I've been out of school for 8 years now, crazy. But I still find myself feeling a little nostalgic around this time every year as my social media feeds are taken over with nervous smiles and new outfits in first day of school photos.
To distract myself from the fleeting warm weather and I allow myself to tap into my nostalgia and indulge in two of my favorite back to school pastimes.
The first, back to school shopping. Because going into fall is infinitely more fun if you're looking forward to the cold weather so you can have an excuse to wear a new sweater :).
The second back to school pastime I discovered I really missed, LEARNING! The fall after I graduated from UW, part of me was thrilled to be done, but as the fall went on, I realized this was the first time in my life where I felt like I wasn't learning. So I went to the bookstore and splurged on books I was interested in reading and have continued to do so every year.
In the past I've picked authors and tried to read all of their works (Flannery O'Connor, F. Scott Fitzgerald, JD Sallinger).
Because I do love literature & The Gilmore Girls, I've gotten some inspiration from this list of all the books Rory is seen reading on the show, although I doubt I'll ever tackle all of them, that's one long list!
Another year, I wasn't really into reading so instead I spent the fall watching a wide variety of TED talks and documentaries on Netflix (America: The Story of Us, Food, Inc. and Helvetica were some favorites). The bonus of this, I could usually watch and get work done at the same time :).
This year, I'm focusing on India, as it's an area of the world I don't know much about and it looks like Construction for Change and the 30/30 Project might have projects in India in the next couple of years. So my fun reading is actually fairly educational this time around and thankfully it has a purpose. I'm planning on tackling Gandhi, An Autobiography
and Midnight's Children. 
Image via Famous People Reading on Pinterest
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