So I'm offering him some parting, favorite-uncle advice on here even though he's probably not what you'd call a devoted member of the Read Uncle Jake's Blog Every Single Day Club.
1. Lie low for a while. Get your bearings. Meet lots of people. Learn how to find the positive in every new person and every new situation.
2. Develop these habits now because you'll use them over and over on every new adventure your life takes you on.
3. Make it a priority to find the quietest corner of the quietest library on campus so you'll know exactly where to take yourself when you need to concentrate.
4. Also make it a priority to find any and all private bathrooms on campus.
5. Because sometimes all you'll want more than anything in the world is to poop in peace.
6. Peanut butter and jelly is always a perfectly acceptable meal.
7. Creamy, not chunky.
8. We're not savages.
9. Do your homework as soon as you get home from classes every day.
10. There is no dread-filled panic as profoundly deep as the one you will feel at 11:07 pm on a Tuesday when you realize your paper on Information Age existentialism didn't write itself while you binged on Friends reruns all evening.
11. Never schedule classes before 9:00 am. After you graduate you'll spend the rest of your life getting up at 6:00 to trudge off to work until you die. So enjoy your last waning years where you can still get away with sleeping in.
12. Plus you'll leave yourself an emergency catch-up-on-your-homework cushion each morning if you didn't do your homework when you got home the day before.
13. Like I told you to.
14. "Despacito" is not allowed to be your song-of-the-summer-before-college memory for the rest of your life. Pick something less commercial and more personal.
15. NOW. Before it's too late.
16. Because -- like your prom theme -- it will come up in conversation more often than you'd expect.
17. You will eventually think that your roommate is weird.
18. He will eventually think the same about you.
19. Always remember that the true fact is he is actually way weirder than you.
20. He will probably snore.
21. Or fart when he thinks he can get away with it.
22. So will you.
23. This is called bonding.
24. Febreeze.
25. Roommate bro dates are not a bad thing.
26. You're gonna be living on top of each other anyway, so you might as well be friends in the outside world too.
27. No homo.
28. Call your parents.
29. Often.
30. And text them.
31. And call them.
32. And your sister.
33. And your grandparents.
34. ESPECIALLY your grandparents.
35. You can keep communicating with me just by trading inappropriate memes.
36. I still care about you and how you're doing in school, but I can get all that information from your mother. I really just want more inappropriate memes.
37. Get at least two college jobs: one related to your major so you can have meaningful experience on your résumé when you graduate and one in the dorm cafeteria -- it has short shifts, it's an easy way to make petty cash and you're going to be in the cafeteria around that time anyway.
38. But don't broadcast this strategy on social media because the other kids will see it and try to get those jobs before you do.
39. It's an ugly, cutthroat world out there.
40. Always make sure your backpack is fully zipped when you're traveling between classes. I helplessly watched an expensive chemistry textbook plummet into a rushing river as I was crossing the bridge above it in The Great Poorly Zipped Backpack Disaster of 1987.
41. I was out like 50 bucks and half a semester's worth of lecture notes.
42. Plus I already sucked at chemistry. So this was a pretty epic setback.
43. ALWAYS. ZIP. YOUR. BACKPACK.
44. Get a credit card. Use it only to buy stuff you know you have the money to pay for. Pay it off in full and on time each month. Without fail.
45. This will show the banks you're responsible with your money (and don't think they don't talk to each other) and it will help you build a good credit rating.
46. Good credit can eventually get you more buying power when you're an adult, easier approvals when you rent your first apartment, more options when you buy insurance, and lower interest rates on your car loans and mortgages.
47. Always. Pay. Your. Credit. Card. Bills. In. Full. And. On. Time.
48. You're a good kid. You're actually an awesome kid. Our whole family is so proud of you and who you are and everything you have the potential to become that we probably not-so-secretly burst into tears sometimes just thinking about you.
49. You're gonna do great things. You're also gonna do mistakey things and maybe even catastrophically stupid things. But never forget that you can come to any or all of us if you get into trouble or you need help or even if you're just lonely and you're kind of hoping one of us will drop everything and drive four hours just to see you and take you to dinner. Because we will. And we hope you know we will, without question. We will always have your back.
50. Inappropriate memes.
