First up, we have Rob’s Blog with his article about what, exactly, a blog is. It’s the start of a series on blogging, and it’s worth the click through.

Abdulla Yasir writes about a Maldivian Student meet-up.

Briana at College Fashion gives us 6 Tips to Beat Final Exam Stress. I understand completely. Totally. I just finished my exams, and I was stressed, even though I was pretty sure I knew most of the material.

Small carnival, but interesting posts. Please give them a read, and tune in in another two weeks for the next blog carnival!

First up, we have 7 Little Known Ways to Drastically Improve Your Learning from the Ririan Project. Although it might be too late to include some of these tactics, you should remember them for next year!

So for the next time around, it’ll be a free-for-all any topic on school. That should help a little.

First off, we have Alex Shalman’s article: Seven Questions That Will Change Your Life. Interestingly enough, he took the topic “blogging” and made it into journaling. He emphasizes the importance of self-reflection at the end of the week to better ourselves. This would definitely help those of us who are plagued with that disease called “procrastination.”

Here’s something a little more personal from Elyse at Reaching Maturity: an article about what blogging is all about. She says:

A blog shows evolution of character and person hood. It shows the struggles you face and the ways you choose to deal with them.

Click through to read the rest. It’s worth it.

Incessant Expressions has an interesting post about the semantic web. He talks mostly about Google and Amazon book searches, but, perhaps, blogging might have a place in the “new” semantic web. Read it, and get some ideas on how to save yourself some money on books, too.

For a more light-hearted read, go no further than The Positivity Blog’s post on “5 Lessons I have learned from John Chow.” For those of you not in the know, John Chow is the blogger behind, well, JohnChow.com. And there is, apparently, quite a bit to learn from him.

Yes, that was a rather small carnival, but we hope to grow it next time! Come back soon!

Note: If your post was not including, it was because it did not have to do with the carnival topic.

The banality of heroism concept suggests that we are all potential heroes waiting for a moment in life to perform a heroic deed. The decision to act heroically is a choice that many of us will be called upon to make at some point in time.

So how is this relevant to students in college? Because there are many things going on in the world today that we should be speaking up about. Heroism, the article argues, doesn’t necessarily come from those who are born heroic, but from those who speak up against injustice.

Article found through Guy Kawasaki.

All the information is on the carnival page. The first issue will be next week Friday, so get your submissions in before then!

This is from the website:

Universitimes is the first national college blog network. It is written by college students, for college students. Photos, topics, comments…all of it done by you– for you.

However, it’s still new so there are no blogs or advertisers as of yet. Is that a problem? Not really, but it will be interesting to see how the bloggers go about writing on events and gossip happening around their campus… without getting too analytical or too personal. Of course, it would be no fun if we didn’t know anything about the blogger.

Plus, would any college be accepted? It seems as if the main audience for the blog will be the students of the campus themselves. And, perhaps, prospective students who want to learn a little more about a college than what the viewbook offers them. But smaller colleges would make considerably less ad revenue, so would bloggers from these colleges be enticed to apply for a blogging job that is based on ad revenue?

I do like the idea of having a blog network specifically for the topic of “your college campus.” It makes everything seem more personal to the blogger, and readers from the campus will immensely enjoy the up-to-date info about all the nifty tidbits that could never get into the school paper. Of course, bloggers should be careful about what they write and whom they write about, but that’s just common sense.

I’d really like to see how Universitimes.com flourishes over time.

Source: Bleikamp.com

Part of the problem seems to be the emphasis on the individual through the Internet:

The internet, with its MySpaces and YouTubes are allowing the self-regard to flourish to dangerous levels, said the study, “Egos Inflating Over Time.”

While I don’t believe that Twenge is necessarily blaming YouTube and MySpace (the former actually allowing anyone with a little luck and charisma to be a star of their own “TV” show) for this narcissism, it is an interesting point. Is it bad to have a place where students can gather and feed off the compliments of other people? I don’t think so, unless that person begins to preen so much that they think themselves as famous as Mariah Carey.

According to the study, the downside of being too self-absorbed is “treating others badly.” I wondered how narcissism could lead to the ill treatment of others, but if you’re so into yourself, you might actually unintentionally treat someone with disrespect. Of course, that probably comes from the idea that you yourself have been treated with disrespect.

Of course, this may also stem from the rise in emphasis on individualism. Since we all want to be different, we tend to think of other people’s differences as inferior to our own. Which is a silly assumption to make, but it seems to be happening.

However, I don’t think my friends are anymore narcissistic than I am. But that might be the problem.

Miggipyn also has some gorgeous pieces of jewelry and other clothing. She’s already sold 58 pieces so far, and her ratings are 100% positive. This will probably be a good way to go if you want some nice pieces for under $50.