37 College Tips

I wrote this post for a wonderful rising college freshman I am lucky enough to call my (adopted) cousin. This is an extremely random list of tips for you, Keane, that I hope helps, or just makes you laugh.  Basically, what I am trying to say is, college is amazing. College is exciting, frightening, challenging, and one of the greatest adventures of your life. I hope you love every minute of it.

1.   Everyone is just as scared and nervous as you are.

2.   You are not too cool to hang out with your parents just because you are in college. Don’t blow them off when they come to visit you. Everyone will be sad, you’ll cry when they leave, later regret your behavior, and be reminded of the incident for years. Trust me.

3.   When your parents are happy with you and you have maintained a good relationship with them (and GPA), they’ll be more inclined to send you money.

4.   If possible, avoid taking 8am classes like the plague.

5.   Dry shampoo will save your life.

6.   On the first day of class everyone will already know that you are a freshmen. No use disguising it. All though, to minimize confusion try to find where all of your classes meet the day before school starts. 

7.   Never ever pull an all-nighter by not eating and only consuming copious amounts of energy drinks. You will get sick. (I haven’t had a Monster energy drink since fall ’09. It was a bad day.)

8.   Don’t try to write a big paper the night before it’s due. While it is possible, it will be painful and you will cry.

9.   When you’re a senior, make friends with the freshmen. They can be highly entertaining and will think you’re hilarious.

10. Every guy you meet your freshmen year will be an idiot. I promise. (If you don’t believe me I want you to first, call Daddy Skip. He will confirm this. Second, just watch the first 20 minutes of “When Harry Met Sally”.)

11.  Do not under any circumstances trust a senior boy. They are the worst kind of idiot.

12.  Exercising your newfound independence does not include getting a tattoo or body piercing.

13.  Don’t be the girl who:

a.    ..Moves all of her high school yearbooks and photo albums into the dorm with her.

b.   ..Goes to sporting events with a letter painted on their chest. Nobody is ever impressed.

c.    ..Wears a bikini on quad. I mean, your professors can see you.

d.   ..Wears heels to class. Like, seriously.

14.   Read the college newspaper just because it’s adorable and will make you feel mature. Plus Sudoku is fun.

15. Take a class that blows your mind and makes you question everything.

16.   Question your purpose in life.

17.   Go sit with the girl who is sitting by herself in the cafeteria.

18.   If your school has any dorky traditions, participate!

19.  Get involved with SGA.

20.  Make friends outside of your depart. Then you’ll have people to invite to your events!

21.You won’t miss anything if you skip a party. That saying “you can always re-take a class but you can never re-take a party” is ridiculous.

22.  Enjoy the stage of life you are in. Don’t waste time wishing you were older.

23.  On that note, possessing a fake ID is a felony.

24.  If possible, study abroad!! It will change your life.

25. “Ice cream cereal” is my most favorite cafeteria invention. Soft serve vanilla ice cream and cinnamon toast crunch cereal. Genius.

26. Turn your phone off in the library and get off Facebook. If having a reputation for uploading pictures after an event could help your GPA, I would have been valedictorian.

27.  Actually go to the library.

28.  Go to sleep. Just because you’re parents aren’t there to make you go to bed at reasonable hour does not mean you should stay up until 4am watching Netflix regularly.

29. Call your parents.

30.The first two weeks of the fall semester literally every campus organization and local church will be giving away free stuff. Embrace the free food.

31.  Lots of other girls will do it, but please do not start going to a tanning bed. It will be really tempting when dreary January rolls around, but you will just look like an orange dummy. Plus the whole skin cancer thing.

32.  Sometimes the memories you make on random 2am fast food runs will be better than any party.

33.  Have a dance party outside a fast food restaurant while blasting Taylor Swift on the radio.

34.  Life is not like “Friends”. It just isn’t. (My Junior year I went through a major Friends watching phase and decided it would be fun to work at a cool coffee shop like Rachel. It wasn’t. You actually have to make the drinks. I only worked two shifts.)

35. Everything always works out. When things don’t go as planned don’t freak out. Something even better may happen.

36.  Every year, and possibly semester, your friend group might change. And that’s ok! For me, every year of college was so diverse. I learned to embrace change. I loved how each semester was extremely different than the last one and things just kept getting better!

37. Do it for the story.

Keane,

I am so thankful we are family. After the wonderful week y'all cruised with me I realized I have categorized you in a special place in my heart. To me, you will always be Baby Keane and I will never be able to stop wanting to protect you. I can't help it. I am a big sister. You are a rockstar and I am so excited to see what amazing things you do next. 

Love you to the moon!

