Two thousand years ago, the Aztecs crafted what is believed to be the world’s first hot chocolate beverage. 200 years ago, Dutch scientist Coenraad Johannes van Houten invented the first cocoa powder machine. Two months ago, Yale Dining took a flamethrower to that legacy.

I wish that I could rationalize why every automated, three-nozzle hot chocolate/cappuccino machine at Yale disappeared over the summer of 2016. Truthfully, I didn’t even notice that they were gone until my hands began to chap in the brisk autumn wind—that is, until I needed them most. Quickly replaced by polyethylene containers of knock-off Swiss Miss powder, the machines vanished without a trace. Luckily, however, I am an amateur detective who watched a lot of Columbo reruns in my youth, so it only took a speedy 55 minutes of sleuthing on Google Images and an additional 20 minutes of combing through Wilbur Curtis Specialty Dispensers maintenance manuals to identify the lost machine as a 2009 model of the Wilbur Curtis Cafe Primo Cappuccino 3 Station Dispenser.

Finding the brand model, though, did not lead me to the answer to my question: why take away Primo Cappuccinos? A friend tried to console me by suggesting that Yale Dining removed the dispensers to encourage healthy eating habits. I responded by filling my mug with another two scoops of imitation Swiss Miss and a pile of marshmallows that could feed a family of four squirrels through a harsh winter.

It is at this juncture that I turn to the prophetic words of Tom Hanks’s mustachioed conductor in The Polar Express:

Here, we’ve only got one rule:

Never ever let it cool!

Keep it cookin in the pot,

You’ve got-

Hot choc-o-lat!

We let the hot choc-o-lat cool, folks. The snow fell before the last of the leaves, and winter is on its way. Can we really face it with self-mixed cocoa powder? If the tongue burn I incurred from sipping my hot choc too eagerly this morning is any omen, the outlook’s not great.

Credit: Junie B. Jones is a Party Animal

Junie B. might be working hard in kindergarten, but that doesn’t mean that she can’t play even harder. It’s no surprise that a kindergartner needs to cut loose. Frequently subjected to interminable Reading Rainbow marathons and instructed to stack ill-shaped blocks that will inevitably fall down—serving as a metaphor for the children’s fragile psyches—any kid would be full of rage towards the LeVar Burton educational complex.

So maybe Junie B.’s had enough. Maybe she just needs to go to Lucille’s nana’s house for that sleepover. And maybe, just maybe, Junie B. huffs some craft glue from the Creativity Corner, steals her mom’s wallet, and goes on a strung out binge through town before waking up in Lucille’s nana’s basement, covered in Oreo crumbs, crayon shavings, and just a little bit of cocaine. That’s just Junie B. She is a party animal.

D: Junie B. Jones Smells Something Fishy

Conspiracies: we all believe them, but only the brave among us will stand on street corners and hand out fliers explaining the government’s role in the creation of DIY Network’s Vanilla Ice Goes Amish. This important novel, reminiscent of Sue Hendra’s Barry the Fish with Fingers in both its complexity of prose and the unapologetic spotlight it places on fish, is a classic example of Junie B. keeping her eyes wide open. Unfortunately, the consequences are overwhelming paranoia and estrangement from her friends and family—standard themes of the Junie B. series. I identify with J.B. here because I, too, am the victim of several conspiracies. Are we really expected to believe that we switch from velcro shoes to laces at a certain age because it makes more sense? Wake up, sheeple. If staying alert means never trusting anyone again, sign me up. I’ve only ever trusted Junie anyways.

Fail: Junie B. Jones and the Yucky Blucky Fruitcake

As a lifelong fan of both fruit and cake, I can’t help but feel that Junie B. has made a terrible misstep here. The fruitcake is not boastful. The fruitcake is not sexy. But the noble fruitcake is predicated on the simple, American ideal that we will not eat fruit unless it is added to a pastry, booze or, in the fruitcake’s case, both. It’s why Wildilicious Frosted Wild! Berry Pop-Tart has captivated the nation since its introduction in 2002, and why there are literally hundreds of YouTube videos that demonstrate how to give a watermelon a makeover by infusing it with the nuanced flavors of cheap vodka. If you add enough whiskey to a fruitcake, it can have a centuries-long shelf life. And to the future people who will feast upon the many fruitcakes I will bury in my yard: no, it is not “yucky blucky.” It’s simply misunderstood.

