have helped me get the most out of my college years.

1.       Prioritize

Prioritizing is, in my opinion, one of the most important aspects of successful time management in college. Set your priorities in terms of numerical ranking: academics should come first (you’re paying a lot of money for this, after all), second might be your extracurriculars, and third might be your social life. You can arrange your priorities by whatever’s important to you, but be sure to understand the consequences of doing so. If you prioritize partying over academics, don’t expect to get the best grades.

2.       Identify Your Obligations and Plan Accordingly

After setting your priorities straight, you’ll need to develop an awareness of your obligations and where your free time resides. A lot of websites and magazines will tell you to use a calendar or a planner to schedule out your life and figure out where you have free time; though I see the merits of this and am sure that it works for a lot of people, I personally find it a bit excessive. From week to week, I simply try to remain mindful of where my obligations are: what time I have class, meetings, or any other weekly obligations. From there, I simply work backwards to set aside necessary time to do homework and projects.

Eventually, you’ll gain a sense of when the best time to do work is, and when the best time to exercise or socialize is. Once you’ve figured that out, set yourself a routine and stick with it. It’ll require discipline at first, but once you’ve internalized your routine, it almost becomes second nature. Once you’ve gotten into the swing of things, you can take the remaining time to do whatever you want! Be mindful of when essays, midterms, or other large assignments are due so you can make the appropriate changes to your schedule.

3.       Use your time effectively

So you’ve set your priorities in line and managed to plan or organically develop a sort of schedule: great, you’re on the right track. Now understand that if you don’t utilize your time effectively, you’re not going to have time for much else beyond your top priority. If you take six hours to do an assignment that should take three, you probably won’t get to go out or relax at the end of the night. Make sure you’re getting a decent amount of sleep and eating healthy to keep your brain performing at optimum levels. If your health begins to deteriorate, so too will your energy levels; with your energy levels your social life will also decline. Take good care of yourself, work hard, and remain focused and you’ll find that you can get a lot more done in a given amount of time than you’d previously thought.

4.       Don’t make a habit out of procrastinating

Ah, procrastination. To be quite honest, I still struggle with this demon myself, although the problem has improved over the years. Putting things off until the last minute is an easy habit to fall into, but after taking efforts to alleviate this issue, I can say definitively that it’s usually not worth it. Having to do everything the night before its due is quite stressful, and after doing it for so many weeks, you may begin to find yourself getting burnt out. Minimizing stress is important to utilizing your time efficiently and keeping your energy levels up, so I try to make a habit of at least starting assignments early. After my last class at the end of every week, I try to put at least two hours into reading or studying before I go out. Even if you don’t finish the assignment, having only half of it left to do makes it seem like it goes by so much quicker. As a bonus, more often than not, you end up performing a lot better on the assignment when you don’t do it all in one large block of time.

So there are four tips for managing your time effectively in college. While not a definitive list, one might see a significant improvement in their balance by adhering to these principles. Feel free to drop a comment below, and please subscribe for more content!

How To Throw a Legendary Black Light Party

Out of all the different types of parties I’ve had the pleasure of attending, black light parties are easily one of my favorites. A black light party is exactly what it sounds like: you walk through the front door of a house or apartment into a room lit almost entirely with black lights. Luminescent partygoers dressed in all manner of glow-in-the-dark clothing and accessories shuffle around with neon drinks in hand while loud electronic music blares from the speakers. Inevitably, a friend of yours spots you and rushes up to draw on the back of your white shirt with a highlighter (don’t worry, it washes out), loudly assuring you that he’s not drawing anything lewd (pro-tip: they always are).

At some point, you may take a neon shot, dance in a swirl of lights and colors, or perhaps even try your hand at a game of glow-in-the-dark beer pong. Meeting people is incredibly easy at these things; there’s no better way to break the ice with someone than to go up and draw a luminescent masterpiece on their shirt.

All that being said, black light parties are a great deal of fun, but are they easy to throw?  For the absurdly high amount of awesomeness they provide, they’re surprisingly easy to put together. Below, I’ll detail a couple easy steps for how to throw a black light party.

Step one: Inform the guests!

