Prepular, A blog for frat boys and their fans

photo credit: Guy Telreault

A couple months ago I wrote about SigEp's "balanced man" initiative which added yoga as one of the activities. Now, it seems natural to expect guys, frat or not, to look after their spiritual and emotional health.

Researches showed that meditation produced specific changes in the brain linked to empathy, constant meditation is believed to make your brain kinder. I think a lot of us do actually need some form of anger management, as increasingly we are bombarded with hateful messages, and almost invariably, we experience a rush in testosterone and respond with anger when we have the option of simply ignoring it. Sometimes you just couldn't believe how much hate people can have on others for no good reason. Case in point: the American Family Association recently picked General Motors as a boycott target for advertising to gay guys. And the GoodAsYou blog put it well: "Honestly, these AFA kids are more myopic in their focus than a used car salesman who just learned he has 100 dollars in the bank and twins on the way!" I always have this suspicion that those who are most vocal in bashing the gay community are the deeply closeted cases - John Paulk, for example (not to be confused with Johan Paulik who is as hot and fuckable as ever) I'm convinced that the best and the fastest way to shut these AFA people up is to expose their hypocrisy, and to expose their hidden messed up personal lives.

So, back to meditation. There are several free meditation podcasts that help to quiet your mind, meditationoasis.com is one of the good ones. If you are serious in maintaining your wellbeing and have $79 to spend, meditainment.com is a great choice, it has a collection of guided meditation that literally take you out of this world. You can have a free trial and see if you like it before spending any money.

One thing I want to try is transcendantal meditation, a lot of guys I know are recommending it, any of you tried that?

Labels: self help

Mortgages, stocks, jobs, health insurance. These are just some of the things people have to start to manage after they left college. College students are graduating with an average of $20,000 of student loan debt, 10 years ago, the figure was merely $10,000. The 25-34 age bracket has the second-highest rate of bankruptcy next to those 35-44.

Different stages of life, same problems.

Money, or the lack of, has always been a source of frustration for many. If you have read Rich Dad Poor Dad or The Millionaire Next Door, you probably would know one of the key techniques to accumulate wealth in a sustainable and relatively painless manner is to own assets. Frugality is another key technique. I have witnessed many of my college friends dropped out simply because they could not afford not to work while they took on a full course load. Being a massive self help junkie, I read extensively on topics including personal finance, motivational and biographies of people who have "been there done that". While all of the books are helpful, tips on how to raise millions from venture capitalists or a success story of using leverage finance to buy properties may not directly relate to my current life problems. Also, not that many useful books are written specifically for people about to leave college and enter the real world on how to manage their money and time.

Then I bumped into this: No More Ramen: The 20-Something's Real World Survival Guide: Straight Talk on Jobs, Money, Balance, Life, and More

This book contains more than 200 insightful interviews with recent graduates from UCLA, Harvard, Columbia, Arizona State, MIT, Penn State etc on topics of money and career. Having the money to groom yourself and maintain a good body greatly increases your chances of a successful courtship. Once in a while it’s easy to lose motivation and let it slip, this book is exactly what you need if you’re in apathy mode.

Labels: prepular's choice, self help

So in your quest to dominate your corner of the world, you might be wonder about higher order questions. Why is some people seem to always get the attention? Why am I not happy despite all the money I've spent on myself? How can I get a better job? How to manipulate the situation to my advantage? Why am I not getting any?

One characteristic that distinguishes a successful person from an unsuccessful one is the bias for action. Success often depends on taking action. It is scientifically proven that procrastination is harmful to your health.

Plan a "private time" in your schedule
Try to set aside at least 30 minutes every day that allow you to do something you truly enjoy. Often times, you are exhausted after a long day of work and study, the thought of having to set aside half an hour seems more like a luxury you can't afford. But it's not. This 30 minutes of private time, which may be spent on reading, preparing a nice dinner, watching a comedy, taking a long bath, jogging, gardening, writing emails to old friends, playing your favorite songs, is essential. It is essential because your happiness is at stake, and more often than not, people get too caught up in their daily work and life dramas, and forget to take time off and look after themselves. If bitching about little things really make you happy, go spend 30 minutes doing it. The whole point is, do something that makes you happy and look after yourself.

