It has been preached to all of us: a university’s marketing strategy to show potential future students how (insert every school you visited) is a unique learning environment, in the perfect location, enriched with deep tradition and supported by a wonderful community. Right.

On said tour, the potential pupil and family, is escorted around campus by a bubbly, upstanding and well-versed student of the school’s population. Often times, the tour revolves around the top things to do (at said university) before you graduate.

At my alma mater, this list includes a hike the Adirondack Mountains, a coffee in the book store, a Moving Up Day ceremony, and a student art gallery in the new heart building. The well thought out list encompasses the pristine, PG rated, you should want to go here, we are your university, you are home here type of activity catalog that all schools want to vibe to potential students, and to their “my child doesn’t drink, and definitely won’t while they are in college” parents. This aforementioned list doesn’t typify my collegiate experience, nor does it yours.

Since the admissions team has so thoughtfully and articulately compiled a list of things TO do while in college (which a majority of us never did), I have taken it upon myself to compile a similar list, only mine is the list of things NOT to do while in college (a list of which the majority of us have dabbled into…and potentially regretted.)

My DO NOT do before you graduate list (or do, and then later regret)
*disclaimer: I am not the culprit to all of these acts, but have witnessed them all and seen the regret come soon after

• DO NOT walk (shame or no shame) home between the hours of 9AM and 12PM
• DO NOT walk home from anywhere having participated in a theme party the night before
• DO NOT be afraid to wear oversized football sweatshirts/pants from aforementioned walk home
• DO NOT be a make-out bandit in the back bar of the Tick Tock. Someone will remember it, even if it isn’t you that does.
• DO NOT fall asleep on the delta kitchen counter.
• DO NOT sit on the Tick Tock floor. I am not sure why anyone would ever do that, but I have seen it done. Ew.
• DO NOT heavily pregame before any formal. That means no shots. The same goes for mixers.
• DO NOT steal Christmas trees on walks home from the bar, only to display them in your common room. You will get fined.
• DO NOT dance on the pool table in a dress. You do not want to be that girl…(and we all know who I am talking about)
• DO NOT steal cushions from SUNY Potsdam Frat porches. God only knows what has lived/slept/puked/had sex on that surface.
• DO NOT accept friendship requests from current professors. You may do so, but expect your pristine reputation to be tainted quickly.
• DO NOT put off your school work, just because you’re pledging…and do not lose your pledge pin.
• DO NOT walk home barefoot from anywhere (unless you enjoy the bottom of your feet resembling the color of charcoal)…wearing flip flops out can also achieve the same look.
• DO NOT go to frat formals outside of the country.
• DO NOT let anyone turn a camera on while you are on the toilet.
• DO NOT live with swingers while abroad. If your host mother meets you drunk on the late bus and proceeds to take her finger, smudge the chocolate off your face (thank you to the crepe street vendors) and into your mouth, you know you have a problem…or a party.
• DO NOT be discouraged from sharing pizza with semi-strangers, lets be honest, you will probably be making out later anyways.
• DO NOT eat Denise’s cheesy bread
• DO NOT fall for the “I am in Beta” pick-up line.
• DO NOT fall down the stairs at 20 Pine Street.
• DO NOT forget to call a sober driver before 1:50AM, or you will have to walk home…but who doesn’t love a -30 degree walk home sans mittens?
• DO NOT to go to Dana Dining Hall and expect to avoid seeing the one person you don’t want to see
• DO NOT take psych with a lab, edu with a lab, and Spanish with a lab in the same semester. Seeing the light of day will become a challenge.
• DO NOT talk to (insert name of all college hook ups here)
• DO NOT wear your good pair of heels/uggs/flats/jeans to the bar. They will get trashed (kind of like you will.)
• DO NOT crash a sorority mixer as a freshman…even if you are invited by the fraternity hosting it.
• DO NOT go shot for shot with your football manfriend to prove that you are tough. You aren’t, and he can most definitely drink you under the table.
• DO NOT get sick on said manfriend after said shots.
• DO NOT buy your family’s Christmas presents at the bookstore. They do not want wine glasses with your future alma mater’s logo engraved in them.
• DO NOT loft your bed or date someone who does. Its hard to get into, especially after a drink or two, and you feel like a five year old every time you wake up. It is, however, a true treat if the aforementioned football manfriend slams his head into the ceiling.
• DO NOT pull an all-nighter. Unless you have the next 3 days off to recover, all nighters are the worst decision ever.
• DO NOT go against your gut…

