My drunken river rafting experience on Labor Day.

This had been my first time rafting down the American River so I had no idea what to expect and certainly no idea what I was getting myself into. I did not come prepared at all, in fact the only thing I brought with me was my bathing suit, a skirt, one towel, and a little bit of alcohol.

I decided to go rafting with one of my best friends, Derek, it was just the two of us a 6 person raft. He was even less prepared than I was; the only thing he brought was a lot of beer. No towel, no change of clothes. Nothing. So as soon as we get there he says, “So yeah, I just got a tattoo a few days ago and they told me I shouldn’t be in the sun right now. I mean I don’t care, but you’ve got sun block right?” I didn’t, I didn’t even bring that with me, which was a really bad idea as well considering we would be out on the river for six hours.

Oh, and now might be a good time to mention that neither one of us brought water. I would later depend on this simple pleasure to save my life. Literally.

Nonetheless, we think this will be the best experience ever and figure we’ll be fine being completely unprepared for what was about to come. We finally get the raft and the woman handling our paperwork says, “Okay now you have to carry your raft about a half mile to were all the rafts are starting.” The raft weighed about 200 pounds and it was just the two of us. Already I was getting the feeling that this was going to be a bad idea.

We finally get out on the water and everything is going great. The weather is perfect, not too hot, and not too cold. We’re just hanging out having a good time, talking, drinking, just like everyone else out on the river is doing as well. We even make stops periodically along the way to make friends and enjoy the scenery.

So we continue floating, having a blast, when all of a sudden we float down some pretty fast, rapid water. I didn’t see the water coming until we are already going over them and apparently I could not react fast enough to hold on to anything so I fall in headfirst. I was wearing sunglasses at the time and holding a beer and as soon as I hit the water my sunglasses broke and I lost what was left of the beer.

I’m in the water and I look up and see Derek hysterically laughing at me. I could not believe that actually happened, I was so embarrassed.

Anyways, we get finally get to the end of the American River where we are all supposed to get off and head down to the bus area. Derek and I are pretty drunk at the time and really just wanted to go to sleep.

The workers at the rafting place told us that is would be 30 minutes until the next shuttle came to take us home and that we would have to stand and wait. The designated spot for us to wait at was right underneath the scorching sun that we had been floating under for the last six hours.

We’re standing there waiting for what seems like forever and all of a sudden I start feeling really weird. I feel like I have to throw up but not really, then everything around me starts spinning, including Derek. So I told him I didn’t feel good and that I needed to go sit down. As I walk from the line to go sit under a tree the feeling gets worse, I felt like I was going to black out or something.

From what happened her on is kind of a blur all I remember was sitting under a tree with my eyes open and not being able to see a thing. Nothing at all! It is the scariest feeling in the world to open your eyes and not see anything around you. So of course I start freaking out, screaming, “I can’t see anything what’s wrong with me? Help me!” Right about this time I can hear the bus pull up and people getting on but I can’t see the bus or the people at all. I felt like I was blind for a few moments, which is a scary feeling to say the least. Derek thinks fast, goes and grabs water from one of the guys working on the bus and gives it to me. As soon as I start drinking the water my vision comes back and I stop freaking out. It was by far the scariest thing I had ever experienced in my life.

the roommate relationship

Co-habitating together, it really is possible.

There is nothing more annoying then when your roommate deliberately leaves dishes in the sink for weeks at a time or when it’s your roommates turn to take out the trash and he or she continuously forgets to do it.

Is it possible to live with a roommate without ripping eachothers’s heads off? Absoultely! The key is communication. First let’s explore all the irritating things that roommates do.

An inconsiderate roommate has zero disregard for the person he or she is living with. For example, an inconsiderate roommate will often times leave the bathroom a mess or will sometimes leave lights on all over the apartment and forget to turn them off. Also, an inconsiderate roommate will leave the common living space a mess or will blast the AC while having the windows open. There are a million little things that inconsiderate roommates do all the time that can easily be avoided.

The one major thing that can be done to solve these issues is simple: communication. Communication is the key in any relationship really, but especially one where two or more people are living together under one roof.

Talk it out. Set down rules in the beginning before move in time so there is no confusion about what is expected of one another. Plan a day and time to do all the bills together once a month so that everyone is involved and knows how their money is being spent.

If someone has a problem with the kitchen being a mess because another roommate forgot to clean up after himself or herself say something, do not just shrug it off and hope they keep up after himself or herself next time.

Keeping the common living spaces clean is probably one of the easiest ways to avoid unnecessary arguments because that is where everyone hangs out and spends most of their time together.