   FRESHMEN

      SOPHOMORE

       JUNIOR

SENIOR

Tales of birthdays past

TWENTY-THREE. YEARS. OLD.

Unreal. I am still not too crazy about this age because it means I am only two years away from turning twenty-five which is basically thirty. (I can hear my dad laughing somewhere in the distance…) Anyways, that week I did a lot of reminiscing about my past birthdays and I have gotten to celebrate in some pretty amazing places. Let’s take a look back…

Age: 22 Year: 2012 Place: Loch Sheldrake, NY.

I was working at the famous theater camp Stagedoor Manor all summer with some of the coolest kids I’ve ever met. The staff celebrated with me all week long. On my actual birthday I had fittings for Spamalot all day, got a special cake at lunch, & my cast sang to me. They sang the Beatles song “All you need is love” and replace the word “love” with “Teale”. Adorable.

Age: 21 Year: 2011 Place: Spain

This was an epic birthday. It was the final week of Samford’s study abroad program. Our entire group traveled in a charter bus around southern Spain hitting the best tourist destinations for those last seven days. We celebrated my birthday every single night. One night our hotel in Sevilla had a rooftop pool and we all hung out up there watching the sunset. I remember one of the hilarious fraternity boys in our group asking wearily if my birthday was over yet. Too funny. It might actually be my favorite birthday to date not only because of the location but because I got to celebrate with some amazing people who have become life long friends.

Age: 20 Year: 2010 Place: Maui, Hawaii

We were on yet another amazing Dvornik Family Vacation. That day we drove the famous (and highly dangerous) Road to Hana and hiked through a gorgeous rainforest. The entire day was incredibly beautiful. I don’t remember what we ate for lunch but it was from a roadside stand and it was awesome. That night we settled in to a giant house right on the water with an incredibly view. (Oprah had a house nearby!) I was a happy camper because I was with my family and had cell phone service so I could obsessively check my Facebook all day.

Age: 19 Year: 2009 Place: Lampe, Missouri

It was the beginning of session to at K-2. (Kamp Kanakuk’s sports camp for high school kids.) I was working in the kitchen as a “kitchie-komo”. They made me stand on a chair at lunch while 300 campers sang to me. Not the coolest birthday because I was washing dishes all day but I was so happy to be at Kanakuk surrounded by incredibly cool people.

Age: 18 Year: 2008 Place: Clearwater, Florida

I had just graduated from high school and it was Vacation Bible School week at our church. Mama Stoney surprised me with a giant cake at lunch and I wore a tiara and fairy wings the entire day. That night the Bettelli family threw a birthday dinner for me. I loved it because I love being surrounded by family and knew it was my last “Forced Family Fun night” as a kid.

In conclusion, the past five summers have been pretty fabulous! The places I have gotten to see have been amazing but the people I’ve gotten to celebrate with have always been the icing on the cake!

Birthday girl

I can’t believe it is already August and that I have been here on the Jade for over two months! Time passes here very quickly probably because we rotate itineraries every week. This blog post is very belated and is about my birthday week.

I still can’t believe I am twenty-three. Wasn’t I just wearing a Calvary cheerleading uniform yesterday? Weird.

June 22. Saturday.

Venice.

This was my first Venice off the ship since I had arrived on the Jade. A friend who had just graduated from Vanderbilt happened to be there that day so we got to meet up! Zach and I wandered all around the city and got lost many times. I found the hotel my family would be staying in the next week and left a cute little note for them at the front desk because I am adorable.

June 23. Sunday.

Dubrovnik, Croatia.

This port quickly became one of my all time favorites. Tony, a male singer, and I ventured off the ship together and into the city. He treated me to lunch at a darling café in the town square and I ate the best chocolate crepe of my life. This was my favorite birthday day.

June 24. Monday.

Sea day.

This day was fairly uneventful. That night Montana and I went dancing in the Spinnaker Lounge to celebrate me turning 23 at midnight.

June 25. Tuesday.

Piraeus, Greece.

We had boat drill that morning and rehearsal for that nights show. After our show that night, I got all dressed up and went out with Montana, Erika, and Lisa. We danced all around and most of the cast came out to celebrate too. All though in true Teale fashion, I was happiest at the end of the night eating cheesy pizza in Erika’s room.

June 26. Wednesday.

Izmir, Turkey.

That night the entire cast went out for dinner at the Italian restaurant on board. We sat at a big family style table and I love it. Erika planned the whole thing and went out of her way to make me feel like a birthday princess. Afterwards we saw the magic show, which three of our dancers were in. It was a relaxed birthday with new friends and I felt very loved.

June 27. Thursday.

Sea day.

June 28. Friday.
Split, Croatia.