Category Archives: Partying/Nightlife
The Main Reasons Why Alcohol & Drugs Will Affect Your Academic Performance… Badly
“I drink too much. Last time I gave a urine sample, it had an olive in it.”
– Rodney Dangerfield, U.S. comedian
Ask your parents if they drank too much alcohol during their time at college, and their replies will vary somewhere between the complete, swear-on-the-Holy-Bible and God’s honest truth kind of answer, and the blatant, downright lie. Ask them if they did drugs, however, and, chances are, pretty much all those responses would probably get thrown out in a court of law, with the judge threatening contempt.
“Hey, Mom, you ever get stoned? Were you a pothead in college, Dad?”
Not the conversation to be had at the evening dinner table at the end of a long day, unless your Mom and Dad are going through a period of enlightened California-style parenting. For many parents of kids in college, it wasn’t that they drank or did drugs during their time. It’s more a case of they got through college in spite of them. Perhaps, just like what you’re doing.
I’ll be honest. College, when I was younger, was a blur. My memory of it now is just a retail collection of moments like old polaroids – putting them together in some semblance of order is the problem.
Allow me to introduce myself.
My name is Andy, I’m a mid-thirties digital marketing entrepreneur, running a successful agency, who, for over 9 years now, has lived a completely clean and sober life. No alcohol, no drugs, no nada. Just abstinence.
However, for the vast majority of my adolescent years, I was an alcoholic and a drug addict, saved only my own Mom and Dad finally threw me on the backseat of the family car, drove me to the next state over, and deposited what was left of their son, hopeless addict, physical and mental wreck, and an ex-con to boot, on the steps of a drug and alcohol rehabilitation center.
Get busy living, Andy, and all that. So I did, and I gave rehab everything.
6 months later, I emerged, clean, sober, physically and mentally the fittest I’d ever been or felt, and now with a decent education. I had majored in addiction, and in rehab, I learned as much as I could about this chronic, sometimes fatal disease that nearly took my life – it’s amazing what you can do with a clear head.
If you want to know how drugs and alcohol will negatively affect your academic performance, read on. If you’re reading this, and thinking, “You know what, Andy? You seem like a nice guy, and I’m glad you turned your life around, and all that. To be honest, though, I don’t really care,” then what follows will make you care.
Let’s look at the 2 most popular substances used, and often abused, on any U.S. campus, and why they will affect your academic performance… badly:
- Alcohol, and
- Marijuana
The intoxication from both will continue to have a detrimental effect on a student’s cognitive function – primarily, attention, concentration, and memory – for around 48 hours afterward. In other words, get drunk on the Friday night, because you’ve got exams on Monday to study for, and the weekend is your only revision time left, and you’ve just shot your academic self in the foot.
Serious abuse of both can lead to the spiral of addiction, and I’m sure you don’t want to have that conversation with Mom and Dad…
Alcohol
Memory: As described above, heavy drinking will affect cognitive function long after you wake up with the obligatory hangover, and will probably mean you start the day with a positive blood alcohol level as well as your pounding head. This alcohol still present in your system directly affects your ability to process and store new information – to fully understand it, and then to successfully retain it in its entirety.
For the biology students out there, “intoxication is produced by a temporary impairment of brain receptors key in creating long-term memories in the hippocampus“, says Duke University’s Jeff Georgi, an Alcohol and Addictions Program coordinator at the school. “If you study for four hours…then go drinking, it affects this anchoring process.”
Sleep: Alcohol messes with your sleep too. Normal sleep cycle interference results in irritability, fatigue, and an increase in anxiety, all of which will directly affect a student’s learning ability for up to 48 hours.
Stress: As the old joke goes, alcohol is only a solution if you’re a chemist. In reality, alcohol doesn’t stop stress, or “academic success-anxiety,” just the symptoms of it – temporarily. By actually not self-medicating with alcohol or drugs, you are giving yourself a far better chance to naturally resolve what is causing the stress.
Marijuana
Memory, Concentration, & Attention: As described above, marijuana use (well, pretty much all drug use) will affect cognitive function long after you wake up, directly affecting your ability to simply pay attention and, indeed, concentrate in the classroom, and then being able to store that information in your memory.
Sleep: When used in the evening and at night time, marijuana is pretty much the same as alcohol when it comes to your sleep cycle, resulting in increases in irritability, fatigue, and anxiety, again, directly affecting learning ability.
