So the common quote you're probably expecting me to throw out there is "Save the cheerleader, save the world"...so...now it's been said. But in reality...how could a college student possibly save the world? Between classes, activities, parties, and random midnight feedings, the average student has barely enough time to chug an energy drink to shake off the Friday, Saturday, Sunday...hell, any day effects of a hard night's shindigging....but it is possible. With a little ingenuity, some college know-how, and the incorporation of our horribly awesome habits as college students. So here is but a small list of ideas for you to incorporate into your everyday life as the future leaders of the world.

1. The Toilet Cooler. This is pretty straight forward...instead of putting your beer or other libations in the refrigerator, where you could just as easily store a nice cache of pizza leftovers, almost rancid milk, and mystery foods; make use of the water tank on your toilet. What most people don't realize is that the water in the tank on your toilet is most likely the same that comes out of your tap for drinking and doing dishes...WAIT...dishes? who does those?     In any case...by keeping a limited supply of your favorite high class PBR or Keystone Light in the tank of the toilet, you not only keep it cool in the porcelain goddess, but you also help to cut down on the amount of water used during each flush while the cans are in the tank. And better yet, as you get more drunk through the day/night, and your bowels decide to do the hokie pokie, the amount of water in each flush will increase, making sure you leave no little surprises for the next person in the loo.

2. Ramen Bag Shot Glasses. This is a more intensive project for those nights where you've been working front desk in the dorm for 8 hours straight and begin to think you are a secret agent with a license to kill whoever comes through the door next. What you need is : a bunch of bags from your breakfasts, lunches, and dinners composed of the almighty top ramen; a soup can; an oven or microwave; a shot glass (shhhh...don't tell the RA); a small coffee mug (like the type they have in the cafe...hmmm...), and a good fan to blow the fumes out the window. Now a little note...this one isn't too good for the atmosphere, but makes a kick-ass looking shot glass. Take a handfull of the ramen bags and cram then in the bottom of the mug, then wrap the shot glass in as many bags as you can and cram it as a whole unit into the mug so that its a tight fit. turn the oven on to 350 or the microwave onto high. Put into the oven until is obvious that the shot glass is sinking into the plastic, or in the microwave for 1 minute at a time until you get the same observable sinking (don't run the microwave too long straight cuuuuz....fire sucks....i would know...Sorry about that one John...) Anywho, let you setup cool, tip upside down, and drop out your newly formed shot glass, complete with ramen noodle nutritional information, and indecipherable smudged lettering that seems to indicate ramen is in fact made of just salt. 

3. The Pee Battery. Its quite a simple idea...and I don't know why nobody has made full commercial use of this ingenious little theory...but...Pee is acidic, thanks to the uric acid it contains, and the large amount of stomach acid and alcohol dehydrogenase your body pumped out last night (I learned real good in science). Now take said pee, put it in beer pong cup (but not in the midst of a game please), or a masons jar. Now, take a zinc roofing nail...nail a hole in a solid copper penny and attach the penny to a copper wire. Take the nail you just used to punch a hole in the penny, and attach that to another wire. Hang both metal objects in your tinkle, and attach both ends of the two wires to a small light bulb. VOILA!!! if its a small enough light bulb (like an LED), and your pee is acidic as a true champ's , you could have just created your very own pee night light....and your girlfriend thought you peeing in the corner was just a drunken accident!! pssh...what does she know!?

4. Beer Can Ass Reflectors. So you were drunk last night and in your he-man / she-woman rage, you began crushing cans with your feet for no reason, making them, inevitably, unreturnable...but for the time, you made some KICKASS tap shoes. However, now you have a pile of flattened beer cans, a headache, and its 8 o'clock the next night and you need to go get more bleach to clean the bathroom and you don't have a flashlight. Surely you will be hit by a car...BUT WAIT! Grab four of your cans and one of those titanium bladed knives you impulsively bought off eB

ay with the money your rents gave you for "emergency" purposes and cut the cans in half lengthwise, leaving them connected at one end. Bend them over themselves so that the shiny interior is now on the outside. Carefully slip one side of each can in each of your front and butt pockets and TA DA! Instant reflectors. Not only that, but the guy at the quickie mart thinks your fashion statement is wicked hardcore, and by the end of next week, the uber awesome, robotron pocket protector look will have spread from college senior, to senior citizen, to high school freshies. You be rockin' man.

5. Cultured Bathroom. And no, I don't mean bacterial cultures...which by the way, you might wanna work on. I heard some girl got an previously undiscovered STD from your toilet seat. Anywho, now you have something named after you...congrats. Now...cultured bathrooms. Many times students will try to return their semester's books at the bookstore to find that, oh wait..."you paid 30 dollars for that book?" "Ok, we'll give you a dollar back for it...savvy?" Um...no. College text books are a crime...obviously...but heres a way to not only stick it to the "the new edition has a different cover so I can't re-buy your book" bookstore owner....while also making your bathroom a more cultured place. Take said books worth piddly to you, and turn them into your bathroom wallpaper. Whether its a book of archaic dutch poetry, or a book about the geothermal interaction of semiclastic magma flows and subterranean fluvial systems...making it the classy covering of your bathroom walls will give guests insight into the useful knowledge you have obtained at college, and also give people praising the porcelain goddess something to focus on other than that green stain under your sink. NOTE: To add a further touch of class, learn how to make different origami figures and fold up some of those book pages to make artistic representations of yourself; a beer can, a missing shoe, a person of the opposite sex in your bed with no recollection of how they got their, etc., and hang them from the ceiling. It will really make your bathroom POP!

So, go forth, use your imagination and think of what awesomely wicked things you could do with things that would otherwise end up in a sewage plant, dumpster, or your neighbors living room. You'd be surprised what awesomeness can be thought up, and what potential good our stupid little ideas could have on our global footprint.

RAmen.