Get into it

When I first started attending Metro, I had little interest in doing more than just attending my classes. Most of my friends were off campus, so I was able to snooze a bit in the student lounges and use my down time to complete assignments. When I first registered, I decided to be an arts major, even though I couldn't really draw. After my first semester I scrapped that plan, deciding that photography was just a hobby and if I decided to study fashion design (the original plan), I'd need to transfer schools - so I registered for classes that would help me grow while fulfilling my core req's.

About a year before the last presidential election, I registered for American National Government and Intro to Philosophy. Both of these classes sparked something in me: a hunger to learn as much about the world, politics and philosophy as possible; and then a need to take action.

Once that spark was ignited I changed majors and decided to simply make clothes in my spare time. I've also gotten involved, on campus and off. Some friends and I created a women's art collective called Luna City, which sadly only had a brief run. Then, Last year I participated in Take Back the Night, which is a women's march to reclaim the streets without fear of sexual assault and was an active member of NARAL Auraria (the National Abortion Rights Action League), among other things. I have also traveled to Cuba (where my friend and I rode our bikes cross country) to understand how Castro's regime was working and how the notion of communism had been whittled down to nothing more than a tool for brain-washing.

Also during the last year, I worked on Campus in the Office of Institutional Advancement with a wonderful group of people who are working hard to make Metro State a better place. I.A. is the office where research, grantwriting, fundraising and scholarships are developed and instituted. They also work hand-in-hand with College Communications (which is how I got the blogging job - thanks guys!) and Alumni Relations. Without the experience of working on campus, I may have never felt confident enough to apply for scholarships nor have gotten to know so many wonderful individuals on campus!

Now, I'll admit, it's dificult to find a moment to snooze on campus & I have to hide to get any homework done, but college has become a much more challenging and enjoyable experience. Besides, the more students you know, the less likely it is you'll take a lousy class.

Basically, prospective students, what I'm trying to tell you is that if you get involved college will be more fun than it is work. When you get involved, you might even be as lucky as Jack, Amber & I, and the powers that be will decry that you deserve a soapbox! Or at the very least you'll know more people to throw water balloons at on those first couple weeks at school.

In the mean time...

When you are young and poor - you may find yourself in a similar situation as me. A situation where, in an effort to save money during the school year, you paid for cheaper health insurance than Metro offers to save money. If you find yourself in this situation, do exactly as I didn't, maintain that health insurance at whatever cost. Otherwise, if you are also adventurous, you may find yourself in my current situation, with an injury and without health insurance (opps!).

As I've been tending to an ankle injury for most of the summer; friends, friend's parents, my parents, shoe-sales people and strangers alike have been quick to offer unsolicited advice as to how to tend to my injury. While I appreciate most of their input and have followed-up on many of their recommendations (considering that most of the advice has been echoed by numerous people) - I've come to develop a repertoir of my own. If you, fellow Metro student (or prospective Metro student, as it were) find yourself in just my situation with a similar injury or are simply sick of doctors trying to treat the symptoms instead of healing the whole body - then consider the words I am about to offer you.

I will give you fair warning: I AM NOT a medical professional or a healer of any kind, but I will try to give you an honest impression of my experiences with these healing methods while trying not to bore you.

R.I.C.E. This was the first program reccomended to me.

Rest: Definitely the most difficult, but the most rewarding. When you injure yourself - take it easy (don't be dumb and push yourself the second you start to heal - opps).

Ice: This reduces the swelling and is good for a fresh injury, but will make the area incredibly stiff - so I found it best to massage the injury lightly after each icing.

Compression: This reminds you that you're injured and is helpful as long as the compress doesn't cause you pain.

Elevation: This method works wonders for people that can pull it off, I would not (however) recommend this if you've injured your legs and are hitch-hiking.

Heat: Opens the area up and is best for old injuries.

Homeopathy: Works if you believe it will (banks on the placebo effect) - but has no more healing capabilities than a water filled pill.

Accupuncture: Really awesome for relaxation and pain relief as well as other forms of healing, but I wouldn't reccomend accupuncture for pronated arches and mis-aligned legs. Also, the needles don't hurt AT ALL

Vitamins and Eating Healthy: Speeds up the healing process. Really do you honestly believe fast food and soda are good for your immune system?

