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Your Study SessionMenu Can you say #finalsweek ? A few tips from our intern on how to tackle finals and hunger simultaneously. Beware: it may put you  in the mood for the Sixth Sense and drippy, crumbly things Good food can make any situation better. Even if you were experiencing the worst possible thing (i.e. traffic on the 405), think about how much happier you would feel with a bag of your favorite chips or a donut by your side. Road rage: managed. In my many years of falling asleep in lectures and movies and on tables in libraries†¦ I’ve come to realize that food has  another  awesome benefit: as long as you’re eating it, you stay awake. You might fall asleep the second you stop eating (me), but while the munching is happening, it’s physically nearly impossible to be sleeping. As I’m sure you can imagine, by this stage of my life, I am a  professional  snacker and I pride myself in it. I know what kind of snacking is appropriate for various situations and what individuals’ snacking choices and preferences say about them. It’s like I’ve got a sixth  sense.  (I see snacks, people.) Now, there’s a good chance you’re an avid reader. Books are your hobby. They’re the soap opera to the 70 year old woman living inside of you. They’re your  thing. I, on the other hand, would love to be an avid reader, but I fall asleep the second I open a book. Unless I’m snacking. So, after much trial and error, I have finally figured out what kinds of foods you should and shouldn’t eat when reading a book. Even if you don’t need food to stay awake, like I do, some of these snacks might just make your reading experience  that  much better. DRUMROLL, please. DO’S! 1. Foods blended together in liquid form and consumed via straw.  Also known as, your average smoothie. These work for many reasons. For one thing, if positioned properly in front of you, you don’t even need hands to consume it. You could just put it on the table and sip away with your book in front of your cup. It’s just you and the straw. Pretty simple. You also get the added benefit of eating like†¦5 things at once. Which is great if you just really get a kick out of multitasking or if you’re trying to get some veggies or fruits all up in your diet regimen. 2. Pretty much any cold liquid consumed via straw.  I’d recommend chocolate milk. The most important part here is the straw, though. They just makes your life easy. Which is one of the reasons you shouldn’t drink hot drinks, because anyone who has ever drunk hot liquid out of a straw knows the roof-of-your-mouth burn is probably one of the worst, and that it’s inevitable.   No matter how many times you try to cool the drink down, no matter how many times you engage your different ‘testing’ tactics pre-consumption, you will almost always burn yourself when drinking hot liquid through a straw. And that’ll just ruin your reading experience, and probably your whole life. Just please don’t do it. 3. Family-sized bags or boxes of snack foods in original flavors.  These are things like cheez-its, goldfish crackers, pop chips, cereal, you know the drill. They are in the snack aisle for a reason, and it’s because they have been perfected for your snacking pleasure. They literally exist because of your munchies. You should be able to stick your hand blindly into these bags/boxes without becoming nervous or surprised by what comes out of it.   If you can’t, you’re not eating the right snack. The goal is to be able to grab a bunch and shove it directly into your mouth without ever having to avert your glance from your novel. Original flavors mean you’ll have the stamina to keep snacking without wearing out your pallet. And family-sized is crucial because there’s nothing more annoying than wanting to read but running out of snacks to read with. Could you imagine? 4. Peanut butter via spoon.  Yes, it can and should go on a spoon. This applies to Trader Joe’s Cookie Butter, almond butter, and Nutella, as well. You get the drill. 5. Cereal with milk.  This might be a little messy, and yes, it might not be ideal for reading because you have to sort of turn your head to face your cereal bowl every now and then†¦but cereal is worth it. Cereal is always worth it. DON’TS! 1. Warm drinks like coffee or tea.  I already discussed the dangers of attempting to drink hot drinks. But there’s more. Unless paired with other foods, or if you’re part of the 5% of the population that is actually still affected by the amount of caffeine in a cup of coffee, these will just make you sleepy. Warm milk, warm water, whatever it is. Parents give little kids these drinks in order to make them fall asleep. And even if they don’t make you sleepy, these are still no-no’s because these things don’t really qualify as foods and therefore they’re inherently just not as enjoyable. Simple as that. You also could potentially and will likely spill on yourself, since you won’t be drinking out of a straw, which will lead to sheer anguish. If you attempt to prevent the spilling of said hot liquid, you’ll just end up having to look away from your novel all the time. That’s not what we want, is it? Goodness, why is it all so complicated? 2. Flavored anything.  How many times have you grabbed a page of a novel and gotten that red hot-cheeto residue all up in there? Or maybe you’re the type who feels the need to lick your fingers after eating something flavored†¦then you’re just going to get your drool all over your novel the next time you page turn. Is that what you want? Is that really what you want? I know these things are delicious, but they’re dangerous. Many of them also require things like water or milk for the washing down of strong flavors. That’s just time wasted, right there. Please, do yourself a favor and avoid the flavor. 3. Small bags of snacks moms put in lunchboxes.  Are you a baby? Tell me, are you a baby? Do you  really  want to read this novel? Because if you DO then you better be in it for the long haul, and the long haul has no room for teeny tiny snack bags. You’re a big kid now. You pack your own lunchbox. 4. Soup.  I mean†¦what are you thinking? That’s just begging for disaster. 5. In general, things that  drip. 6. Things that require two hands to eat.  How do you expect to read with no hands? Are you a magician? If you aren’t which I suspect you aren’t then you should probably you know†¦stop doing that. Reading while devouring a subway sandwich isn’t possible. It just isn’t. At this point you’re just pretending to read while you eat your sandwich, so you might as well just eat your sandwich. 7.  Bags of things with too much variety.  Unless you like all of the items within that variety. For instance, chex mix. Do  you  like those awkward circular pretzels? Bleh. Next. 8.  Foods that are  so  good you can’t help but think about them as you eat.  My god†¦it’s just†¦it’s just so good. 9. Things that crumb.  There are few things as frustrating as getting crumbs stuck in the seam of your novel. Trying to get them out just means you make more and more, progressively smaller crumbs out of the one large one you dropped in the first place. They crumble exponentially until there’s nothing to grab and you’re left feeling sad and defeated. Don’t do that to yourself. It’s masochism. I don’t care how much you love those fancy croissants or slices of toast with jam. It’s just not going to work. 10.  Anything with melted chocolate.  This is the most painful â€Å"don’t.† But we all know†¦chocolate gets everywhere. You eat a cookie that’s fresh out of the oven and somehow five minutes later you have chocolate on your shirt, your fingers, your face- and in this case, your book. No good.   Just no good. Brown smudges on novels just invite inquisitive questions later on. Just try to fight it and stay away. Let the snacking begin!