Iced Tea

I have heard many a college student state that they do not have a good recipe for iced tea. I am going to share my recipe for all those people who cannot find a good recipe!

3 regular size tea bags*

1 2 quart pot

Water

1/3 cup sugar**

1/2 Gallon pitcher***

Using cold water (I have tried making tea with hot water and it doesn't taste as good, so make sure you use cold water), fill your pot as full as you can without overfilling it. Remove paper from the teabags (take the paper tag thingy off too, or your tea will taste like paper!), and place in water. Bring water to boil, and turn heat to low. Let simmer for 30-40 minutes (depending on how strong you like your tea, I usually do about 40 minutes). 

Put sugar in pitcher, remove tea bags from water and throw away. Pour tea over sugar, and stir until the sugar is dissolved. If necessary, add cold water until the pitcher is full (sometimes I have enough tea, and other times I need to add a little bit of water). 

It is a little time-consuming, considering the other ways I have heard people make tea usually just take ten or fifteen minutes, but this is the best recipe that I have ever used. Its really easy to get this boiling, then study for a little bit, or watch an episode of Pretty Little Liars ;) or some other show! 

Because I enjoy tea, I usually make several pitchers at once. I also take this with me when I go to class or work, so I found that rather than using regular ice cubes and watering my tea down, I have an ice cube tray designated for making "tea cubes". Simply fill the ice cube tray with tea rather than water, and pop into your tea when you are heading out the door, or anytime! The sugar in the tea does make the cubes slightly sticky, so if you don't want the stickiness, then use unsweet tea to make your tea cubes (if you like sweet tea, maybe add a little more sugar into your tea, and use unsweet cubes). 

Its a really simple, easy-to-change recipe! Play around with it, everyone is different!

*I prefer Lipton, I grew up drinking Lipton, so its just my preference. Use whatever you prefer though!

**I do not like my tea very sweet. If you like sweet tea, you might try 1/2 cup sugar.

***If you have a gallon pitcher, simply double the sugar and use six tea bags, there is no need to double the water.

Sleeping Healthy

I just found this website this morning that tells you when you should go to sleep. Because we sleep in cycles, so for example for me, I should go to sleep at 10, or 11:30 since I get up at 7. Not getting in bed at 10 or 11:30, but actually asleep. If you wake up during a cycle, you feel groggy and tired, but if you sleep through a cycle, then you feel more rested. I am going to try this out tonight!

Here is the link, I think this is definitely something worth looking into! Especially if you are constantly tired. If you have insomnia, like me, I will post soon about how to beat insomnia!

Live Life Now!

Here are two great blog posts from chegg. Chegg sells books, and they also have a blog that I read sometimes. They are on facebook. Here are two posts from them that I LOVE!

Take Back Your 20's:
http://blog.chegg.com/2013/02/12/9-ways-to-take-back-your-20s/

Things to Stop Doing in Your 20's:
http://blog.chegg.com/2013/04/02/19-things-to-stop-doing-in-your-20s/

Yoga

I never really looked much into yoga until recently. It just wasn't my thing. But suddenly I was seeing yoga everywhere, yoga is supposed to help if you are stressed or have migraines (I have both), and yoga is in 27 Dresses, and the Wedding Planner (I kind of want Judy Greer to be my best friend, she's awesome!) and there is free yoga at school. Yoga was just everywhere. So I figured I would give it a try.

I did not feel comfortable going to a yoga class at school. Plus, the classes and my schedule did not like each other. I looked online, and found some yoga videos on youtube. Esther Ekhart is the yoga teacher. The video is titled "Yoga for Beginners" and I really enjoyed this. She has several videos, I usually just do the first and second video. If I have time, I will do the third. But these are really great videos if you have NO idea what you are doing, like me! Esther is very easy to understand, she shows you how to do everything, and its definitely relaxing!

I also mix a little physical therapy stretches in with this yoga. I do a little stretching before, and some neck stretches afterwards. I try to do yoga three times a week. I am not quite in the routine of doing yoga every week, but I am getting there! Once or twice a week I will add some crunches into the mix!