I spent most of summer 2012 playing the Lumineers’ simple, string-driven melodies on repeat and wishing that I could pull off suspenders and a beard. But in the four years since the folksy trio became “that band that sings ‘Ho Hey,’” I’ve slowly forgotten about them. Inevitably, Mumford & Sons’ Babel co-opted my “~*~FoLk MuSiC for Mountain hikes and Views~*~” iTunes playlist that following September, and most of the Lumineers’ self-titled album would eventually be relegated to “{…FoLk MuSiC for sleep and study…}.” But within the first few bars of “Ophelia,” the lead single off of the Lumineers’ second record, I remembered why the band was once my first and only choice of soundtrack for angst and awed introspection in nature.

Opening with dramatic piano chords and lyrics like “And I can’t feel no remorse / and you don’t feel nothing back,” “Ophelia”’s mood is decidedly somber for the four lines or so. Just when the single seems as though it might become another serious, folksy ode to love lost, a cheerful piano melody cuts in, and slowly the track assumes the same hand-clapping, catchy character that made The Lumineers’ debut so successful in 2012. In fact, most of the other tracks on the record include a similarly sweet and catchy hook.

What separates Cleopatra from its predecessor—and what may make it less popular—is that the build up to these memorable choruses is often distinctly gradual, and few of the hooks are repeated more than once. “Patience,” an unhurried instrumental track and Cleopatra’s conclusion, embodies this strategy. If listeners expect each song to have a reiterated chorus that’s as easy to shout at your friends as “Ho Hey,” they’ll be disappointed. Often, it’s only after a couple of minutes of steadily increasing layers of instruments that lead singer Wesley Shultz rises to anything more than a conversational tone, and most of the songs end shortly after that—every song on the record is less than four minutes long.

The notable exception to this trend is “Cleopatra,” the album’s title single, which was released a few weeks after “Ophelia.” Its verses are lyrically interesting and easy to sing, its recurring chorus is backed by rhythmic strumming, and I’ll be surprised if it doesn’t soon surpass “Ophelia” as the album’s most played song on Spotify. The bass behind “Sleep on the Floor,” the album’s opening song, has a similarly captivating effect when paired with Shultz’s escalating vocals, and, each one of the lyrics on “Gun Song” sounds so punctuated and deliberate that it’s hard not to get drawn in.

It’s on some of the other tracks, though, where it seems that The Lumineers are intentionally holding something back, at least until they finally crescendo into a chorus that won’t be revisited. The issue might simply be that their audience has been yearning for the same easy, carousing melodies like the ones off their first album. I’m guilty of this too—I’ve been alternating between “Cleopatra” and “Gun Song” for weeks, but I’m trying to exercise some of the patience that Cleopatra calls for. With each listen, this patience is rewarded not only by each song’s finale, but by the thoughtful development that takes you there.

Credit: Beets

Beets are everywhere during the fall. Roasted, sauteed, frittered…even flambéed. So why does it sometimes feel like these ruby-hued treasures are invisible to everyone but me? During the 2014–2015 academic year, Yale Dining Services served beets approximately every three weeks, usually on Thursdays. On Oct. 9, 2015, I received a jar of pickled beet balls as a belated birthday present from my mother. Incidentally, October 9, 2015 also marked the first time I’d ever felt that Mom really “got me.”

Daikon, parsnips, rutabaga—these are the Ugg-wearing basics of the taproot family. Beets have always been realer than the rest, since long before Dwight Kurt Schrute III helped spark the brief surge in beet-visibility that took the seasonal salad scene by storm in the mid-2000s. Assyrian texts place beets in the hanging gardens of Babylon. Ancient Romans used beets as aphrodisiacs, because they liked to get weird and they weren’t about to skimp on carotenoid intake. So as we approach peak beet harvest in the coming weeks, I implore the uninitiated to take a chance. Try a beet. Maybe your pee will be red, maybe it won’t—you’ll have to solve that mystery yourself, detective.