I am sure this list will continue to grow, and please feel free to add any along the bottom if there is an experience you regret, that I have most likely willingly forgot.

the 80's suck...NOT!

I was born in the right decade, but went to college in the wrong one. If I had been a 20-something in the 1980’s, I would have been in my absolute prime. I love everything that came out of the 80’s: the music; gimp; hell, I still wear spandex as though they are in style.

I know my exposure to the “authentic” 1980’s was rather limited, being a hopping 5 year old by end of decade; however, in hind sight, I like to think that I would have served as the epitome of 80’s pop culture, had I had the opportunity.

This weekend re-lit my 1980’s fire. My night was full of everything my normal, day to day, current 20-something career has been missing: crimpers, Aquanet, Prince. Really, the dance floor (which was complete with 80’s coverband, thank you very much) was a sea of neon, lace, and inappropriate hotpants. I soon realized I was way too comfortable in the midst of this company than I should have been. Between our wonderful outfits, displayed below, and killer dance moves (yes, the leg guitar and robot both made guest appearances), we made friends in no time. The night was ours.

This is me and a life-long gal pal in 1990(ish).

This is my attempt at trying to relive my glory days circa 1990(ish) on Friday night (with yet another life-long gal pal.)

This brings me to my list of things that I love about my relatively limited, but awfully authentic 80’s (and probably a bit of ‘90’s) experience beginning toward the end of the decade, through to, well right now.

• I loved the Babysitter’s Club series in all its mediums, and I always wanted to be Dawn because of her long blonde hair, and neat jorts.
• I owned and loved a skip-it; I was heartbroken when a) the counter reset after 999 skips and b) when I learned that you could make the number on the side go up by banging it on the sidewalk. Magic lost.
• I wanted to be DJ Tanner and Kelly Kaposki, and wanted to date both Steve and Zach Morris.
• I read, then re-read “Ramona Quimby: Age 8.” I thought Beatrice sucked, even as a seven year old.The following are completely appropriate comebacks: “I know you, are but what am I?” and “I am rubber, you are glue. Whatever you say, bounces off of me and sticks to you.”
• I played with gimp…and I still played with gimp even when I was a camp counselor. I would still play with gimp if it was handed to me. Yes, I can do the tornado stitch.
• When I played “Oregon Trail,” I used the names of all of my friends in my covered wagon contingency. I wanted to use the names of my crushes, but never did…you know, in case they walked by.
• All diseases, including cooties, were preventable using: “Circle. Circle. Dot. Dot. Now I have my cootie shot…”
• I made my neighbor play Duck Hunt.
• My television schedule revolved around the Sesame Street and the Disney Channel Classics (Under the Umbrella Tree, Carebears, Dumbo’s Circus, and DuckTales, obviously)
• …Circle. Circle. Square. Square. Now I have it everywhere.
• I was really upset when they banned us from wearing slap bracelets in school because people would hit each other with them.
• The bracelets were made to complement an outfit, not to hurt one another…UGH!
• The Jetsons > The Flinestones
• My favorite outfit was a cantaloupe skort, and jellies. I misplaced them somewhere on a weekend trip to the cape, the same weekend my visited the Cape Cod Potato Chips plant. I remember that weekend vividly, but tortured myself over where my misplaced garments could have gone. The loss of the aforementioned skort and jellies was a traumatic event; they were classic pieces, and an integral part of my wardrobe.
• We had the best slip’n’slide hill in the neighborhood. We also had a sprinkler system. Take that, Longfellow Health Club!