Yoga, I can say from experience, is helpful if you are stressed, or get migraines a lot. I know that there are many more things yoga is helpful for. If you are tense, or have tight muscles and need to stretch your body out a bit, yoga is perfect. It is exercise, stretching, and good for your respiratory system. So check some yoga out! Get involved in a class near you, and do it your way, if you want to get comfortable in your own home first, then do that! If you want to jump right into a class, go right ahead!

Keeping Up With the News

Whether you're in college, or going to be, keeping up with what is happening in colleges across the United States is important. Knowing what the government is doing with tuition, administration rates, even whether or not Harvard had a "nap room" (they do by the way!)
I have two resources that I use to keep up with college news. I don't read EVERY article, but it is good to read what interests you, and things that relate to you (for example, tuition rates). The first one is a newspaper that the library has called The Chronicle. I would think that most college libraries would have a copy of this, I personally prefer reading from paper, rather than a computer screen! If your library does not have this option, the website is: The Chronicle.
The second place I use to keep up with college news is USA Today College. They tend to have more articles written by students, where The Chronicle has more college news related articles. Both are interesting, and good places to at least skim over every so often so you know whats going on! The USA Today website is: USA Today College.

On a different note, keeping up with the weather is also something smart to do. Plus, you'll know if it is going to rain, so you know whether to wear rain boots or not! You don't want to be the person with soggy shoes! weather.com is the website that I use on a regular basis. I use the hourly forecast because I prefer it over the other options. Use whatever you prefer. However, if there is bad weather in your area do not rely on this website. No, no, no. Haha, log onto your local weather website, or turn your TV on. I use weather.com simply to know the temperature, and rain/snow/storm updates. If I hear the tornado siren going off, I turn the TV on. I will be posting sometime later on about weather safety tips.

On the Art of Picking A Professor

Just a few days ago I was in a meeting with my wonderful adviser, Meg. She said that I can start enrolling in classes starting in April. That got me thinking about what classes I was going to take, and what professors I needed to do some research on.

The best website I have ever found is www.ratemyprofessor.com It has information based on what school you are from, and also by professor. Its easiest if you find your school, and then search for your professor through your school. If you search just for your professor, you could end up with several professors from different schools with the same name. 

The reason I like this website so much is because of my (awful) World Religion teacher that I had during the summer semester of 2012. I was looking forward to taking World Religion, it sounds interesting right? Everyone I have told this story to always says, "World Religion sounds interesting!" It was NOT interesting. It was more of a "lets see how many different languages I can teach you to understand in three months" class. All of the content of the exams was definitions of words in other languages. In other words: "what does this word mean?" I felt like I was in a foreign language class. I did not learn anything about other religions. I still couldn't tell you what I learned from that class. 

But then there is my COMM 201, and COMM 305 professors. They were both VERY engaged in the lectures, helpful in the exams, willing to stop the lecture in order to answer my questions. The exams consisted of relatively easy material. I had to study, but I felt that the studying I did was enough for the content of the exams. I didn't feel like I was studying things that didn't need to be studied. My COMM 201 professor, Mary, is my adviser now also. She is so awesome! =)

My point is, there is going to be an awful professor sometime in your college life. But if you can avoid them, it will make your life easier, and college more enjoyable. So use this website, and make your own decisions. This Spring semester (2013) is the first time I have used www.ratemyprofessor.com. I picked my Sociology professor through this website, and he is INCREDIBLE! I love him to death! I also picked my Biology professor. Here is where it gets hard. My biology professor had a medium rating. I went ahead and took him because I needed to take biology, and his ratings weren't too terribly bad. The first day of class he said so many things that made me think, "My gosh this guy is a jerk." But after going to class several times, I realized that he really does care about his students. He comes across as a jerk because he is tired of people who don't care about college, and because he is very straightforward. I know I am that way sometimes. I tend to come across as a rude person, when I really am not! Use your discretion in deciding whether to take a professor or not. Sometimes, you won't have a choice. Other than this website, ask around. People in your school are gonna know at least one or two professors to take or not take. Make friends, and get their opinion also. There are so many options, but always try to make a well-informed decision about your professors!