Leaves are changing into beautiful shades of red, orange and yellow. There is a slight chill in the air. Pumpkin patches are beginning to open up. Eastern students are already putting up autumn-themed decorations. Fall is in the air, and I absolutely love it.

Fall is the season I most look forward to and thrive in most every year. The other seasons simply cannot compete because they do not compare.

A classic Illinois summer is either hot and humid or rainy and humid. I spend the whole time holed up in my room until the weather cools down a bit because sweating the millisecond I step outside is not fun at all.

Winter is painfully cold…then I slip on some ice on my way to class, and my body is in pain and cold. Plus, wintertime means wearing as many layers of clothes as possible so I don’t freeze to death, which is both annoying and unfashionable.

Spring, quite frankly, is the ugliest of all the seasons. Maybe if spring came how it did at the end of “Frozen,” I would like it more. Instead it is painfully slow, so spring means months of leafless trees and streets covered in gray slush.

Fall has a little bit of something for everybody, making it the superior season.

The weather is perfect. It is both warm enough that I do not need to bundle up too much and chilly enough that I can safely leave the house without sweating buckets. Fall weather also opens me up to unlimited wardrobe potential. I can wear both summer and winter clothes as long as I throw on a light sweater or jacket.

Fall activities are the most fun. Pumpkin patches, haunted houses, carving jack-o-lanterns, horror movie nights, Halloween parties…there’s something for everybody. Yes, in this post-Covid world, it would be tough to do some of these activities, but you can always get a couple of friends together to do some of them safely at home.

Fall also brings some of the best holidays: Halloween and Thanksgiving. Halloween allows you to dress as whoever or whatever you want for the night. Thanksgiving, or the increasingly popular Friendsgiving, lets you gather all your loved ones to eat crazy amounts of food. Both are super fun!

Though I am not looking forward to everything that comes with fall (cough cough, midterms), I am excited for everything else this fall season will bring.

Kyara Morales-Rodriguez is a junior English major. She can be reached at 581-2812 or [email protected].