This list by no means encompasses all of my childhood favorites, but these are just the few I thought of while I depleted the ozone layer while using an excessive amount of Aquanet (no open flames, please) and danced around to NKOTB.

stop suffocating me, shwan

Dear Plastic Wrap around DVD and CD cases,

In this day and age, it is refreshing to find something that is as dedicated to its purpose as you are. As an American consumer, I am grateful that with the help of your guardian wings, electronics are delivered unscathed from the dangers within its transporting route.
Surely, you pride yourself on the exemplary job you do for consumers each and every day, and your due diligence to the items you transport speaks for itself. Sadly, I wonder if I have ever taken the time to thank you for your efforts, but this is not the time for that.

I sometimes wonder if your job is sometimes done too well. Allow me to be frank here, shrink wrap, when I say that sometimes I feel you overstep your boundaries as the protector of MY newly purchased electronics. While I appreciate the importance of protecting these new electronics, I find it difficult to understand why it becomes so difficult to remove you after my legal purchase.

To me, you have successfully completed your job at the transaction of my purchase. You have brought my merchandise from the manufacturer to the distributor to the retailer to my hands, and intact and unscratched at that- job well done! You then step overstep you boundaries, becoming counter productive to your original purpose- the once friendly, protective pillow for my beloved CD has now morphed into a devilish, laughing, suffocating piece of vinyl.

Is it necessary for me to go to my new Dirty Dancing Limited Edition DVD set with an exacto knife, pliers, or even bolt cutters to get your clingy layer of plastic off of my suffocating DVD? Your befuddling glued corners are no match for my fingernails, a battle you know you have won numerous times, and ultimately you force me to resort to unconventional opening methods, like attempting to slice through your layer with a pair or scissors, or even at times a dull machete. How often it is, that in our battles, I have broken a CD case before even removing the new CD from its protector. How heartbreaking it is to be one to break my new TLC’s “Waterfalls” CD when all I was attempting to do was enjoy the very piece of plastic that you were created to protect. Don’t you find this end result to be proof of your being counter productive to your original purpose?

The intent of this letter is not to make you feel as though you are not appreciated, but rather to initiate conversation regarding your separation anxiety from the piece you have spent your entire existence protecting. I worry to think of the conflict that exists every time someone goes to open a new CD case.

Luckily for you, shrink wrap, I only broke the CD case, and I didn’t crack my “Best of the 80’s” CD. The surprise element for our 80’s pre-game will still be a hit…unless any of the partakers read this blog beforehand. To which I then say: “stop reading my blog, and start applying more Aquanet.”

awkward encounters

I consider myself to be a very social person. I like laughing, talking, drinking, eating and any other verb that comes along with socializing with other people. Some even find me to be slightly quick-witted, or even fun to be around! I am a social person, so why am I completely and totally awkward in certain social situations.

There is one encounter that I am getting progressively better at: office interaction. When you are new, workplace banter is the hardest art to master: which coworker is a chatter, which should you avoid, which will think you are completely and totally annoying. Tough crowd! Further, once you answer those preliminary questions and you identify who the talkers are, how much conversation is too much?

Then there are the motherships of all office encounters, the grand poobahs of perchance off-guard office run-ins. The kitchen and bathroom encounter.

The kitchen encounter usually begins normally because each party has a set action to complete: make a meal. It is when there is a lull in bustle, after the normal “hi, how are you’s,” that the interaction has the capacity to get awkward. The culprit: the microwave. After both parties finish their prep time and begin their wait time, there is an awkward panic moment for me: do I take the “mmmm, your lunch smells and/or looks delicious” route or the “any good plans for the weekend?” route. I usually go with the latter, but that can create an awkward moment when I realize its Tuesday, and now appear to be a hyper-aggressive weekend planner. Eek! On top of that, I wonder if my co-workers think that I have a normal and appropriate meal…are they judging me for eating an Activia? Do they then wonder if I am irregular? Um ew.

