5 Things People Forget to Warn You About College

People are usually more than willing to give you advice about how to survive your time at college.  However, times are always changing, and there were a few things I wish people had though to warn me about.

1.  When you sell your textbooks back to the university bookstore at the end of the quarter...


Yeah...  That pretty much sums it up.

2.  When it comes to signing up for classes every quarter...it's kind of like a mini-Hunger Games.  It's every student for themselves!  You start off at the bottom of the food chain.  The students with the least amount of credits get to sign up for classes last, so you'll probably end up wait-listing a lot of them.  I'm not sure if it gets better or worse later on.  Once you start getting into the classes for your major there are less students competing for the same classes.  However, the class sizes are also smaller...  :/

3.  Early morning classes suck, even if you got up early for High School for the last 4 years.

4.  Universities have this annoying habit of letting in tours and groups of elementary kids which end up clogging the walkways and cafeteria at the least opportune time.  Don't get me wrong!  I know the reasoning behind it and I think it's a great idea to have the little kids see what college life is like.  I remember going on one of those field trips myself in fourth grade.  But there comes a point where it's like:

 

I suppose if I didn't live on campus it wouldn't be that much of a pain.  But I do.  And some days it's like living in the white house where everyone is taking photo tours through your living room.

 

5.  Before you buy your textbooks for the class make sure you take a few precautions.  Because it's very likely that you may run into this problem:

 

I've had this happen in almost half of my classes.  So do your homework!  1) Email the teacher and ask them straight out how much you'll be using the textbook.  It's possible that they'll tell you that you don't even need it and that the university just hasn't taken it off the required textbook list for the class yet.  2) If the teacher says you either "definitely" need the book or you "might" need the book, ask previous students.  A good way to do this are college Facebook pages.  There are lots of them.  From pages for your graduating class, your major, for the bookstore, for trading/selling textbooks, and many more.  3) See if anyone you know is taking the class too.  There is a possibility of sharing a textbook and spitting the cost.  4) Try and get it secondhand straight from another student instead of going to the bookstore.  Another cheap place to get textbooks is the Half Priced Books website. That's where I get 90% of my books.  5) If you're still not sure, you might want to take a risk and wait until a few days into the class to decide.  Then you can decide for yourself if you want to spend the money.



 

5 Seconds = Forever

 

  This is something I made a little while ago:

 

14 Favorite Sherlock Videos

Sorry!  I'm doing another Sherlock related post!  I saw one like this earlier and I couldn't resist. 

These are my 14 favorite videos made by the Sherlock fandom.  They are in no particular order.  I've made sure to mark the ones that have season 2 (Reichenbach Fall) spoilers.


1.  This first one is just plain silly!  It's basically the old Sherlock Holmes and Watson spying on the Benedict Cumberbatch and Robert Downey Jr. versions.  It's short and great for a laugh!

2.  This is a bunch of clips set to the Disney song "Make a Man Out of You".  It fits really well with the bossy and criticizing side of Sherlock's personality.  It's funny in some places, moving in others, and (especially the last half) is very well put together!

3.  This video is less than a minute and is set to the Michael Jackson song "Smooth Criminal".  It focuses on Moriarty and REALLY fits his creepy personality!

4.  (WARNING: Reichenbach Fall spoilers!!!)  I've never heard the song in this video before.  It's called "Slipping" and it's part funny and part chilling.  It's about Moriarty and his evil schemes.

5.  For those of you that don't know, Martin Freeman who plays John Watson also plays Bilbo Baggins in Peter Jackson's "The Hobbit".  This is a video of clips from the Sherlock series put to the sound of the Hobbit trailer.  The Sherlock characters play characters from the Hobbit.  John Watson = Bilbo (obviously).  Mycroft Holmes = Gandalf.  Sherlock Holmes = Thorin Oakenshield.  And the 11 other dwarves are played by random other Sherlock characters.  If you've seen the original trailers, you'll see that the shots match up pretty well.  My favorite part though is at the end when Sméagol is played by Moriarty.

