15 Ways To Feel Like You’re In College Again

The graduating class of 2012 (which includes me) was constantly intoxicated to the beat of Lady Gaga’s noxious drum, trying to stay relevant by creating every available social media account, listening to mash-ups of Radiohead and Jay-Z while studying for an upper-division post-transcendence eastern medicine course, having sex with our American Apparel socks on, and trying really hard to not think about life after college. But here we are. Probably working, still drinking too much coffee, and maybe waxing nostalgic for a time when we could sleep in till 12 and pull off glitter leggings. College was different for everyone, but the occasional skinny dip into memory lake is pretty much universal.

1. Make blue raspberry Jell-o shots, slurp seven down, and act surprised when you find yourself puking in the bathroom fifteen minutes later.

2. Stay up all night and read an entire book written before the early 1900s. Bonus points if you annotate.

3. Blast “Lovegame” by Lady Gaga in your room while getting reading to go out while simultaneously making your Facebook status, “let’s have some fun / this beat is sick!”

4. Throw a Wes Anderson movie marathon and require everyone who is attending to dress up as their favorite character. You go as Margot Tenenbaum, obviously.

5. Read A Lover’s Discourse at an independent coffee shop. Bring your headphones and your laptop, listen to Bright Eyes, write some free verse poetry.

6. Take a lot of car pictures. And bathroom pictures. And bed pictures. And library pictures. And pictures in front of fences, in parks, and the next time you’re at a house party holding a cup of Bud Light. Take a lot of pictures in general until your digital camera falls into a cocktail or bowl of Easy Mac. Then purchase a disposable and start all over again.

7. Watch Gossip Girl and take a shot whenever someone says “society,” “bitch,” or “queen”.

8. Wear your themed party clothes (gold leotard from American Apparel, cat ears, plaid skirt) to the grocery store in order to buy more chasers and dinner (Annie’s mac ‘n cheese, frozen burritos) for the next day to avoid leaving your dorm hungover.

9. Feel sickeningly ashamed if you’re at home on a Friday night. Stalk people on Facebook who are having a better time than you are. Pretend you’re not sobbing into your pizza.

10. Wear ethnically/culturally offensive Halloween costumes because it will be about three years or so until you realize that you are being ignorant, not cute.

11. Get a job as a barista at a trendy coffee shop or café and save that money you earn to buy clothes from Buffalo Exchange and a one-day pass for Coachella because those actually existed because they made sense.

12. Listen to bands like Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti and Serge Gainsbourg purely because that guy in your creative writing class listened to them and you desperately want to get laid.

13. Go to a frat party and feel like the ugliest girl on the planet. Wear your new Urban Outfitters skirt only to have Natty Light spilled on it.

14. Tweet a witty statement about your dependence on coffee and post a photo of your latte on Tumblr. Beg the rest of your friends to join Twitter and Tumblr so your audience isn’t just Toyota Insurance and three other robots.

15. Simultaneously wish college was over yet had never begun. Drink some vodka and be thankful you don’t need Cactus Cooler to mask that gorgeous burn.