The bathroom run in: I cringe to think of the awkward, off-guard conversations that have come from this forced interaction. All kinds of bathroom rendezvous’ are awkward (the same time entering/exiting, handwashing, and my personal favorite, going at the same time interactions) and will always heighten my anxiety. Being a stage-fright pee-er as is (no, seriously, my college friends used to need to sing so I could pee), bathroom encounters are particularly difficult for me. I can never manage to go if I know there is someone sitting next waiting for me to pee. On the rare occasion that I cannot get over my stage fright, I awkwardly sit there until my coworker leaves, who now thinks I am in there for a reason other than peeing (you know, from all that Activia I eat). The term “shit or get off the pot” never has been so relevant, but we all know that I would never be able to close that deal at work.

Luckily, the awkward office encounters diminish as time goes on, and having been at my current company for over a year, I rarely experience an office encounter that I would consider to be particularly compromising.

Run-ins with ex-boyfriends/manfriends and/or hook ups are additional rendezvous’ where my tongue suddenly shifts into a giant knock. I know how to speak English; I know a decent amount of information about the individual standing in front of me…why is it that I am not only unable to form coherent sentences, but that when I am able, they come out as complete conversation ending phrases. The “It’s so great to see you and to hear that you and (insert name of new girlfriend) are doing well!” line is a sure way to put your already awkward conversation to bed.

Now, how to get away? If I am lucky, I usually have a gal pal to pull me away to that “super important thing I am now late for,” since I have taken sixty seconds of my time to talk to my ex-manfriend, but if I am unlucky I need to handle it alone…awkwardly. I usually try to pull the “I need to buy a drink” move, but usually I have a full drink. Double fisting? Sure! If that doesn’t work, the bathroom is always a sure break away or the “I need to go find my friends” (who are surely standing in close proximity monitoring this very conversation, waiting for a potential breakdown.) Regardless of how the chat ends, I am no longer in the red zone. I am now safe.

The last of my least favorite interactions is one that I rarely experience alone: the drive thru window. Here we are sitting in line in between two old Windstar minivans, committed to the fact that we have opted for fast food as our meal. We might as well inject fat cells directly into our inner thigh, but as Americans it is our God given right to eat at an establishment such as this. We pull up to the window and wait to be served. Insert awkward anticipatory silence here. The server, in broken English through 423 layers of static, says something. We aren’t sure what he says, but instead of asking him to repeat it, we assume it is now time to place our order. After a moment of hesitation, I begin to yell, like I’m attempting to communication with a deaf person, our “two #7 with fries and diet coke” order in the general direction of this black box speaker. Privacy? No such thing at a drive up window. Every car, person and scavenging squirrel within earshot now knows that we are complete nom noms…not to mention all the nearest vehicles around have their windows down to order, but no judgment- they are in line too. As if our first order broadcast wasn’t embarrassing enough, the server then chooses to emphasize our nomnomness and read our menu selections back to us, almost giving us an out to change our 6,000 calorie meal to an appropriate 3,000 calorie selection.

After little to no discussion with either the guy who swipes my credit card, or the guy that hands you the bag, already soaked in grease, it is time to whip out of there as fast as possible, and hope no one recognized me, my car, or my school decal. Hand me my chicken nuggets.

bELIeve

This is Superbowl week, and this year that means absolutely nothing. Sorry ahead of time to all you nons, but this is meant for one audience, and one audience only: my dad.