According to educationportal.com the top three tips for living with a roommate in college is establish rules, compromise and communicate. Easy enough right? You’d be surprised at just how difficult these three things might be. But if one puts forth the effort there is no reason why college students cannot live together successfully.

Establishing rules is simple enough. Discussing each other’s personal needs and habits. For example, your new roommate may listen to loud music at all hours of the day and night or your roommate likes to have people sleep over every night and eat all the food in the apartment. Things like this need to be discussed, what is okay and what is not okay to be done at home? When boundaries like this are established it makes it easier to live together.

Compromise is easily as important as establishing rules. Ego can often times get in the way of giving others what they want but it is also necessary in keeping a healthy roommate situation. If you live with a loud roommate who plays their music constantly, letting them have their music loud a few times a night is a good compromise but when it becomes excessive that is when you need to step in and say something.

So again, communicate. Being in college means being an adult, we are no longer in high school where every day dramas make the world go round, we live in the real world now which means we have to act maturely. The only way for two roommates to be completely happy is to talk to one another, maybe have weekly meeting to discuss how things are going and kind of touch base. Communicating does two things, for one it keeps you in contact with the person you live with everyday and two, if there is a problem with your roommate it can be addressed head on instead of hiding issues that really bother one another.

you can pop my cherry for 1 mil

There really is only one word to correctly describe this situation: disgusting!

Seriously though, her parents definitely have raised her the wrong way. If you have not heard by now, meet 22-year-old Natalie Dylan, graduate of our very own Sacramento State University. Dylan currently lives in San Diego and famous talk show host Howard Stern has agreed to auction off her virginity to the highest bidder.

For those of you who care, the bidding is currently at $250,000 dollars, all of which will go towards tuition for graduate school, Dylan says.

There are so many things wrong with this, where to begin? First of all what she is doing is high priced prostitution but since she has decided to do this on the bunny ranch in Nevada, authorities legally can’t do anything about it. For her “15 minutes of fame” she will forever be known as the whore who sold her body for money, so sad.

Secondly, how in the hell are her parents OK with this? Any other family would disown their daughter and claim that she simply is not related to them.

In an E entertainment interview she says she is hoping for the auction to reach as high as one million dollars. A million dollars is more than enough to pay for graduate school if that really is her true reason for doing this. It also sounds like she is trying to profit heavily by giving away her virginity. Even with the current bid at $250,000, that is still plenty for school. There is definitely something else going on.

This girl is obviously not religious in the slightest because if she were she would know that trading sex for money is a sin. Having sex outside of marriage is one thing, exchanging your virginity for a large amount of money is another.

When asked how she felt about this and why she was doing this in the first place she said, “I don’t have a moral dilemma with it. Why shouldn’t I be allowed to capitalize on my virginity? I understand some people may condemn me. But I think this is empowering. I’m using what I have to better myself.” In other words she does not care about what people have to say about her or what they think about her, which is great. For her. I think a normal, sane person would reconsider something so extreme and something so dangerous.

Dylan says it’s not just about the money and that there are other factors that she will consider when choosing her first lover, she is looking for someone who is smart and sophisticated but someone is also extremely wealthy.

While there are many disturbing things about this story, probably one of the most disturbing things is the fact that there is an actual place in the United States that allows such things to go on, exchanging sex for money. Why is it legal there and illegal everywhere else? And how could this even been seen as legal in the state of Nevada?

If protestors wanted to they could blame the bunny ranch for this. Had the bunny ranch never been in operation, Natalie Dylan would have never got the idea in her head to do something so disgusting like this.

In any event this is happening and it is a sad, tasteless way to make a lot of money. This whole “trying to pay for graduate school” excuse just does not cut it when the amount is already at $250,000. Any normal person that was not in it strictly for the money would have taken it already and be satisfied.

Really though, what is the world coming to these days?

relationships: men and women, just friends?

As the old saying goes: men are from mars and women are from Venus. The two are just too different to ever be anything other than sexual partners.

But is that really true? Can a man and a woman really be just friends? Some say that both are naturally sexual beings and could never see the other in any other way. While other say that it is completely possible to be just friends and not see the other gender in a sexual way.

Before this question can be answered it is necessary to look at some studies done on this puzzling question.

