The academic works of Logan Boger:

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With halloween right around the Corner, a lot of college students are probably dealing with questions like “What should I be for Halloween?”, or “what should I do on Halloween?”. So just in time for the spooky season, here are some tips to keep your Halloween safe and fun.

First is deciding what your going to be. For most college students, they are gonna piece something together and go out with their friends last minute, but if your wanting to be a little more fancy and prepare ahead of time here are some options for you. If you are wanting to go as something funny, but yet cheap, you can always go with the arts and crafts approach.

A great example of this is literally buying rolls of tin foil and making a knight costume. It sounds goofy, but no one will be laughing when you show up to the party in a suit of shining “Armor” you made all on your own. There will be a link to give you an idea of how to get started. When it comes to the arts and crafts approach, it really depends on how creative you are and how much time and effort your willing to put in, but there are a lot of other alternatives.

Knight costume DIY

Another option if the thrift shop option. Stores like Goodwill, Dollar Tree, and WalMart always have a lot of crazy stuff you could always pick up for the cheap and uses for a costume. Buying old clothes from Goodwill and cutting them up for a zombie outfit is always a cheap and safe bet, especially if you can get a ton of buddies to do it with you. WalMart during this time of the year also sells cheap costumes for the college student who needs just something to wear. There will be a link to a great DIY zombie costume made out of old clothing.

So now that you got your costume, its time to go out and have a good time. During Halloween, its safe to say that some students will go out and party and with this comes some inherent risks. If you are one who likes to get their boogie on during halloween, here are some tips to keep ya safe. First, stay with your group, especially if you are going to a large party. Also never except an open drink, you never know what could be in it and its always better to be safe then sorry. Finally, have a DD, drunk driving is not a joke, and especially during a busy night like halloween. There will be a link to more safety tips for those going out to party on halloween. Halloween is the time for kids of all ages to get out their and have fun, so get ya costume ready, have fun and be safe.

 More safety tips 

 

Yep that’s right, eating cheap for students. As most college student who are broke like 75 precent of the time, taking any deals possible to save money, especially on food is the smart move. So here are some good choices to help the average college students who want to eat healthy for cheap, or who just wanna eat and save money.

The first few choices here are for the students who wanna eat cheap but also want to stay relatively healthy. Most of the prices talked about are rough estimates, prices will very depending on the store you shop at, but if you want more bang for your buck definitely try to hit up your local Wal-Mart or Dollar Store. If you like to cook then this recipe is prefect for you. The classic Grilled Cheese and tomato soap is a staple for those who want a nutritious meal for dirt cheap. Price wise its gonna set you back $6~;  A dollar for a pack of sliced cheese, 3 dollars for a 3 pack of Tomato soup and 2 dollars for the loaf of bread. If your looking to get a little more fancy, you can make your own homemade tomato soup, the recipe from the food network will be included.

Tomato Soup Recipe

Another great cheap choice is pot roast with vegetables. This is prefect if you are feeding a decent amount of people and your not looking to spend 30+ dollars. This will cost about $14~; The rump roast for 10 dollars, small bag of potatoes (6) for 2 dollars and a bag of cut up carrots for another 2 dollars. This is a little harder to cook taking about 3 hours, but is definitely worth it for the amount of food it can produce for a group of people.

Next you got the deals for food in bulk for the student who just wants something to eat. Some easy choices is stove top ramen. At Wal-Mart you can get  a 6 pack of ramen for $1.60. At sam’s club you can also get a 30 pack of Nissin cup noodles for 7 dollars which is a decent amount of food for how much your paying. There are also a ton of recipes online that incorporate stove top ramen so you can mix it up every once in a while. The link to a decent recipe will be included.

Stove Top Ramen (6ct.)

Nissin Cup Noodles (30ct.)

Ramen Recipes

As you can see you have some options, but the most important thing to keep in mind is comparing prices when shopping. A lot of the time you can find off brands of your favorite foods and it could save you a few bucks here and there. As a college student, saving your limited income is one of the most crucial things you can do as a student, you never know what you could save with a little bit of bargain shopping at your local dollar store.

One of the most important and vital thing a active college student will have to do is study and if you are like me you might listen to music to study. Through out the years there have been studies done to see if music does in fact help one with studying and retaining knowledge, but the common idea gained from these studies suggest what it depends on what kind of person you are. So whether you enjoy instrumental or rock n roll, I got some good choices for you to choice from.

For those who enjoy instrumental music, you got loads of options. One of the best study play list I have found is actually a 24 hour music live stream on youtube. The stream is called “lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to” and as of writing this midday at 3:00pm there were 11,800 people on the stream just listening to music. Lofi Hip Hop is a form of music that mashes together hip hop and jazz and gives it a low fidelity tune to it, hence the name lofi. This music is all instrumental with some adding very minor lyrics to their song but never anything extensive. In my own personal opinion, this is your best bet for instrumental music to help you study.  

Lofi hip hop radio – beats to relax/study to

For those who are not into modern type of music, I got you covered. There are a ton classical Music play list on youtube that range from 1 to 3 hours long. These are great options for someone who is looking for something different or those who want to try out the age old rumors that Mozart and Beethoven’s music helps one study. 

Final, for the students that cannot dig instrumental, There are some great albums that I have come across that are equally as good chooses as the instrumentals. The first album I got for you is Drakes “Scorpion” album. There are 24 tracks that are all pretty solid in their own right, most of them being groovy enough for you to put on for background noise as you study. This album can be found on Apple Music or Spotify, but not youtube. And the final album I have for you guys is “Astroworld” by Travis Scott. It includes 18 tracks that all flow into each other so well it sounds like one song sometimes. This album, like the drake album, is prefect for throwing on in the background as your work. These are just a few choices that are very new that stood out to me as very chilled music just to put on and relax too. 

Astroworld – Travis Scott

Scorpion – Drake

Though some or all of these choices might not suit all your studying needs, but are definitely good choices for you to check out. Almost any music playlist you can think of is available on either Spotify or Youtube, which are free music and media sharing sites. So if you did not find anything you like here, go check out those sites and see what you can find, you might find that one perfect playlist for your studying needs.           

Loungin’ with Logan is a blog created for JMC 194. This blog will share and explore interesting topics and information for the betterment of the average college student.

Thanks for joining me!

Good company in a journey makes the way seem shorter. — Izaak Walton