Promotion is arguably one of the most important steps to throwing a successful party. Blast out a text, make a Facebook page, send out custom invitations, whatever. Be sure to do it all well in advance of the party. Include all the awe-inspiring details to hype it up, maybe a few pictures, and be sure to tell everyone to bring glow sticks and wear neon or white clothing for maximum black party awesomeness.

Step two: Gather Supplies

Every black light party requires the following: alcohol, plastic cups, highlighters, music & speakers, some neon tape, and of course, black lights. Depending on how big your party location is, you may need to buy more black lights; a small apartment could probably get away with two. People always seem to have one or two of these lying around, so ask your friends.

               

Alright, so you have the basic ingredients for an awesome black light party, but what things can you add to the mix to spice it up a bit? Tonic water should be first on your list – the stuff glows under the black lights! You can use it to mix alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks. And of course, brightly-colored neon cups to go along with them would be great. If not, at least get clear plastic cups so people can actually see the liquid glowing inside.

              

The next step up the stairway to party heaven is to gather the necessary items for glow-in-the-dark drinking games. Beer Pong and Rage Cage are two of the mainstays, but you can get as creative with this as you want. You already have neon or clear plastic cups (get the big ones), so now you’re going to need glow-in-the-dark ping pong balls. You can find a pack of these at almost any Party City for about three bucks. Of course, you’ll need a surface upon which to play these games. That means some sort of table; one of your friends is bound to have one. In times of desperation, you can always detach your closet door and lay it across your kitchen counter.

               

These last items are the icing on the cake, the cherry on top of the sundae. With what you have so far, you can already throw a black light party to be remembered (or not), but add these in and you’re well on your way to becoming the next Van Wilder. To surpass the final rung of ascension to party godhood, you can add a fog machine, a laser light machine, a disco ball, and a couple strobe lights to your pre-party shopping list.

               
Alright, so you’ve gathered all the supplies for your black light party. Now, what to do with them?

  
Step three: Preparation

               
 First off, for the sake of preventing confusion you’ll want to use your neon tape to point people in the direction of the bathrooms. Place the tape on walls, tables, and corners to make them more easily visible and to prevent people from running into things. As with any party, I’d advise you to take anything valuable that can be broken or stolen and lock it up in one of your rooms. Set up your speakers and clear the floor in whichever space you’d like the dancing to happen. Next, you’ll want to cover all the windows with heavy curtains or black paper. You want the rooms to be as dark as possible to maximize the effectiveness of the black lights. You will then want to hang the black lights in strategic locations so as to maximize the amount of area they cover. If you must, tape the cords against the wall to prevent people from tripping. Lastly, scatter your highlighters around the room so people can draw funny pictures on each other!       

                 
 The next step is to start mixing drinks and setting them up somewhere where people can easily access them. Check out a couple fun alcoholic tonic water recipes; gin and tonic is the classic, but there are many more recipes that might be tastier. To save time, money, and effort, you might even go the glow-in-the-dark jungle juice route. For non-alcoholic drinks, you can simply mix tonic water with sprite or regular filtered water. This step can be done either as you’re setting up, or you can wait until people start arriving.

               

The lights are up, the windows are covered, the safety cautions are in place, and the drinks are mixed; now it’s time to set up your drinking games! For either Beer Pong or Rage Cage, line your table or playing surface with neon tape. You can as creative with this as you want; perhaps decorate the table with some glow-in-the-dark paint, or use the tape to outline the section of the playing surface in which the cups reside. Next, take the necessary amount of glowing drinks and set them up in whatever configuration your game requires.  Lastly, break out the glowing ping pong balls and get to playing!

               
If you decided that you wanted to go the extra mile and throw the black light party of the century, now you’ll need to set up all your extra lighting and equipment. You’ll want to put the fog and laser light machines both in the same room. If you’ve ever been laser tagging, you’ll understand why – with the fog in the room, you can actually see the lasers beaming through the air! As for the strobe lights and disco balls, the best place to put those would be wherever the dancing is happening. Once all is said and done, you should have a pretty luminous ambiance in your apartment.

  
Step four: Rage!

               

Your space is all set up – now the only thing left to do is wait until the guests arrive and have a blast! Be sure to have a few responsible people staying relatively sober to keep an eye on things and you’re set!

If you have any questions, comments, or ideas for how to make a black light party better, leave a comment below. Also, subscribe to my blog for more awesome content!