6.  (WARNING: Reichenbach Fall spoilers!)  I debated on whether or not to include this one.  There are so many videos set to sad songs about Sherlock's death.  However, I loved how they focused on the deep friendship between the two men.  The bond between Sherlock and John is portrayed very beautifully here so I decided I couldn't leave it out.

7.  Now for a hilarious one!  This is a fan-made video of what a Sherlock trailer would look like if it was a comedic film.  It shows several of my favorite humorous scenes from the movie set to upbeat music.  I dare you not to laugh!

8.  This one is really long, so you don't have to listen to all of it if you don't want to.  Basically it is a piano medley of all of the soundtracks of Sherlock.  I just had to put at least one tribute to the amazing music on this show!

 

 

9.  All of Sherlock's insults in one place!  There are quite a few of them and they can be pretty creative!

 

 

 

10.  (WARNING: Reichenbach Fall spoilers.)  This song was done by a fan of the Hunger Games series.  The song comes from the third book and she put it to her own tune.  It's absolutely lovely and haunting.  Putting it up there along with footage of the Reichenbach Fall...well, I have a hard time not tearing up. 

 



 

 

11.  (WARNING: Reichenbach Fall spoilers.)  If the last song almost made me tear up, this one definitely did!  It's the heartbreaking and beautiful song "All Shall Fade" that Pippin sings in The Return of the King.  It's pretty short.  I dare you not to cry!

 

 

 

12.  (WARNING: Reichenbach Fall spoilers.)  "I'm Coming Home" is a song that's always been dear to my heart, especially after listening to it so many times on my New Orleans mission trips.  The video contains shots from the series and from the first season 3 trailer.  It's not too long, but it seems to capture the feelings of the loyal fans that have waited so long to see our favorite detective come home.

 



 

13.  (WARNING: Slight Reichenbach Fall spoilers.)  I just really like this song ("Radioactive").  It's not my usual genre, but I still find myself listening to it a lot.  In this video it helps emphasize the intensity and fun of the show.

 

 

 

14.  Okay, I'll leave you with a funny one!  This video is set to the theme song from the show "Kim Possible".  You don't have to have grown up with the show (I didn't) to find this absolutely hilarious!  The shots match up so well it will have you laughing out loud!

 



 

 





 





Sherlock's Survival: 4 Theories

 I'm trying an easy post to try and get back into the habit of blogging, so here it goes.

WARNING: "SHERLOCK" SPOILERS!!!!!!

As most of you know, I am a big fan of the BBC series "Sherlock".  Theses are my top 4 favorite theories about how he survived his "suicide". 

Now, just to put a few things out there so that everyone is on the same page:  1) Sherlock faked his suicide by jumping off of a building because Moriarty threatened to kill his friends (John, Lestrade, and Mrs. Hudson) if he didn't.  2) John watched him jump and fall...but could not see him hit the ground from where he was standing.  3)  As he was rushing to the spot where Sherlock fell, John only caught a brief glimpse of the body before he was knocked over by a bicyclist.  This delayed him from reaching Sherlock and he also hit his head which causes his senses to be a bit off for the rest of the scene (the scene is shown from his point of view) and it is possible that he is affected by shock or even a small concussion.  So when he reaches Sherlock's "body" he doesn't get a clear look at him except for a blurry glance of his blood-stained face.  He also attempts to find a pulse at the detective's wrist, but this may also be unreliable.  Now, the convenient cyclist is so obviously part of the scheme that I'm not even going to put it on my list.  4)  Sherlock's "body" is put on a gurney and taken back into the hospital pretty quickly, before we get a really good look.  5)  There is an earlier scene where Sherlock talks to Molly, a pathologist at Bart's hospital.  He tells her that he thinks he's going to die.  When she asks what he needs he simply responds with, "You."  It's implied that however he faked his death, Molly helped him.  She is the one friend of Sherlock's that Moriarty didn't threaten with snipers, which meant that she was the only one that Moriarty didn't know that Sherlock trusted her enough to help him.  6)  One of the writers mentioned a long time ago that there was a hint to how Sherlock survived somewhere earlier in the episode.  It supposedly had something to do with Sherlock doing something out of character.

