It’s week seven of spring quarter. By now, you’ve accumulated so much stuff over the year that you probably can’t remember the surface color of your desk. Personally, every morning I find myself kneeling inside my closet, blinded by mounds of clothing and shuffling through my ridiculous pile of shoes for a solid five minutes before I can find a pair.

Although my case is a little on the extreme side, I’m sure if you browsed through your drawers you would find a number of items that you simply don’t need. They are taking up the little space you have and are a huge pest to deal with when you move out. It’s time for spring cleaning! Here are some ways you can cut through the clutter (and procrastinate productively).

How to get rid of your clothes:

1) Sell them online

Many websites make selling your clothes the easiest task in the world. Threadflip.com (or the Threadflip smartphone app) lets you create a virtual closet, and you can add a description for each item you want to sell. You indicate your asking price, and decide whether or not you want the $7 shipping to be included in the displayed cost. When someone purchases your item, Threadflip sends you an email with a printout of the recipient’s address, which also certifies that shipping has already been paid. Then you can head over to the post office at Ackerman, ask for a box, stick the printout to the box and wait for your money! Other sites with a similar concept include Materialwrld.com for the indie folk, and Tradesy.com.

2) Sell them at a store

If you prefer in-person exchanges, head to Santa Monica or West Hollywood with a bagful of old clothing, and sell it at Crossroads Trading Company or Wasteland. Their rates aren’t very high, and they might not take everything, but they are a good bet when you have a lot to sell and want to get rid of it quickly. Besides, once you’re there, you can go spend your new funds on a fresh wardrobe! (So much for spring cleaning.)

3) Swap

Ask your friends if they have any clothes or other items that they want to get rid of, and organize a swap party with a few of them. Lay all the clothing on a table and take your pick! You can make this into a social event by adding food, drink and an awesome playlist into the mix.

4) Donate

If you’re not really bothered about making money, and your number one priority is to get rid of all your junk, donate your goodies to Goodwill on Santa Monica Blvd. You will make pro thrifters, yourself and, most importantly, the less fortunate, very happy.

How to get rid of the rest:

As for your books, ornaments, accessories, unwanted gifts etc., here are a few quick tips.

1) Sell your books at Ackerman or online.

2) Donate to the Mattel Children’s Hospital at Ronald Reagan.

3) Donate books to Goodwill.

4) Ask your friends if they want them! Perhaps they’ve been ogling your belongings since fall and would be psyched to take them off your hands.

5) Recycle. Either literally throw your things in the appropriate bin, or make them into something new that you will actually use. Don’t be afraid to get weird creative!

Share your spring cleaning tips with us @dbmojo or comment below.

—Iris Goldsztajn

Tags: dorm, how-to, shopping, spring cleaning, thrifting

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It seems like there are apps for everything nowadays, and let’s be honest, most of them are pretty useless. But smartphones aren’t just for texting, calling and going on Facebook in class (Yeah, we see you…). If you’re always googling Powell Library hours and dining hall menus, some of these UCLA apps may actually be useful.

A note to those still clinging to your vintage chic flip phones and Blackberries: apologies, this information doesn’t apply to you. But there are some perks to owning a simpler phone – 21st-century information overload can be a real pain sometimes.

1. UCLA Library

No more wandering the book stacks looking for a book that isn’t even there. Find out book availability by searching for it beforehand. You can also check if laptops are available to rent and look up library hours.

2. UCLA Radio

Pandora’s great… except for all the commercials. And sometimes Pandora gets it wrong (anyone ever tuned in to the MIA radio station only to heard a Katy Perry song? Yeah, it’s a bummer). That’s not to say that the students who spin tunes at UCLA Radio won’t ever play the music of these two pop ladies in one set (we’d be interested to hear that mix), but they do it without commercials.

3. NomCalm

No one likes crowds, especially not when you’re eating. You understand this if you’ve ever tried to eat brunch in the dining hall during Bruin Day. This new app created by UCLA students is designed to help you avoid the busiest times at the dining hall. The app relies on users to provide the information about crowds, so it’s not very dependable yet. But the more people who use it, the more accurate the results. And hopefully the app will work on Androids soon.

4. University Credit Union Mobile

No more waiting in line (have we mentioned we don’t like waiting?). Use this app to transfer money into your account, check your balances, pay bills and view transaction history. Bank of America and Wells Fargo have similar apps.

5. UCLA mobile

The main feature we like about this app is how it streamlines access to MyUCLA, the dining hall hours/menu, UCLA Happenings, the BruinBus schedule and more. The view of MyUCLA on Google isn’t quite as pretty or navigable as this mobile interface.

What are your favorite UCLA apps? Tweet us @dbmojo or comment below.

—Sarah Greenwald

Tags: ucla apps

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Watch as Idriss Njike, Resident Director of UCLA’s Holly Ridge and Gardenia Way, explains the delicate process of crêpe-making.