Motivation: Now, if you’re sat there reading this, and you’re a little surprised by the use of the word “motivation,” oh, please… Seriously, there is mounting evidence that marijuana use affects your motivation, likely due to a combination neuronal suppression (the hippocampus, again), the blocking of nutrients through cells, and fatigue following disturbed sleep.
Anxiety: Although not an academic reason, it’s worth mentioning that marijuana use increases heart rate, weakens the heart muscle, and increases blood pressure – all of which should concern someone already diagnosed with anxiety. However, as with self-medicating with alcohol, marijuana does nothing to resolve the issues creating your anxiety and stress.
No Lecture
There you have them – the main reasons why alcohol and drugs will affect your academic performance… badly. Forego the alcohol consumption (if you’re binge drinking, and college students have been known to do that on a regular basis, please cut it out of your life – it’s seriously dangerous), and forego getting stoned in the belief it will only do you good. You’ll feel better, and perform better academically without them.
Without these substances, you’ll feel so much better, you’ll be naturally happier, you’ll be more attentive, you’ll be able to concentrate fully, and you’ll enjoy a better memory. As a college student striving for academic success, it makes sense, doesn’t it?
How does alcohol or marijuana use affect your academic performance, or do you believe it doesn’t? Let us know by sharing a comment below.
5 Tips for Growing Your Own Bud
Collegeblender.com does not support any illicit activities and does not support the use of drugs.
Unsatisfied with the herb that you’ve been getting from your usual sources? Maybe it’s time you tried to grow your own strain. Follow these tips for growing your own bud, and you’ll have an endless supply of your own herbs that will take you to another plane of consciousness, and quite possibly win you new friends…
1) Read a ton of books on how to grow marijuana before planting your first seed
Growing marijuana isn’t as simple as sticking some seeds in some topsoil, watering it everyday, and waiting 70 days to get some world class weed. There is a lot of nuanced steps required that if taken, will make your crop stand head and shoulders the garden variety grass grown by local amateurs. Scour the web, order books from respected authorities in the field, and begin your education. Class is in session.
2) Seek out your first seeds from a reputable seed bank
While you might be tempted to use seeds from bud that you bought from your friendly neighborhood dispensary or dealer, more often than not, these strains tend to be underwhelming, especially when re-grown. By ordering top quality seeds from industry leading providers, you’ll be ensuring that your batch of green is top-notch from the get go.
3) Use coconut soil instead of peat moss to grow your seeds
A common mistake by amateurs is that they use peat moss to grow their dope. This is bad because the properties of this type of top soil makes it more likely that you’ll suffer root diseases due to the density of peat moss when it gets wet. Coconut shell soil is spongier, allowing the roots room to breathe after being watered.
4) Regulate your humidity and heat levels properly at different points in the growing process
Of all the issues facing marijuana growers, maintaining the right balance of humidity and room temperature is the most vital step in turning a batch of seeds into a bumper crop. While the most particular growers call for changing conditions in different growth phases, maintaining your nursery’s room temperature between 75 and 77 degrees Fahrenheit and its relative humdity at around 45 to 50% will produce the best quality marijuana.
5) Cut, dry, and cure your crop at the 70 day mark
After 70 days of growth, your dope flowers should be ready for harvesting. Hang them upside down until dry, then cure them for at least two weeks…
… and there you have it! With these tips, as well as a few other pointers here (http://www.zambeza.com/blog-top-10-mistakes-when-growing-cannabis-and-how-to-avoid-them-n19), you’ll have a wonderfully chronic smelling plantation in no time flat. Good luck in your dope growing endeavors!
3 Ideas on how to spend winter break
With final exams coming up in the next few weeks, you’ve been furiously studying to ensure that you make the most of the crucial marks that remain up for grabs in all of your courses. Somewhere in all that studying and exam writing, you need to pick up a few gifts for Christmas as well.
With all that going on, you only now realized that you also have a week or two before you get back to class as well! What will you do with all this free time? Below, we have a few suggestions that instruct you on how to spend winter break in style…!
1) Party like a rock star on a tropical beach
That’s right – do the spring break thing a full three months early. While you might not have the crowds and the hedonistic atmosphere that goes along with that time of year, it’s still warm and sunny, and when you’re in a place where the palm trees sway, any night could be occasion for a blowout party.
Cancun is a place where one can rock out with abandon with Senor Frog at any point during your winter break, while the once-monthly Full Moon Party in Koh Phangan, Thailand will give you the excuse you’ve been looking for to finally check out the Far East before winter semester begins!
