Dorm Essentials & Tips

Happy July everyone! I’m currently blogging from Fairbanks, Alaska where August and the Fall 2021 semester are both right around the corner! Since Orientation, move in, and classes are going to be beginning in less than a month I want to share my favorite Dorm Essentials & Tips for those living on campus. 

Starting this fall, I will have had experience living in a total of three different Residence Halls over a period of my (soon to be) five years at ERAU. I’ve lived on campus my entire college experience and I’m here to share my top tips to make your living space feel like home.

My current home away from home includes lots of weekend hikes, here’s my latest adventure!

Since your dorm room will be where you spend a lot of your time, making sure that is a comfortable space where you can do homework, study, and relax at the end of the day is extremely important. Since this list is general, most residence halls allow all of these items, but double check with your housing contract for items more specific to your specific living community. For reference, you may check out ERAU’s Housing and Residence life Community Standards, linked here, where also featured is a FAQ page, a Residence Hall option guide, a Move-In guide, as well as my personal favorites (guides I reference the most) the Approved Cooking Appliances in the Residence Halls list, and ERAU’s streaming service website for television shows and movies available for free here to all on-campus students. 

My dorm essential list includes, first and foremost, stocking up on snacks! Secondly, my favorite part about coming back to my room at the end of a long day is taking a hot shower and setting up my essential oil diffuser! I also love having plants in my room. All rooms have windows that receive some amount of natural light during the day, so I suggest low maintenance plants like succulents or cacti. Another great option is planting a few wildflower seeds in a small pot to brighten your room, or trying some easy to grow herbs such as basil, mint, or chives!

Nonperishable snacks like granola bars, nuts, and apple sauce are great to have on hand during the school year, but right now I am grateful to be able to pick fresh berries to snack on in between my online summer classes!

Another one of my favorite room essentials is a natural light simulating alarm clock. Since I’m in ROTC (or if you have any early morning or late-night flights if you’re studying Aeronautical Science), I highly recommend getting an alarm clock that can sync with your phone, your Alexa Amazon Echo, and simulates sunrise/sunset to help you regulate your sleep schedule. Before PT in the mornings, I am always listening to music on Spotify while I get ready in my room, so being able to auto-play music directly after my alarm goes off makes my morning routine that much simpler.

I also suggest investing in a good pair of headphones! Despite nighttime quiet hours, and quiet hours during finals, living in the Residence Halls can be loud at times and there are definitely moments when I like peace and quiet. The perfect solution I’ve found to this, other than heading to the Quiet Rooms on the second floor of the library to study, are noise canceling headphones! Since music plays such an important role in helping me relax while taking breaks from studying, I use headphones for peace and quiet while I do homework, as well as for high quality music when I’m working out or relaxing.

Keep on keeping on folks, will report back soon!

Fall & Fresh Updates

Happy September everyone! I’m currently blogging from Daytona Beach, the official Autumn season begins September 23 and runs until December 21, I’ve been busy lately, and I’m trying my best to not be stressed.

I’ve found myself becoming a bit overwhelmed with the constant high speed flow of life recently, so as I woke up this past Sunday morning I took a couple minutes to set intentions for the week, write my to do list, and drink water. In the midst of the chaos when I find myself getting anxious about everything I need to accomplish for the day, I have to remind myself to take a step back, breathe, reset, relax, and take it one step at a time.

On a happier note, Fall is my absolute favorite time of the year, so despite Florida not having the most stereotypical autumn experience, I still try to make the best of it. I’m on my 3rd year at Riddle and thus far I have made it to a Floridian pumpkin patch every year (typically in late fall when the weather is in the low 80s).

As I currently drink my cup of coffee with pumpkin spice almond milk creamer and do homework in my room that smells like apples from my oil diffuser, as long as I don’t go outside, it’s basically fall, right? My prize possessions are definitely my calculator, my Keurig, my laptop, and my essential oil diffuser. Which you probably already deciphered because I drink a lot of tea/coffee, do a lot of homework, and I love yoga.

My newest fall essential oils that I am obsessed with! They make my entire room smell amazing. The scents are Maple Leaf, Fall Rain, and Harvest Moon.

As I note I would like to add my supply of “fall” flavored teas is growing. A classmate asked me the other day how many cups of tea I drink a day and I really had never thought about it, but I make tea all the time and typically always have a cup with me (in my reusable to-go cup of course).

Me enjoying the mere idea of fall even though it’s hot outside.

Now that we’ve caught up, as a Professional Officer Course (POC) cadet in AFROTC this year (under-classmen are referred to as General Military Course (GMC) cadets until after they return from Field Training the summer between their sophomore and junior years) I earned the privilege of being able to have a clipboard during training to conveniently carry around my orders, other needed papers for the day, and of course pens, sharpies, and a ruler.

Everyone’s clipboard is different, and in my opinion, essentially represents you as a person. I decided to decorate the top of my clipboard, which is covered by my daily orders in training to stay professional. My clipboard also has a large letter of my flight on the back, and my name which are the visible portions when conducting leadership laboratories (LLABs) and physical training (PT). 

To provide a small amount of background on my clipboard decorations, in the backyard of my house in Virginia we have a surfboard hung on the fence that we’ve been putting stickers on for years now. The stickers are from wherever we travel, and everyone in the family puts new ones on all the time, so the next time you look at it it’s constantly changing and growing. Naturally when I got my clipboard I had been gathering some smaller stickers from my travels and wanted to adopt the same philosophy. 

The top of my AFROTC clipboard that isn’t normally visible, but makes me happy knowing that it’s there!

Keep on keeping on folks, will report back soon!