Collegiate Times

College is a time when students slowly realize the responsibilities of living on their own — starting from the moment students move into their resident halls to the moment they find that their rooms are nothing but empty boxes that need to be filled. As schoolwork begins to pile up, so does the amount of clutter in every dorm room, whether it is a leaning tower of pizza boxes or scattered papers lying across a desk. 

Katherine Olaksen’s book “Dorm Room Feng Shui: Find Your Gua > Free Your Chi” is a handy guide for the average college student who wants to change her living habits to improve the chi, or energy, in her life. Olaksen understands what it’s like to live in a constrained collegiate living space, but she was able to transform her dorm room through the art of feng shui and, in the process, improved her life. She collaborated with her aunt, writer Elizabeth MacCrellish, and feng shui expert Margaret Donahue to write this book, which breaks down the art of feng shui into understandable pieces.

“This book is: a. easier to read than Cliff Notes and b. going to make your life all dreamy like a Sunday morning eating Krispy Kreme donuts in bed while getting a foot massage,” Olaksen writes.
There are three basic parts of feng shui: chi, the elements and yin and yang. Chi is energy, both inside and out, that can improve one’s life. The elements are wood, fire, earth, metal and water, which all need to be in balance or in the room. Everything is comprised of yin (darkness, sadness) and yang (light, joy), and the goal of feng shui is to achieve balance between the two.

Olaksen also writes about Bagua. It may sound like the word for bagel in a foreign language and make some start to feel hungry, but it actually is an important aspect of feng shui. It is a way to separate any space into eight different areas that are held together by a ninth area — the center. Each gua comes with its own element, color, shape and body part(s) that play a role in achieving balance in that area. Olaksen provides a simple “Three-Minute Questionnaire” to identify which of the eight areas of your life require the most attention. Each chapter is about a specific area (one through nine), and after totaling their score readers can skip to their weakest link to find what they can do to their room and start their journey to balance.

The author also discusses “gua,” which focuses on relationships. “The primary relationship associated with this gua is your mom,” Olaksen says, which is why it’s a good idea to put a happy picture of you and your mom here. Try also to place more earthy things in this area of the room such as pottery, natural crystals or candles. The dominant color in this area is pink, which will lighten the energy.

Throughout the book, Olaksen sprinkles in pictures, diagrams and charts that are reader-friendly and make it easy for visual learners to comprehend. After flipping through the pages of “Dorm Room Feng Shui,” it may seem like the pictures are meant for elementary school students, but it really does provide a good break from textbooks, and the light tone of the book also makes it an enjoyable read.

The author also emphasizes that you don’t need to dip too far into your savings to improve your chi. No worries because Olaksen offers several charts of “Gua Fixes,” which are all under 99 cents and will have just as much of an effect as any of the other solutions provided. Draw a picture of a beautiful sunset, which represents relaxation and rest — just what one needs after a long day of studying.

There are plenty of before and after scenarios featured in the book that detail the results of the authors’ makeovers of college students’ rooms. She provides an array of examples of different types of room set-ups that will probably be familiar to many readers.

Beds, door, windows and electromagnetic fields also have a huge effect on how well chi will move throughout a room, and Olaksen gives advice on how to change problematic aspects. Don’t have the microwave or the refrigerator pointing directly at you, and place them as far away as possible from the beds or sleeping area. Electromagnetic fields can affect health so Olaksen recommends lowering the electronic frequencies by placing green plants in your room.

The author recommends that her readers follow the principle of karma when re-designing their rooms.

“Never, never use feng shui for negative reasons or to do harm to anyone or anything. What you put out into the world comes back to you.”