Being offspring of a life-long, obsessive New York Football Giants fan, I myself have become the ultimate pigskin fan myself…and I am a girl. Believe it or not, Bob has raised a daughter who likes nothing more than chips, dip, and a New York Giants football game. Unfortunately for us, this season was cut tragically short due to Eli’s mid-season confusion on which team he played for, and the defensive lines excessive interest in the sideline cheerleaders, as opposed to the TD’s being thrown by the other team. I should have dressed in the true blues and hit the field, at least games would have been one part entertainment, three parts embarrassment.

That aside, this is Superbowl week. If my do-no-wrong Giants do not make playoffs, which within the past few years has been a non-happening, my hometown team, the New England Patriots, are usually a shoe-in for the post-season season. Regardless, usually there is one (if not two!) team in playoffs that I love, or want to see win. Not this year.

Fine, so my team didn’t make it this year. We cannot win them all, can we? Give me someone that I absolutely hate so I can passionately route against them, just to keep it interesting. Bring on the Dallas Jerkoffs, I mean Cowboys, or Donavan McCrab and the Philadelphia Eagles, just so I can watch the utter disappointment and sadness on their faces after a Superbowl upset. If I cannot see my Brothers in Blue bring another Superbowl win to the Meadowlands, watching the Cowboys lose the chance to bring the same victory to their brand new, $2 billion stadium would be enough for me. But again, that won’t be happening this year.

This year’s Superbowl is meaningless to the majority of America, you know, besides the 27 people watching in Indianapolis and those who aren’t getting ready for Mardi Gras in New Orleans. It will no doubt be the reunion of two great teams, both who have earned their right to be there, but the NFL is no doubt cursing the outcome of this Superbowl, which has no huge money generating team in its midst.

So while Superbowl week usually crawls by for this football girl, this year it is actually moving fairly quickly…one aspect of a crappy Superbowl I am not complaining about. So, bring on the funny advertisements, The Who halftime show, and two teams of public indifference…I’ll be the one wearing the Giants hat, plotting for next year.

Go Saints?

quick like a bunny!

I forgot to say “Rabbit Rabbit” yesterday, and that means one thing. Bad luck all month. It is true. In the sixteen years that I have believed in this superstitious act, I find that it is a particularly accurate predictor for the month to come.

What is “Rabbit Rabbit?” Well, if you were born and raised in a hole in the ground, I suppose you may not be familiar with the monthly ritual, so here it is in a nutshell. On the first of every month, the first words to leave your mouth must be “Rabbit Rabbit,” followed by your getting out of bed in a funky way. If you do so, the following month is full of luck. If you fail to do so, your month will be saturated with impending doom, well not really, but it will certainly not be a month of good fortune.

I’d never really thought about Rabbit Rabbit’s accuracy until yesterday, when a friend and I were discussing my past year of particularly unlucky events. What is the common link in all these unfortunate happenings? I am almost positive that each bad luck month has been preceded with an un-rabbit rabbit first of the month. Scary, isn’t it? (Insert St. Lawrence shout out here.)

I know for a fact that I did not say “Rabbit Rabbit” on both March 1, 2009 and August 1, 2009. I know this for two reasons: one being that both were months of incredible misfortune, and the other being that I recorded my failure to “rabbit rabbit” in my diary (yes, I often keep a diary). On the days that I forget, I usually remember about half-way through my shower or commute to work, and spend the rest of my day getting angry and cursing at myself for forgetting. Woopsie!

I should have said “Rabbit Rabbit” on March 1, 2009. Why? Because if I had, I most definitely would not have broken my tailbone.

It was a beautiful March day, semi warm and not a cloud in the sky. Friends were off to snowboard, and offered to teach this well-balanced, eager novice how to shred down the mountain on a board, not on skis. Being a dancer, I figured I would be able to handle the balance aspect without a problem, but after trying to use my brother’s skateboard, I was terrified out of my mind.