Njike cooks crêpes for his students at his apartment, breaking the traditionally distant RD-student relationship. Watch the full video about Njike and his love of crêpes here. Stay tuned until the end to learn about his “special ingredient” and favorite crêpe fillings.

Video by Miranda Davies and Ryan Perera, Daily Bruin contributors

—Kate PM

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Textbooks present a great challenge to the thrifty college student. They’re expensive, but they’re also required for our academic success.

While an “up to 50 percent” buyback policy at the UCLA store seems all right, we sometimes can’t help but feel that our textbooks, which for the most part are still in perfect condition, are worth more than what the store offers for them.

Faced with the mountain of textbooks piling up in the corner of your room and the never-ending line at the textbook store in Ackerman Union, you may have already asked this question: how do I get more money for my textbooks and buy them for less?

Bruinwalk.com is the perfect site to start the search. It’s kind of like a UCLA Craigslist for textbooks (and a place to rate your professors). Just search for a textbook under the “textbooks” tab and you’ll find a lot of student postings. From there, you can contact the seller and arrange to meet somewhere on campus or wherever is convenient for both of you. Likewise, you can also sell your own textbooks on Bruinwalk.com. While you are there, you might as well procrastinate read some professor reviews for next quarter (or post your own).

Similar sites to Bruinwalk.com include Chegg and PostYourBook.com. All these services are free, you only need to sign up for an account.

Many students have also begun to post the books they are selling in various Facebook Groups within UCLA. There’s groups for different majors and every class year. There’s even a group dedicated to textbooks alone. There are usually a lot of posts about all sorts of things, but don’t worry, we (and Facebook) have got you covered. We suggest using the search bar in the upper right corner in each group to find keywords or classes, which should help you filter out the irrelevant posts.

If you prefer to buy new books, there is always Amazon. It’s almost a guarantee that you will save at least a few dollars off even a new textbook. There’s free (yes, free!) two-day (yes, two-day!) shipping for six months if you sign up for Amazon Student using your @ucla.edu email. What’s even better is the free two-day shipping applies for anything, and we mean anything, on Amazon that is eligible for Prime. Online shopping spree, anyone? Just kidding, we’re college students.

As for selling your books on Amazon, you have two options. You can either trade-in your books for Amazon gift cards for future usage or sell your own books on Amazon, perfect for future entrepreneurs.

If the internet’s not your thing (or you just really like book stores), there is always Textbook Plus in Westwood. Sure, it’s a bit of a walk from campus but you’ll find your textbooks (both new and used versions) for a few dollars less. And if you prefer your books unmarked, unhighlighted and with unbent spines, dig around and you are bound to find some used versions that meet all those criteria.

Textbook Plus’ buyback rate is up to 55 percent, 5 percent more than the UCLA store. In the event that you are left with a book that the UCLA store won’t buy back because the professor changed versions, Textbook Plus will sometimes buy back the book. Yeah, the price might be low, but, hey, if you really want to get rid of that book that reminds you of that class you really hated…

What are some other places where you can buy and sell textbooks? Are there any other academic resources you would like us to cover next quarter? Let us know @dbmojo or comment below.

—Kassy Cho

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Happy Pi Day! March 14, today’s date, is an approximation of the value of Pi (3.14), a mathematical constant defined as the ratio of the diameter of a circle to its circumference. Discovered by the mathematician, Archimedes, the constant is represented by the Greek symbol “π”.

Pi day marks the annual celebration to honor this constant. Coincidentally, it is also Albert Einstein’s birthday. The first Pi Day celebration was organized in 1988 at the San Francisco Exploratorium. In 2009, the House of Representatives passed a resolution to support this mathematical holiday.

Rodd Talebi, a fourth-year applied mathematics and astrophysics student and co-president of the UCLA Undergraduate Mathematics Student Association, said he is looking forward to Pi Day because it’s a fantastic day for those who love math since it’s “publicly accepted to be nerdy.”

From what we can remember of high school, 3.14 also always marked the best math class of the year since all we would do was eat pie…

Here are some fun ways to celebrate Pi Day at UCLA:

• Buy a slice of pie in the Court of Sciences from the Undergraduate Math Student Association between 10 a.m. and 3:30 p.m.
• Witness the crowning of the Champion Luskin Pie Baker at 12 p.m. and purchase some pie from the Association of Master of Public Policy Students in the third floor lounge of the Public Affairs Building
• Pie your R.A., or recite Pi in the Courtside Courtyard at 4 p.m. and in the Reiber Terrace Two Meeting Room at 8 p.m.
• Watch Pi-related movies such as Life of Pi or Pi
• Tell math jokes.
• Have a contest with your friends to see who can remember more digits of Pi. Can you beat Chau Lu? He holds the record for memorizing the most digits (67890, to be exact). And this girl can balance 15 books on her head and recite Pi to the 100th digit in under a minute.
• Have a study party for finals (preferably for your math one) and serve pie.

- Chandini Soni, Bruin contributor

—Kate PM

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