1. Furiously Drink Your Last Iced Coffees
Right now, something is a little jenky with the weather, and it’s been more summer out than fall. ENJOY THIS MADNESS PEOPLE. Before you switch over to the weakness of the burn-your-mouth pumpkin spice whatever, or the even more expensive chocolate-y drinks that are soon to follow, remember to enjoy your last few relatively cheap and amazingly refreshing iced coffees. Just plain and simple iced coffee. Because before you know it, it’s going to be so cold that everything will be iced, except your coffee.
PS- It’s the perfect temperature for iced coffee right now also because it’s too cold for the ice to melt but too warm to not want it iced.
2. Wear Rain boots with Running Shorts to Class
The fall is the perfect time for this look, and most definitely the only time where you can even pretend it’s acceptable. For starters, the weather is wet enough now that if you wear flip-flops, you’ll kick gunk all over the back of your legs. But you have to show off your legs, because your summer tan isn’t quite gone yet. However, it’s not so wet that you can assume the darth-vader- esque rain look of black hunter boots, black lulus, and a giant black north face raincoat. So what do you do? Well obviously, balance out your rain boots with some running shorts. You can prevent the gunkification of your legs and give your self a reason to wear a Julia Roberts pretty-woman type look with tall boots and lots of leg – without looking like a (total) hooker.
3. Watch people navigate the stone steps of Harvard on Wet Leaves.
This is fun. More fun than you think it is. More fun than you’re morally willing to admit. But seriously, this might be the low-key best part of fall. As beautiful as those leaves are, they are also treacherous. So next time you need a nap, camp out scenically against a tree in the tercentennial theatre and watch people in slippery boots slide their ways down the Widener steps. It’s really really fun to watch people fall.
4. Get Shwasted on hard cider
In fall, the true purpose of Fireball (alcohol that tastes like a Yankee candle . . .?) is revealed: creating delicious mixed drinks that remind you of apple pie. There is no other season in which you can get drunk so tastefully (or tastily), so please embrace the sugary, warm beverages fall brings and drink a lot of them. Thanks to fall, and thanks to gallons and gallons of yummy cider, we can have our pie and drink it too.
5. Wear really big sweaters so you don’t have to wear a bra
As the weather cools down, there is nothing better than going to class in a big, fuzzy, warm sweater. What makes it even better is that that sweater is so big fuzzy and warm that it’s totally shapeless and you don’t have to wear a bra. Cue sitting in class, balled up in knit wonderfulness and secretly free-boobing so hard.
6. Not shave your legs and be a werewolf for Halloween
I’ve been working at this costume for a while, and even though I’m putting it on this list, I’ll be really mad if you steal my idea. The truth is, during the rest of the year, I don’t shave my legs as often as I should. And when I walk to class with my leg hair poking through my leggings, I feel bad about it. But because it’s fall, I will feel bad no more. All of this laziness is for my costume. I’m so excited.
7. Overindulge on bite-sized candies for the benefit of humanity.
Every year when Halloween approaches, CVS puts out those big bags of bite-sized deliciousness. When I buy them and then eat them all in a day, I always wonder how old the candy really is. Like, how long was that candy in a bag for before I bought it? I suspect that once upon a time, years ago, someone just made a whole bunch of bite-sized candy and stores have been selling it ever since. This is potentially dangerous; people could buy that candy and something terrible could happen from its oldness. To prevent an onslaught of terrible things, it is important to eat as much Halloween candy as possible to keep it from getting older. For the good of the world, of course.
8. Add to your blubber reserves in order to prepare for winter hibernation.
As they say in Winterfell, winter is coming. And winter is cold. Do yourself a favor and pack on the blubber now, in order to protect your fragile self from the frigid cold that descends on campus. Fall is short, but it’s the only time left to fatten up (for warmth’s sake) before it’s too late. With that layer of fleshy protection, you’ll have a little extra insulation to fight the cold when winter hits. Also you’ll be jiggleier for primal scream, which is fun for the tourists.
9. Throwback to Ponyboy because you never got over reading the Outsiders in eight grade.
Nothing gold can stay, not even the leaves or the pumpkins (orangey-gold) or the beautiful color the fall sun is in the sky. We miss you Ponyboy.