July 1, 2008
Cool Gadgets- Goodies to make your life easier
One of my friends is a nursing major and has the longest, most tedious lecture classes.She said one of her favorite gadgets is her recorder; her teacher lets her leave it at the front of the class during the lecture and she picks it up when class is over. Even though you take notes during class, I always miss stuff and find myself writing question marks in my notes… that usually doesn’t come in handy when the test comes around. But back to the recorder thing.. you can plug it in to your computer and download it into iTunes- makes for easy studying and checking your notes. Office Depot has a good selection of recorders to choose from.
I do the same thing, except the recorder I have picks up the professor’s voice clearly from the very back of the classroom. It’s tiny so no one even really notices it. Go to Radio Shack and its called an Olympus VN-3100 PC Recorder. It records up to 72 hrs of audio & costs about $50. There are other types that record more hrs than that if u can spend a more money. You can delete & re-record & it takes just 2 batteries. It’s awesome bc u can play the recordings out lout or plug headphones into it so u can do other things like clean ur room or work out while listening the lecture as many times as u want. If u r going to miss a class give it to a classmate & then play it!
I’ve never done the recorder thing, but it sounds really helpful! Its crazy how many cords there are running around from the TV, lamps, laptop charger, phone charger, ihome… A power strip is a must! I also have used a tool kit more times than I ever thought I would in my life. I know it sounds manly and I actually don’t have one, but my room mate has a cute little monogrammed one and we use it all the time. Even though my brothers and dad make a great little moving team and get me situated at the beginning of the year, things will fall down, screws comes loose… Or you buy new picture frames or new curtains in the middle of the semester and end up needing a hammer and nails or a screw driver. I lived in an all-girls dorm my freshman year (SO much fun! Seriously.) and girls were always running down to our room to borrow the tool kit!
I got a tool kit for graduation and same thing- I’ve used it way more than I ever would have guessed and I feel like I’m actually kinda handy now, ha! When I moved into my apartment this year my roommate and I were able to hang up all our paintings, mirrors, picture frames by ourselves (at one point in my life, that would have been a challenge). Freshman year we had to use those sticky hooks because we weren’t allowed to nail, but the ones from Container Store we’re really strong and worked for the dorm thing. One thing I wished I had freshman year was one of those noise machines that lulls you to sleep. I would have liked those soothing noises after a not so soothing night at the library. And sometimes the neighbors were loud so that could have drowned them out as well. (Not you, Fiona, those weirdos on the otherside of me.) Conair makes one with 10 sounds and a radio alarm clock for about $20 at Target.com.