Long story short, snowboarding and I didn’t get along during my first attempt. Getting up, and building up speed wasn’t so much the problem, where as steering, stopping and falling was. After a brief tutorial on the bunny hill, my friends decided it was time to conquer the mountain. I was more concerned about getting off the chairlift in one piece. Three rounds in, I had a major wipe out: a “hit your tailbone so hard your nose hurts, you feel nauseous, and a woman on the chairlift starts yelling for people to call mountain emt’s” type of wipe out. I somehow managed to get myself down the mountain, and every time I fell, an overwhelmingly aweful feeling of nausea took over my body. I was done.

I have a very small butt. Always have. Sometimes I feel like a higher being decided the padding for my butt would be better utilized elsewhere, like my rack. Thanks? At any rate, snowboarding and my little to no butt padding create the perfect storm for tailbone breakage…and a padded donut for the next several weeks.

Thanks, Rabbit Rabbit.

I also should have said “Rabbit Rabbit” on August 1, 2009. Why? Because if I had, I most certainly would not have come down with Swine Flu. (see blog entitled “Swine:1, Kristin: 0” for a more detailed encounter, that I would rather not relive again.)

If I had simply stated those two small words just 16 days earlier, I would have saved myself ten days of absolute misery, and several weeks of extended recovery. Fact? Most certainly.

Touche, Rabbit Rabbit.

Lastly, I should have said “Rabbit Rabbit” yesterday, February 1, 2010. Why? Because if I had, I most certainly would not have had to watch a best friend deploy to Iraq.

I have been putting off the deployment of First Lieutenant Houpt for the past seven years. Until yesterday, I had single-handedly prevented him from being stationed by pretending it wasn’t happening and completely avoiding the subject all together. I had miraculously helped Bill avoid a first tour of Afghanistan, ignored the possibility of him going to Germany, and rolled my eyes at the potential of him being stationed in South Korea (eek!) My plan seemed to be working flawlessly, until I forgot to say “Rabbit Rabbit” yesterday. It wasn’t more than 5 hours after I started cursing myself for yet another month of misfortune when I got the call. The call I have been dreading/avoiding/tactfully rerouting for seven years came just hours after an awful and underestimated mistake.

Yes, Bill has been waiting to deploy since mid January, and every day he has told me that deployment is inevitable, and that it is not only coming but in the very near future. True, he has been adequately prepared and we have all had ample time to send him off graciously, but his deployment had to come the day I forget to whisper “Rabbit Rabbit?”

Too creepy, Rabbit Rabbit, and not at all funny.

Here is an anticipatory “Rabbit Rabbit” to March 2010 being a month of luck!

what not to facebook

You are addicted to Facebook. I am addicted to Facebook, Twitter, and most likely writing to this blog. Each of these social networking mediums serve either a personal or profession service to me, as I am sure they serve a similar purpose for you. There are some who utilize different social networking sites in the wrong way, and here is a list of the guiltiest of culprits:

The Gamer: I have compassion for gamers, I really do. If my day job as a marketing coordinator for a video game convention isn’t enough, I then have my 20 year old brother, who prides himself on his ability to game in our basement for hours at a time, to build my tolerance. There is one type of gamer I cannot stand: the Farmville enthusiast. I appreciate your eagerness to be involved in something bigger than you, but do you think it is necessary to publish all your farm milestones into the newsfeeds of those you socially network with? I think I speak for the vast majority of your facebook friends, associates, and frenemies when I say spare us on the chicken coop, pig pen, mysetery white egg updates. We do not actually care. On that note, stop inviting me to play Farmville; don’t you think I would have joined the first 27 times you invited me had I been interested (please see excessive inviter)

The quizzer: Another kind to use social networking sites in a negative manner is the nagging quizzer. While I enjoy perusing through my newsfeed with my hot green tea every morning to update on friends, colleagues, and frenemies, I do not need to learn the answers to every quiz you have taken since I last signed into my account. To the quizzer: I do not care that you took the “What President Are You?, Which Golden Girl Are You, What Villian from a Classic Disney Movie” quizzes and found out that you are Grover Cleveland, Bea Arthur, and Ursula, nor do I want to take the quiz to find out who my corresponding pair is. If you must, Take the quizzes to find your true identity, but don’t publish them for the world to see…I have a hard time publishing my photo albums for people to see, and half the people who would look at it are in the album!

