The college post

For Layn.

College tip ground ZERO

Mom's grocery list...with comments from me.
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1nM7qQyUaZCtM7lYgxoZ3_LxblqcgCWlXzVKzHhtaVfk/edit?usp=sharing


College tip number 1.

You will survive this.  Rats can be killed, so can cockroaches.  You don't always get to have chairs or a dining table in your apartment, and sometimes your power goes out, or your garbage attracts thousands of maggots.  And maybe the neighborhood floods and you've got to move your books off of the floor.

But seriously, it is all going to be okay.  It's life, stuff happens. Now, Layn, I don't really anticipate these issues for you.  You're going into a fully furnished, school provided, approved apartment.  Apples aren't going to be $2.23 a lb on a good day, but milk will probably still be around $4 a gallon.  You'll have other small things that could bug you.

Erase the assumptions that you've had about college life.  It's a brand new piece of paper, and you get to write whatever you want on it.  Analyze your habits, and only keep the good ones.  You'll form other ones as you come to those bridges. 

There won't be Strawberry yogurt in the fridge unless you buy it.

- it also won't disappear as quickly unless you have a roommate that shares your food. 

You'll make a habit of marking your food, and having specific days when you buy different grocery items. Those aren't things that others can plan for you, these are about you and your own personal survival.

College tip number 2. 

Can openers and canned fruit. 

Food goes bad.  You think you'll be home every day for lunch and then, all of the sudden, you have a study group on Monday, a few friends run to McDonnald's and bring you along on Tuesday, on Wednesday someone invites you to lunch, and by Thursday your ripe fruit is....not so ripe because it's been tossed and tumbled in your shared fridge.  

College fridges get a lot of traffic, stuff goes bad fast.

(except tortillas...still blows my mind)

Back to the tip.  Get those little plastic lids that fit on top of standard chilli/fruit cans.  Either that or have a designated rubber band that you use to secure your plasticwrap top.  

Don't eat a whole can of chili at once, and don't forget it once it's in the fridge.

You can freeze fruit when it is starting to go bad, and use it later.  You can also do that with veggies (specifically celery), and then when you make stir fry, or soups, whatever, you and put those in last and it will cook well WHILE it cools the soup a little bit.  Then you can eat it faster.

Go through your food in your fridge AT LEAST once a month.  All of your roommates.  Do it.  Get together and anything that is going bad gets thrown into a mystery Sunday dinner that everybody shares.  

Don't be afraid of innovative food.

College tip number 3.

I will now use a real life example on proper food planning. 

I have rice.  I have macaroni noodles.  I have potatoes. 

The potatoes will go bad first.  Use them first whenever possible.  The rice will keep for. ever.  Macaroni can get soggy if it's too humid.  Use things in the order of when they'll rot and beat the cycle of death!  If, however, I have 2 bottles of Prego pasta sauce and one of them is open in the fridge- it is important for you to use the pasta sauce within to weeks of when you opened it.  Otherwise it will go bad.  So, make LOTS of pasta in the morning and eat it throughout the day.  The next day, make LOTS of mashed/baked/casserole potatoes and eat it throughout the day. 

Sometimes this means that you have some really good stir fry (leftover from a RS activity), and when you don't have rice or plain noodles cooked and sitting in the fridge, this means you have the opportunity to use your potatoes.  

I might have fed the Scotsman stir-fry on mashed potatoes yesterday.  Was it an unusual mix of food cultures?  I'd like to call it bi-cultural syncretism.   But it was good, it was filling, and it didn't take very long.

College tip number 4.

Carrots last forever. You need veggies.  Buy carrots.  Buy the giant bag of carrots at Costco (20lbs, I'm serious) and you can have carrot sticks for the rest of the semester.  And then you can cook them in carrot pennies, or steam them with rice, or put them in soup.....

carrots are great.

and they're good for your eyes.

Celery is good...but it goes bad really fast.  All the ingredients for salad get expensive.  Cucumbers are also wonderful, but they don't last much longer than celery.  Buy baby tomatoes because they don't get so squishy.  Big tomatoes don't last long in a college fridge, they get moved around and squished.

College tip number 5.

Feed your Home Teachers...and the people you Visit Teach.

When you're very first assigned to Home Teachers, it's probably going to be a little bit awkward.  Think about it, these are the people that will be your first contact when you're having a bit of a crisis.  Give them the opportunity to be the caring, on top of it, home teachers that all men in the Church should be.  Start that by inviting them to lunch after church...or maybe on a weekday if they can swing it. You make the lunch at your apartment (if you're allowed to have male visitors....check with the rules on that....but you could picnic it), you all eat, and then they give their spiritual message and help you with the clean-up.  

THEY WILL get their home teaching done from then on. They'll like you, and have a better attitude about the whole thing.

The same goes to the people that you Visit Teach.  I like having breakfast with my VT Companion and 1-2 of my teachees before church on Sunday.  It's great.  Feed them physically and spiritual.  You'll love them more, you'll be more aware of their needs, and everybody likes pancakes and good company...even if they're not a huge fan of pancakes. 

College reality that we'll call tip 6.