Relationship expert, Linda Sapadin, a psychologist in Valley Stream, New York, said, “The belief that men and women can't be friends comes from another era in which women were at home and men were in the workplace, and the only way they could get together was for romance.” (Camille Chatterjee, psychologytoday.com) Meaning that in the older days men only looked at woman as sexual objects because of the way they were raised, but as traditions have changed so has the mentality of men and women. We grow up in some pretty exciting times when are no longer seen as superior to women and with that change comes a different mind frame.

Another important aspect to mention is the homosexual male and female relationship, which often does exist. Now the woman may in some weird way feel attracted, sexually, to him but he obviously does not feel the same way since he prefers males. In that case, yes, men and woman can be just friends, definitely.

Now lets consider the heterosexual male and heterosexual female relationship, a recent survey done shows that anywhere from 58% to 62% of people in cross-relationships report sexual attraction or sexual tension. (Afifi, 200, oppapers.com) More than half of the reasons given for their answer were that sex always got in the way of their cross-relationship and there was just no other way around it. There have been many times when men and women have hooked up and realized that a relationship between them could never work so they decide to be friends instead, that is how more than half of men-women relationships form. And there is nothing wrong with this, most of those relationships turn out to be great.

Then there are others that feel that they could never be friends with someone of the opposite sex, they feel it is simply impossible.

How the relationship starts dictates how to the relationship will end. If a man and woman start out as more than friends, have sex but have zero attraction to the other, then they could end up never talking again. On the other hand, if a man and woman start out strictly as friends and feel no romantic chemistry towards each other then there is a good chance they will end up as just friends.

While this question is a very difficult one to answer, it boils down to the person. Is the person able to be in a friendship with someone of the opposite sex and not be sexually attracted to him or her? Or does sex always get in the way? Men and woman are two very sexual beings and to carry on a healthy friendship between the two seems difficult if not impossible. But there are millions of people in the world that carry on relationships like this everyday.

The real question is how many people in these men-women friendships look at the other person in a sexual way and are just too afraid to say or show it?

the most meaningless law of all...

A relatively new and meaningless law that is being enforced as of July 1, 2008 is the hands free cell phone law.



Taken from the Department of Motor Vehicles website, there are two parts to this law “The first prohibits all drivers from using handheld wireless telephone while operating a motor vehicle. Motorists 18 and over may use a ‘hands-free device.’ Drivers under the age of 18 may not use a wireless telephone or hands-free device while operating a motor vehicle.”



The reason why this law is completely meaningless is because it is not being heavily enforced. Because of this, people do not take this law seriously and continue to chat away on their phones while driving like they did before the law existed.



An article by Robert Roy Britt titled, “Drivers on cell phones kill thousands, snarl traffic,” Britt says “A new study confirms that the reaction time of cell phone users slows dramatically, increasing the risk of accidents and typing up traffic in general, and when young adults use cell phones while driving, they’re as bad as sleepy septuagenarians.” (livescience.com) While this statement may be undeniably true, the same goes with people who eat, read, shave, apply makeup and do all other miscellaneous things while driving.



A law targeted strictly towards people who chat on their cell phones while driving is a little discriminatory when there is a million other things to distract us that are just as dangerous as well. How many accidents have been related to drivers who eat? How about drivers who shave or drink coffee in the morning? The numbers might be surprising.



Either enforce a law that prohibits doing anything else besides driving or don’t enforce a law at all, especially a law that is as meaningless as this one is.



Another meaningless provision of this law is the citation amount that goes along with this law. From the DMV website it states, “The base fine for the first offense is $20 and $50 for subsequent convictions. With the addition of penalty assessments, the fines can be more than triple the base fine amount.” A measly $20, seriously? The minimum price for parking in a handicap spot is $445, a law that surely anyone is bound to take seriously. A small amount of $20 makes people laugh, if law enforcement really would like to see people respect this new cell phone law at least make the fine $100 for first time offenders. The second time they get pulled over make it $200, maybe then people will step back and say, “Whoa that’s a lot of money. We should probably not use our cell phones or at least get a Bluetooth while driving.”



There are hundreds of accidents of accidents every year related to people just being careless and looking down at the radio for a moment. Laws are not being created for carelessness just like this law should not be enforced because no one respects it and thinks it is necessary.



There are hundreds of other laws that are enforced which make absolutely no sense. For instance, did you know that in the state of California it is illegal to set a mousetrap without your hunting license? What does hunting and mice have in common? Absolutely nothing. But it’s laws like these that make people in this state wonder, “why have laws like these at all if it makes no sense?”



So in conclusion, the next time you are driving in your car and you go to grab for your cell phone ask yourself how many people are illegally setting mousetraps then proceed to make your phone call. Illegally.