Okay!  Now that we are all up to speed...let's begin!

4.  The Blue Ball

I like this one because I never would have thought of it.  The theory with the blue ball is that if you place a small ball in your armpit, it will cause the pulse in your wrist to seem faint or even nonexistent.  It's an old magician's trick.  Now Sherlock IS seen fiddling with a blue ball earlier in the scene while he and John are in the hospital lab.  While it is not unusual that Sherlock is fiddling with something while he thinks, we have never seen the blue ball before and have no idea where he got it.  It's definitely an intriguing idea!

 

  

(It's hard to see, but he does have the ball in his hand in this
picture.)  Now just look at that oh so innocent face!  It's like,
"Me?  Fake my death?  Don't be absurd John!  Look at these
puppy dog eyes!  How can you suspect me now?"

 

3.  The Garbage/Recycling Truck

This is one that I believe in whole heartily!  I just know that it is a factor in the trick somehow!
Basically, when John catches his brief glimpse of Sherlock before the bicyclist runs into him, the body is partially blocked by a garbage/recycling truck.


Then he is knocked over and we only catch one more glimpse of the truck from an above angle as it pulls away, JUST before people start flocking around the "body".

Highly suspicious!!!  I'm not sure if there was a mattress or inflated bag that Sherlock landed on that was then taken away on the truck...or maybe the real Sherlock left in the truck and they took a body out of the truck and left it for people to find...or if it was simply used as a curtain to hide what they were really doing.  But I'm sure it was NO accident!

 

 

2.  The Second Body

Now this theory doesn't have a full explanation.  It's basically a gif I found on Pinterest.  I'm inclined to believe it since it IS actual footage of the real series.  It could still play out several different ways though. 

Firstly, we see members of what are probably Sherlock's Homeless Network dragging away another body dressed like Sherlock.  Is it Moriarty's body that Sherlock just dressed in a coat and wig to look like him?  Could be!  That hair looks pretty fake to me.  Or it could be just a random body that Molly found in the morgue. 
Second, we don't know how Sherlock got to the ground so quickly.  Fire escape?  Rope?  Was the Sherlock John saw on the roof simply a mirrored reflection of Sherlock standing somewhere else?  I'm not sure.
Thirdly, did one of the people rushing over to Sherlock help him to cover himself in fake blood or did he do it himself?

 

1.   Rhododendron ponticum

This picture was something I recently found on Pinterest (Yes, Pinterest...again!  I'm on it WAY too much in case you haven't noticed.) 

It talks about a plant mentioned in passing earlier in the episode called Rhododendron ponticum.  Apparently it, like the blue ball, can cause a pulse to be undetectable.  The second part to this theory that really gets me interested though, is the mention of a side effect.  Watery eyes.
That might not seem like much, but to those fans who have sobbed over Sherlock Holmes' tearful farewell phone call to John right before he jumped...  Well, it's not something you easily forget. 
Crying IS out of character for Sherlock, just like the writer hinted.  The only other time we see the detective tear up was on purpose when he was pretending to be a grieving friend of one of the victims.  Perhaps Sherlock's tears on the roof were not an emotional reaction to saying good-bye to John...or at least not entirely.  Perhaps they were also a side effect of a drug he had taken to make it appear as though he had no pulse!
 

 

And that's it.  Those are my best guesses. 

All or none of these may be true.  Once the third season comes out and the great question is finally solved I might be completely embarrassed by how wrong I was and delete this post.  But I think that there is a very good chance that at least one of these theories played some part in the detective's brilliant trick. 

 

Many questions...and no answers yet. 

(And you wonder why the Sherlock fandom is going a little crazy...) 

I'll leave you with one last tear-jerking image of the great
Sherlock Holmes plummeting to his "death".