Obviously there are the holidays and New Year’s bashes, but what else? After a few days of sleeping in and catching up on your favorite TV shows, it’s time to start investigating other winter opportunities. Some ideas could include:

• Snowboarding in Breckenridge
• Listening to the Ying Yang Twins at Telluride
• Soaking in a jacuzzi in Aspen

Well, at least these are some options available to those who vacation with Lifestylze, college vacation company. Lifestylze offers quite a few winter packages for snow-enthusiasts. Prices start as low as $268 and include some of the following items:

• 6 Days 5 Nights Accommodations
• 4 Days Lift Passes
• Exclusive Concerts and Entertainment
• Free Daily Mountain Shuttles
• Free Entrance to all Lifestylez Events
• Spa Gatherings
• Discounts on Equipment Rental/Food & Drinks
• Free Lifestylez Party Tool
• Missouri vs. Kansas Rail Jam Competition

The trips sound like a blast and are relatively affordable. Personally, I think it’s a nice twist on the old sleep till noon and watch soap-operas everyday routine.

While surfing the web I came across this article by Vagabonding on uses for your camera while traveling. I found some of their suggestions to be quite intriguing, their first tip in particular. The idea of taking a picture of your contact information so that the finder of your camera would have a way of returning it to you is very unique. I am hardly the first person to have lost a cell phone or a camera and I wish I had heard of this idea before that had happened. Although, this will not save you from the occasional jerk that lives by the old “finders keepers”, it will provide you with a chance of getting your camera or phone again. Some ideas are a little cheesy, but overall the article is pretty interesting.

It’s that time a year again (and I don’t mean finals), as classes come to an end it’s time to start thinking about next semester. Naturally that means the $600 you’ll have to spend on textbooks solely because your professor is the author and the four stupid excerpts that he throws on the test to ensure you bought the book. While I might not be able to help you with some of those obscure texts, there is a cheaper and easier way to pile up on all those paperbacks. Most people resort to the old discount websites (which isn’t a bad choice) but let’s face it, the time it takes to search eBay/Half.com for the $5 well-used copy is not always worth the $2 you save and a week of not having it in class due to transit. So, here is my suggestion: Bookyards.com.

For all of you who do not mind reading online texts, or have realized that your school has a very loosely enforced printing limit, Bookyards.com is a leading destination for online texts. Their current collection boosts:

• 15,735 books
• 39,224 external web links
• 4,197 news & blogs links
• 384 videos
• 221 Ebook links
• Hundreds of references to online libraries (800,000 Ebooks)

Their goal is to become “The Library to the World,” and continue to frequently update their collection of books and educational materials. My suggestion: before paying for any books see which ones they offer and take your college/university on that semester print quota most students don’t realize they have.

Come midterm and finals time, we all struggle to understand our notes and quickly realize our strengths and weaknesses. We run around last minute looking for someone in the class who took “good” notes that day you “missed,” or that day you nodded off and ended up with random garble on the page. Or perhaps you are that person who takes impeccable notes and resents all those who mooch of you come time for a test. Instead of resenting those that want a copy of your notes, why not make a profit? College Notes Now is a site dedicated to helping both sides of this situation. CNotesNow.com is a platform for students to sell their study guides, old exams, and notes from specific classes at specific universities. So, now those students who took great notes no longer resent anyone, and all us last minute studiers can get good notes for cheap (plus maybe grab an old practice test or two).

cforms contact form by delicious:days

College students in the Boston area have probably sign the posters around their campuses. Bang Ventures, a venture capital firm in Cambridge, MA, are running a competition titled “You Be the VC” with the promise of potentially starting your own company. The cool thing about the competition is the process of choosing the winning business - it’s voted on by your peers.

Here are some more details from their website:

What are the steps to the contest?

First, fill out the application. Again, really give it some thought. You can certainly change it and work on it at various times over the next few months, but really think about the questions and your answers carefully.

Applications are reviewed by our judges and the number of contestants is cut down to 100.

There will then be two further cuts, both of which will require additional work by the contestants.

After all of that, the field will be down to the top 20. These finalists will film a short elevator pitch. The videos will be posted and registered users to the site can vote for their favorites. The top three vote getters get to be CEO of their own start-up idea.

What do I win?
The 3 companies with the most votes will basically get a turnkey start-up company to be CEO of. Their entire idea will be fleshed out with business incubator services including:

1. Business Location (office space)
2. Programming and web development
3. Administrative support
4. IT
5. Legal counsel
6. Accounting support
7. Tax services
8. Consulting services
9. Seed venture funding
10. Stipend to live and work in the Boston, MA area during the summer of 2008

How do I enter?

It’s hassle free. Create your profile and fill out the application with your company idea.

Now you may want to take some time, work the idea out, change it, bounce ideas around, and perhaps work it through a business class or network you belong to. Changes can be made right up until the close date in February.

You also may want to add information to your profile that gives folks an idea of what you are like as well. Let me be honest, investors bet on two legged animals. A “B-” idea with a “A+” team is a better bet than a “B-” team with an A+” idea.

For more information, check out their FAQ’s section

Aside from the potential to win funding for a business idea, YouBeTheVC is also a community for entrepreneurs and those interested in startup companies. Just signing up as a community member and voter will provide a valuable function for the site - the competition would not run very smoothly without the judges.

For those of us luckily enough to have our parent’s involved in paying for college, they appreciate financial aid as much as we do. Any chance they have at decreasing their costs is just as important as it is for us. Do mom and dad a favor and share this article from FinAid.org called the Parent’s Guide to Financial Aid.

Step one is to create a savings plan, which for some of us might be a bit too late in the game. However, the other steps give tips on applying for and understanding your financial aid package. One item they bring up which parents often overlook are education tax credits. Be sure to remind mom and dad come April that they might be able to add your education to their list of deductions.

While I’m sure most of you reading these articles might have had some experience with the various uses of vodka (although knowing what good students you all are, I’m sure they were of the best nature). This article actually offers a few suggestions that your mom would approve of. Fun Fact & Trivia has come up with nineteen out of the ordinary uses of vodka.

A few of my favorites include:

• Vodka as a Vomit-Stain Remover (seems a little circular)
• Fever Reducer
• Shampoo Enhancer and Scalp Cleanser

The one thing every college student wants and the one thing we never get enough of (well some of us) is sleep. From pulling all nighters and waking up for that 8 am lecture, to 4 am parties and then breakfast with the parents - the few hours of sleep we do grab just seem to make you feel worse in the long run. Although it’s unlikely I’ll find a way to increase the number of hours in the day and therefore provide an opportunity to sleep in a bit, I have stumbled across an article with an interesting perspective on getting the sleep you need.

Rated “Most Amazing Invention for 2005” by Time Magazine, Sleeptracker Watches are watches that monitor your body rhythms. Following you through all stages of your sleep cycle, from those moments of paralysis like sleep to those moments of lucid dreaming, the watch will pick the optimal time for you to wake up. This natural awakening within a set time range will hopefully cause you to wake up feeling recharged and ready to go rather than the typical nauseous zombie-like state most of us experience. Unfortunately, I have not had an opportunity to test the Sleeptracker Watch myself, however they are an interesting concept and something I could certainly use. Read more about the Sleeptracker Watch at WalYou.com.

Additional Resources
If your sleep is being disrupted, you may need a new mattress.  The net is a great place to compare prices on bedroom furniture. While your at it, you can also check out a huge selection of  LCD TVs.