It would be a lot cheaper to buy your food together with your entire house.  There would be more room in the fridge.  The food wouldn't go bad so fast.  You could have a wider variety.  You wouldn't have to deal with 3 egg cartons in the fridge at the same time.
As WONDERFUL as that would be...it's not going to happen.
Here is why.
You eat differently than your roommates.  Heck, you eat differently the ME.  You drink milk.  I don't like milk.  So if we go in on groceries together, I end up paying for some of the milk....that I'll never drink.
Not cool.
But, you know, I may eat more cheese than you do and you're splitting that too, so it all works out in the end, right?
It would, and it does, and that's totally the way I see it.   However, that is the long term.  This is the short-term.  You're in college, money is tight, you're in a new place and you don't absolutely unconditionally love these people yet.  Don't give yourselves anything to have contention over.

Now, when you can choose your roommates...
be. very. cautious.

Roommate Abbie and I share a lot of food.  She has a Costco card, and I don't, so we end up getting a lot of things together.  We buy eggs, cheese, meat, butter, fruit, beans, chili, macaroni....etc etc.
We also eat together a lot.  Whenever I cook something, I make sure I make enough for leftovers, and leave them in the fridge for her to eat when she can.  Then I tell her that there are leftovers in the fridge that she is welcome to.   Also- I cook a lot more than she does.  She doesn't have to cook as much, and still eats; as a result, I cook more-ish and our fridge is not as jam-packed as I've known it to be.

We tried to share milk and eggs with our entire house.  Everybody put in $5 per month into a jar and as we need eggs or milk, someone will go get it.  It didn't work.  Different cultures, different food habits, maybe a bit of mistrust and anxiety doesn't allow for that.

And this, Layn, is why people get married.  So that they can put whatever they want in the fridge.  And the fundamental unit of the Church is the Family because the refrigerator system works so much better than having unrelated people live together.


College tip number 7.

Establish a bedtime.  Period.  Set your alarm clock.  Do whatever you want in the morning, in whatever order you want.  My advice, no later than 6:30.
The library is open until midnight....does not mean you need to be there until it closes.  If you HAVE to, okay, the infrequent library lockdown is fine.  Don't make it a habit.  Do your homework efficiently and then go home, and go to bed.


College tip number 8.

Remember people's names.  Control the way you look at people.  They may seem a little odd.  They may be a little weird.  But we're all a little weird.  And that kid who is wearing a kilt, don't judge it, you may just fall in love with him someday.  So be nice.
Go through the halls and assume that 90% of the people walking around are having a hard day.  Uplift them with that assumption.  You'll be surprised at how correctly you've assumed.


College tip number 9.

Social media is a time sucker.
It is also a wonderful way to stay in contact.
It is also the go-to way to make study/meet up plans.

Limit your social media time.  Make a note of the people you need to contact or the questions you need to ask-- literally write them down-- as soon as you think of them; then, when you get to your facebook, take care of those things first.  It's fine to get distracted, but make sure there is a purpose for you getting onto facebook and that you complete it before you sign off.


College tip number 10.

When you find it hard to love someone, when you're nervous about this new person that you're living with, or the new person that is your home teacher, or the new person that is in your assigned study group, or the new person that shares a desk with you at work, serve them.
Small things like, when you make breakfast in the morning, make enough for your roommate and bring it to her occasionally (on mornings when she has an early class or something).  It doesn't have to be huge.
The quickest way to love someone is to serve them, and the happiest way to live is to love the people that you are around.


College tip number 11.

Make goals.  Write them down.  Post them on your wall.  Tell your 3 best friends about them.  AND THEN, don't envision yourself achieving your goal.  Instead, envision all of the little steps that will have to come to pass in order for you to achieve your goal.
Ex:  I want to read my textbook chapters before class so that I'm more prepared for the lecture.
~I need to own my textbook.
~I need to have a quiet study place to read the textbook.
~I need undisturbed time in which to read material that I don't fully understand.
~I will need a blanket because the library is cold, and nobody bothers you when you have a blanket.
~I need to make sure I have my blanket in my backpack before I leave my apartment.

See?  Like that.  With my blanket and my textbook in my bag, I'm far more likely to actually read before class.


College tip number 12

DO NOT, UNDER ANY CIRCUMSTANCES, DO ANYTHING ON YOUR BED OTHER THAN SLEEP.
Do not study on your bed.
Do not watch movies/shows/youtube on your bed
Do not use you computer while you are on your bed.
Do not eat on your bed
Do not write in your journal, or write essays, while on your bed.

Occasionally breaking this rule is acceptable, but only slightly.  Like, have girl talk, paint your nails occasionally, play cardgames on your bed with roommate 1 when roommate 2 is on a date in the Kitchen.  When you are sick, skype mom from your bed.

BUT THIS MUST BE THE EXCEPTION.
ONLY SLEEPING shall happen WHILST ON YOUR BED.

Why?
Because if you eat, watch movies, do homework, read books, play games, scroll facebook....all of these things happening on your bed--
your brain will cease to associate your bed with sleeping.
What happens when you stop associating sleep with your bed?  You are restless, and it leads to MORE computer use, food consumption, reading and things while you are on your bed.
This leads to sleep problems.  You literally will not be able to fall asleep while you are on your bed.  I know girls (cough, Megan) who had to sleep on the couch in the front room because she did everything else on her bed.

Beds are for sleeping.

Bonus words of wisdom.

Keep a bag of chocolate chips.  When you have the ingredients to make a treat, you don't feel so poor.