Do you remember an event in the past week that you truly had fun? Do you let the whole week passed by without taking time out for yourself? Or do you just feel tired all the time?

Take responsibilities
Every time you point fingers and blame others for an unwanted outcome, you are simply giving away your power. This is not to say you should put your hand up for every mistakes that are made in every situation. In fact, blaming others for your own faults maybe part of the important survival strategy in the workplace or in a group environment. The problem lies in people actually convinced themselves that there is nothing they can do to achieve a better outcome. In the process they gradually victimize themselves. You can not really control how people treat you, but you can learn to manage their nasty remarks and your own emotions. If you are not happy with your weight, is it a good time to go back to the gym? If your GPA is 2.5, instead of thinking it is irrelevant to your actual intelligence, is it a better option to book a meeting with your TA and ask for help with your study strategy?

Talk is cheap.

Working, studying and maintaining a full social life is tough. And to survive under absolutely Darwinian conditions isn’t easy. The most important things involve being determined to doing the thing, finding friends to help you out and commiserate when things have gone downhill, and just sticking with it.

Labels: college, self help

10 things I want for my life right now
Top Row:
(L) Be relevant, trendy and hip, regardless of age
(C) Get a better job at a more prestigious company
(R) Have a hot looking boyfriend like Corbin Fisher's Nick

Second Row:
(L) Be able to have fun
(C) Keep in touch with friends and tell them how much they mean to me
(R) Gain the acceptance of respectable people

Middle Row:
(C) Go for a spa retreat at the Four Seasons Hotel

Bottom Row:
(L) Spend sometime tanning and swimming in Greece
(C) Get back into great shape
(R) Enjoy good food

Labels: luxury, photo essay, self help

I almost missed this one.

Troubled by the declining membership, the Delta Zeta sorority at DePauw University sent letters to members that they deemed not attractive enough, and asked them to leave the sorority and vacate from the house. All the non-whites were also asked to pack their bags. When questioned by a New York times reporter, Delta Zeta's PR representative claimed that "the isolated incident at DePauw has been mischaracterized".

DePauw’s president, Robert G. Bottoms, later issued a two-page letter of reprimand to the sorority. In the end, DePauw disbanded the Delta Zeta chapter altogether.

Apparently this is the microcosm of how the game is played in the society as a whole, as Sororities and Fraternities are often seen as status competitions. If you can guzzle an impressive amount of alcohol, if you are hot AND snobbish, if you buy the right clothes and hang out with the right group, and if you join a frat / sorority, your status goes up. This is how most people see it. The point I want to make is, although it is easy to exclude people who are different or "less desirable", extreme measures like evicting people using looks as the single measurement is not only downright unreasonable, it gives the organization a bad name. I was heartened by the report that half of the slim, white girls who were not kicked out of the DePauw sorority quit in protest.

Labels: college, greek life, interracial relationship, self help, sorority

You don't see that many gay guys that look like those Fratmen models. Gay guys usually gather around art galleries, smell like they have doused themselves in some cologne in near head-exploding quantity, and are never invited to beer pong games. Am I pulling stereotypes? Maybe. Am I telling a disturbing truth? Absolutely.

Do you think that fugly Perez Hilton, Bryanboy or the likes is giving all gay people a bad name? For me, yes. Lucky for us, for every sh1theads like them we have many more decent gay people who actually contribute something to the society like Chip Arndt, Marc Jacobs and Reichen Lehmkuhl. I am not against people who act queenly, just that I want myself to model after people who have better integrity, who are more intelligent, achievement-oriented, self conscious and confident. If you are attracted to guys, I bet you're attracted to their actions, power and domination. That's why straight guys can "market" their dominance, and get tonnes of cash from their "cash fags" on sites like Niteflirt. The real tragedy lies not in the attraction of power, but the unhealthy obsession that gay guys can never be better than straight guys.

It is okay to direct your own life in exactly the same direction you wanted, this can be achieved by having a life plan, reading a lot of self help books, getting a good education, and by learning of manipulation and people skills.

Labels: self help