Massage: Amazing pain relief that offers no long term fix.

Custom Inserts & New Shoes: By far, the best affordable treatment that I've found. The brand of inserts that I have are "Super Feet," they work wonders and they're pretty cheap (compared to orthodic inserts).

Rolfing: Seems to be the best approach for fixing allignment issues, but is also quite pricey (so I'll be saving for it). Rolfing is a deep tissue (read - painful) massage that seeks to realign how your muscles sit on your bones in about 10 sessions. Imagine grabbing your misalligned muscles and moving them permanantly to their proper place - yowza!

Free Clinics w/ Doctor's who don't know anything about ankle injuries: While these clinics and doctors rock for offering services to the poor - I would skip them.

Cortozone Shots: No thank you!

Until next week....

Coffee talk...

Minutes after deboarding a clammy (and smelly) bus to prematurely end this summer's adventure, I bought a laptop. Spending as much time as I do in coffee shops, I've often pined after the sleek accessibility and transportability of the laptops many cafe-brats carry with them like so many alcoholics who carry their sanity in a cheap bottle of vodka. I simply carried a spiral bound notebook. The laptop I was able to afford is not some uber-new, super fancy monument to modern technology. In fact, very few coffee drinkers will look to my laptop and drool. The laptop I ended up with did not "break the bank" (as they say), nor will I be forced to make payments on it from now until my salt and pepper hair turns silver (yes twenty somethings do grow grey hairs - in fact I've had them since I was 17). Truth be told, I scored my new laptop for the small price of $50. Its old. Its noisy. Its slow. But, hey, I could afford it.

Personally, I don't think my laptop makes me cooler. It doesn't give me special powers. It connects to the internet and it has a word processor. That's all that matters to me.

Every semester that has gone by, I've had to learn the hard way that the computer labs close at 10pm. Until now, it seemed that all the forces working against my homework habits had been culled into being. Now I can pull all-nighters to finish papers without calling everyone I know to find a computer to use. Yes, oh yes, now I can caffeinate while fervently working on assignments. It is oh-so-grand to embrace the world of educational convenience.

Prospective students, if you've hung on this long, allow me to offer a modicum of unsolicited advice: (assuming you don't have one of your own) try to get a computer that connects to the 'net and that allows you to complete assignments at your leisure before starting college. Don't skip college for a computer, but please acknowledge that your life will be SO MUCH EASIER with one, than without.

A Challenge!?

My (ex) cycling partner who recently graduated, once explained "that people shouldn't leave college with more than one vice." While I heard this to be sound advice, I wonder how possible it is for many people to leave with only one. It seems like more and more, college is a time for heady learning coupled with caffeine; intense assignments broken up by smoke breaks; and the build up of stress released through alcohol. Maybe a lot of people don't follow that curriculum, but enough people in Denver imbibe, for Men's Health to have considered Denver to be the "drunkest big city" in the U.S for 2004. Beyond that I've talked to enough bleery eyed students clutching caffeinated beverages over smoke breaks, to assume that more than a few students cope with their syllabus this way.

As for me, I'm determined to end this vicious cycle of self-torture, and really what time could be better than when one is healing. Yes, yes, it seems insane to think that someone who would be crazy enough to bike across the country would also smoke cigarettes, but I did. In fact, the second that my ankles started bothering me, I started smoking again. So, in consideration for my health, when I got back to Denver I decided to do a cleanse for a week, in order to rid myself of the nasty toxins that made me crave cigarettes. This worked for all of about four days after the cleanse, when I drank a few beers at a smoky bar, pre-smoking ban, with some friends and started smoking again.

By this time, I'm truly a pro. I've quit. I've quit quitting. And I've always come back to being a quitting quitter who quit quitting (try saying that three times fast). This time, however, I'm going to make it stick, so I've resolved to quit alcohol for as long as it takes for me to quit cigarettes (and maybe longer). After all, in the immortal words of my (ex) cycling partner, college students should try to take only one vice with them post graduation and I prefer coffee. Even if too much coffee and too little sleep make Mary something something...

Here's the challenge, should you choose to accept it: for every cigarette you catch pursed between my lips from here on out, call me out and I will pay you a dollar (and no fair trying to sway the judge with your cigarettes, that's just cheating). Now let the games begin.