2) Tear up the slopes at a mountain resort near you
Instead of running away from the snow and cold, you may wish to embrace it. If this sounds like you, then there is no better way to do this than to set your course for the nearest mountain range with plans of ripping the slopes there a new one.
Whether you choose run the glades of the Northeast at a resort like Sunday River, or challenge gnarly alpine terrain in Rocky Mountain ski areas such as Jackson Hole, you’ll get the adrenaline rush of a lifetime, along with all the apres ski nightlife you can handle in these popular snow resort towns.
3) Be a tourist in your own hometown – staycation!
Of course, you could just go home and spend your winter break with friends and family – that’s totally cool. However, if you find things becoming a little stale towards the end, don’t despair … just treat your hometown like a tourist destination and watch new possibilities open up.
Being away from the place of your upbringing at college allows you to see it as a place to be visited, rather than as your home. So check out the museums you’ve always ignored, eat at the joints you passed up because you had your favorites, and drink the bars you’ve never seen before (because you know, you weren’t legal back in high school … duh!)
By the time the day rolls around to go back to your new home at college for your second term of the year, you’ll see your former one in an entirely different light.
What Your Dream Student Party Needs
University is about finding out what sort of person you are, learning more about the subject that is your passion, and making plans for how you want to live the rest of your life. Of course, it’s also about having lots and lots of parties. The trouble is that the parties you have at university often end up being pale shadows of the parties in your imagination. You may plan the sort of neighborhood destroying catastroparties you saw in campus comedies growing up, but all too often you end up in a small house just off campus drinking cheap lager out of a bath full of ice cubes.
But what if money was no object? What if the only limit to how awesome your party could be was your imagination? What then?
Throwing a television into a pool
I’ll be honest with you. There will come a time in your life when throwing a television into a swimming pool seems stupid. One day you will see it as a terrible waste that ruins a perfectly good TV and a perfectly good swimming pool, aside from the (enormous) health and safety issues it brings up. But that day is not today. Today is the day that you know that ruining a perfectly good TV and swimming pool aren’t unfortunate byproducts, but the entire point of throwing a TV into a swimming pool. Future you may not understand, but they don’t have to.
Singing waiters
There are many ways in which real life does not live up to the world of movies, and student parties are just one of them. In reality, violence is horrifying and scary rather than ultra cool. In reality if two people of opposite sexes meet and immediately don’t get on, the odds are they will learn to sincerely hate each other rather than falling hopelessly in love. But worst of all, nobody ever spontaneously bursts into a fully choreographed song and dance number, even during times of high emotion or great parties.
Fortunately, science has now found an answer to this final tragedy with the help of singing waiters. You can hire Singing Waiters and have them simply walk around your party, serving drinks like regular waiters, and then on cue, WHAM! There’ll be jazz hands everywhere.
Mud Wrestling
As with throwing a TV into a swimming pool, mud wrestling is an activity that may not make sense at a distance. Okay, so it’s supposed to be sexy, you get that, but nobody actually looks any good covered in mud, so what’s the point? The point is that you’re really over thinking it. Just print invitations that say “This party includes mud wrestling” and let destiny do the rest.
Have any other crazy ideas for a student party? share them below!
Awesome Costume Ideas for Halloween This Year!
By: Niki Olsen
It’s that time of year again! Halloween is coming up and you’re probably struggling with deciding whether your costume should be funny, witty, sexy, half-assed, homemade, or from the consignment shop in town. Thankfully you stumbled across this post, because we will guide you through your dilemma. This Halloween we will take care of you!
Here are three potential costume ideas for you to showcase on your campus!
Option #1: TV show cast
This idea is basically two options in one (you’re welcome.) Take this option and run wild with your childhood memories! Can you think of that old show that makes everyone chuckle when you mention it? Grab your friends and recreate the cast of Hey Arnold or Scooby-Doo.
Want more relevant? How about Walter White and the gang? Either choice you make, if you choose a memorable show, people will be asking to take photos with you all night…
Option #2: Someone big in pop culture
Think about a character or person that everyone will recognize. Something easy and quick but add to the costume something that will distinguish who you are. The mayhem guy from Allstate will get a laugh out of everybody! Throw on a pink headband, a couple fake cuts and bruises, a black tie and you’re set.
Option #3: A play on words costume
Why not attempt at being funny? A play on words costume would be the perfect way to be witty and creative with not having to try super hard. You can easily Google play on words and go from there. Cereal killer or chick magnet are some of our favorites! Humor is much appreciated!