The unfriendly poker: You have poked me, and in the good, friendly, online flirting world of facebook poking, I have poked you back…but then you poke me back again. Aggressive! It has now gone from a flirty, slightly cute suggestion to an awkward social interaction. Do I stand you up and abandon you in the virtual world of pokes, or do I poke you back, only to perpetuate the cycle of poking? There is a high chance that I will not re-poke after the initial poke, unless you are Hunter Karnedy, to which I will definitely poke back in order to ensure our future marriage. Further, what is with people who are not friends with me having the ability to poke me? I believe I will quote the wise Stephanie Judith Tanner with an appropriate: “How rude!”

The constant requester: This demon uses Facebook in its intended use, but is overzealous in execution. To the requester: if I wanted to play Mafia Wars, become a Fan of your ‘Super Unsuccessful Webpage,’ join the Green Patch, Fuzzy Bunny, or Favorite Cocktail Club, I probably would have done so on my own accord, but thank you for the invite in case I had somehow missed it. If you have already invited me, and I have rejected your invitation, it doesn’t mean that I will be interested if you re-invite me after I previously rejected your request. It means that I am either a) completely uninterested in your cause, b) anti-facebook clutter, or c) both. Regardless of my reasoning behind the aforementioned rejection, please take it as it is…a mere application rejection, and not an attack on your character or merit.

The philosopher/emo status updater. The excessive status updater challenges the very purpose of the status update itself. Is the status’ purpose to update your peers on things that are currently happening? Sure! Perchance to share exciting news or events? Yes! To ask questions that encompass the meaning of life? Definitely not. You are not Sophocles, Socrates, or Hercules, so don’t post as though you are.

In tandem, a status update is not an open forum regarding your current feelings, nor is it a place to hope for sympathy. The appropriate place to vent, rant, or complain is to a confidant (offline), in a diary, or in a slightly public, partially publicized blog (ahem.)


The person that writes you back on your wall with a question. True, I brought on this conflict myself by writing a comment on your wall that could possibly warrant a direct response from you (probably not, but go with it). I consider you writing back on my wall as your response to my call to action…your leaving a post open ended with a question poses a bigger moral dilemma than had I not written on your wall in the first place. Do I ignore your post and leave you out to dry, or do I answer your question, thereby becoming “that girl” on your wall? This quagmire is usually solved on a case by case basis, but generally I cringe to think about being a consecutive repeat facebook wall writer. Writer beware.

Bad grammar-er/over-abbreviator. We all enjoy using an approp. abrev. every once and a while. I am guilty of over abbreviating or making a grammar error on occasion, my bad. When is it not appropriate? 1) on facebook posts 2) in blog postings.

As a grammar geek, it pains me to leave other’s postings and/or comments on my wall, photo albums or (rare) status updates if they are grammatically incorrect. If you are taking the time to write a comment on my wall, knowing I am a punk for punctuation, take the time to proofread your post. Maybe it is just me, but I cringe to read posts or blogs with the misplacement of your vs. you’re. The “Kristin, your so awesome!” does not do it for me, and it shouldn’t do it for you either.

Further, the over-abbreviator (usually in conjunction with the bad grammar-er) will most likely send me over the edge. We all know how I feel about the term “LOL,” but what is with people who think that “LOLzzzz, LMAO, ROFLMAO” are appropriate responses to any facebook update. If you are in fact “roflmaoing” you would most definitely not be within reach of your keyboard, and certainly not in a state of mind to coherently express that you are rolling on the floor, laughing your ass off, as you type your response. That is a fact.

Take that, Mark Zuckerberg!