It happened just this past week: While getting ready for class, I looked out the window and, spotting a clear sky, threw on a light jacket and left my room. Imagine my surprise when I opened the doors to Village C East and was nearly knocked over by a huge and incredibly rude gust of wind on the patio. I hadn’t noticed it before, but autumn was officially here and it was not going anywhere.

Nothing brings about overly indulgent eating like the stress of midterms. I have friends who are able to forgo eating altogether when exams start to pile up, but I never understood the notion of depriving myself further when I am already dealing with a boatload of work and mounting panic.

Question: What’s one of the most popular ways Georgetown students procrastinate on campus?

Answer: Television.

As mentioned in an earlier issue, one of my primary goals for the Out to Lunch column this semester is to assume a more active role in the kitchen.

What with all the moving in, unpacking, buying books and getting readjusted to early mornings (yours truly has alternating 8:00 a.m. and 8:50 a.m. classes this semester), I must admit that food has not been the first thing on my mind lately. Shocking, I know. In fact, when I sat down to write this week’s column, I was stumped.

On the last day of my internship this summer, my supervisor presented me with a good-bye gift. We had become very close over the past three months, and a lot of our free time at work was spent e-mailing recipes back and forth from our cubicles — we were both clearly food-obsessed.

W hen I was a junior in French class, our teacher, Madame Reusch (which actually sounded more German to me than le francais), introduced us to Monsieur Marcel Proust, the mustached French author who wrote À la recherche du temps perdu or In Search of Lost Time.

When we were young, our parents would always tell us not to play with our food. Yet, some of my earliest and fondest food memories feature myself as a toddler, happily constructing what I saw as works of art: making ants on a log snacks (remember the celery, peanut butter and raisins?) or messy worm cups (crushed Oreos resembling dirt and those sour Trolli critters) at pre-school.

Like every other three-day weekend, this past one would have been an ideal time for me to catch up on a huge load of homework and even prepare for some upcoming midterms.

Chinese New Year has finally arrived, yet for all the weekend celebration in Chinatown, I was feeling at a loss a couple days ago. Georgetown’s offerings of true Chinese cuisine are disappointingly sparse, and the MSG-ridden takeout from Kitchen No. 1 can hardly be called authentic.