Autumn has finally arrived. And with the swirling red and orange leaves now blowing along the sidewalks come new obligations.

You have to remember your coat as you run out to that early morning class (read 8 a.m. for freshmen/9:30 a.m. for sophomores/11 a.m. for juniors/12:30 p.m. for seniors). There’s the switch from air conditioning to heat. And if you’re the roommate of a Boston Red Sox fan you have to make sure to remove all instruments of self-destruction from the premises. My own roommates have had me in a straightjacket since last Monday night and promise to release me after the World Series. Until them, I’ll jusst be tayping the columm weitgh nmy tiowes. (Joke.)

Red Sox fans aren’t the only ones suffering this season. You can’t help but notice the changes as the days get shorter and the students from Southern California, Florida and other southerly climes start to get anxious because of the lack of sunlight. Anyone who rooms with one of those people might want to look into getting a straightjacket for them. Trust me, you get used to carrying stuff in your mouth. Going to the bathroom is a little tricky, but, hey, when you’re in a straightjacket people expect you to smell like poo.

Football is a big part of autumn. To cheer up your roommate you could go catch a Washington Redskins’ game. It’s a real opportunity to get involved with the city. Yep the good old Washington Redskins play right over in.Maryland, over at RFK.err.Jack Kent Cooke.no wait.what day is it? Oh yeah, Monday, Redskins’ Stadium. Well whatever it’s called, at least it’s Metro accessible.with a connecting shuttle bus. You can probably get some tickets from a little man for the small price of your first-born child.

Another great aspect of this season is the multitude of holidays that equal less class time and more sitting-around-on-your-butt time. We’ve already sat on our butts for Columbus Day. Next month we get to sit on our butts for Veterans’ Day and Thanksgiving, which has bonus sit-on-your-butt and eat-turkey time. Ah sweet, sweet tryptophane.

Halloween doesn’t equal extra sitting-on-your-butt time but there is a lot of sugar involved. Hey that’s next week! I certainly can’t wait to be sitting around a couple of hours before the parties trying to figure out what kind of costume I can make with my last three pieces of clean laundry.

Another great part of this time of year is the arrival of the Schedule of Classes for next semester. Nothing gets your mind off of that midterm you bombed like picking classes that sound interesting now but that you won’t actually have to do any work for now. Well, I guess that if you are an upperclassman you’ll get to pick classes that sound interesting.

Freshmen should prepare for the worst: AMST 145, Folk Arts in America; EMSE 191, Problems in Operation Research; GEOL 101, Water Interactions with Earth, and the like. The fact that these are all upper-level courses that freshmen probably can’t get into we’ll disregard for the purposes of humor. The point is: You’re up the creek without a paddle and don’t look to the rest of us for help because we’ve been there before. It amuses us to watch someone else get crushed under the wheels of The George Washington University Touch-tone Registration System (or the Internet registration system this year).

There’s lots to do this autumn. Take a date and your straightjacketed roommate for a walk down around the Mall. Stock up on those little individual-sized candies on sale at CVS so that at your Christmas Break dentist appointment there’ll be plenty of cavities to drill. Mock the freshmen when they ask you which professor to take PSC 101 with, as if they’re going to have a choice.

But no matter what you do this autumn, it will be over before you know it, so go out there and enjoy it.