D: The obliquity of Earth’s axis

Earth’s a rad planet with a lot to offer: a nitrogen-rich atmosphere, over 1,200 species of bats, and Sugar Ray’s final and most under-appreciated album, Music for Cougars. But did you know that Earth’s also been rocking a tilted axis for a few billion years? Unsatisfied with living life perpendicular to its elliptical orbit (lol @ Mercury), Earth is 23.439281° off of vertical. Ipso facto: seasons. And I’m not about to protest the annual weather cycle. In a temperate climate like New England’s, jorts, sweater vests, and Arctic-grade down jumpsuits can all have a season in which to shine. Crisp autumn mornings? A-okay by me. Foliage? A joy! But let’s not forget what’s really causing the mercury in your old-school, chemically-hazardous thermometer to start dropping. Earth’s tilt, which initially seemed so trendy and chill, actually steals a few minutes of the north hemisphere’s daylight every day after the Summer Solstice — decidedly UNCHILL. By the time December rolls around, New Haven’s street lamps will flicker on before dinner even opens, and the solar zenith will be lower than your expectations for finals period. Comfort yourself with autumnal social media posts while you still can.

Fail: The Cloud

It is everywhere, it is nowhere, and, somehow at the same time, it is neither. It is how cousin Jared always insists on sharing the family’s pictures from Thanksgiving. It is why Aunt Barbara will be unable to find and open those family pictures. It is “The Cloud.”

At approximately 2:55 pm EDT last Friday, Google Drive crashed, forming a small hole in The Cloud for a few tormenting hours. Across the nation, people angrily shook their fists at The Cloud like wronged 1940’s actors. But what even is this Cloud that they’re gesticulating towards? I know I speak for all of America when I say it’s high time we got some answers. Perhaps it’s a nimbostratus Cloud, raining down on us when it becomes too weighed down by Cold War study guides and mistakenly released social security numbers. Maybe it’s more of a low-lying fog. There’s The Cloud, clouded judgment, “Strange Clouds,” Cloud Atlas—all dangers to society, and not one Silver Linings Playbook to be found among them. Personally, I haven’t trusted clouds since the day that my sixth grade earth science class made them with matches and Sprite bottles, and I’m not about to start.

You’re the first to arrive at section. Maybe this is typical of you; maybe you are aghast at your own promptness. In any case, no peers rise and greet you with a fraternal handshake — there is only an oaken table and someone’s misplaced Nalgene and a bunch of little wooden chairs with the carved seats that look like negatives of butt cheeks.

But do not, DO NOT, simply take a butt-cheeked seat and pull out your phone. It’s been done. What’s more, we both know that Smug Rebecca will see right through your lonely insecurity the moment that she walks through the door. Instead, seize this opportunity to outdo your tardier, more delinquent classmates before they’ve even uttered th­eir first archaic reference.

Some of the most productive uses of your time:

-Appropriate the blackboard as your artistic canvas and sketch a rough chalk portrait of each your classmates and TA — no need to be lonely while you’re alone!

-Order just one slice of pizza, to be delivered to your seat in the midst of class. This is a power move.

-Throw mediocre paper airplanes out the window at birds, to give our avian friends an ego boost about their comparatively magnificent powers of flight.

-Call your mom. Now put it on speaker. Keep her involved in the major discussion points for the entirety of class.

-Research what an “Eli Buck” might be and how I can get one.

-Make place cards for your classmates, seating them in order of how likely they would be to clear their throat the first time that you try to speak up.

-Lock yourself in, put on the sickest Baby Mozart Lullabies track that you know, and snooze like a hero.

After graduating high school in 2014, Alessia Cara took a gap year during which she became Youtube-famous, signed with Def Jam Records, and released a single that became the eighth-most-streamed song in Canada and a top-ten song on the U.S. R&B charts. If that wasn’t enough to put whatever “totally eye-opening” experiences we had before college to shame, she’s just released her first EP, Four Pink Walls.

Fans of “Here,” Cara’s viral summer jam, might be surprised by the EP’s more commercial sound. “Here” makes use of a heavy bassline and a somewhat limited vocal range, suiting the lyrics that resonate with any introverts not feeling the scene at a party. By contrast, Four Pink Walls’ peppier melodies showcase Cara’s truly impressive vocal abilities in songs about young love and impatience to grow up, themes that are more expected on a young artist’s breakout attempt.

But though her subject material may be a bit less hip and her melodies a little more pop than R&B, Cara restrains her choruses before they veer toward a big-budget, formulaic sound. The catchy hook on “Seventeen” makes it the track most likely to blow up on a Spotify playlist near you, but the laid-back percussion-and-synth sequence that follows is more unexpected. Drawing on multiple genres, the EP’s other four songs include the doo-wop-influenced “Outlaws” and a smooth, jazzy title track, as well as her previously released R&B single.

Alessia Cara has been compared to Lorde, Amy Winehouse, and some of her Def Jam contemporaries by big names like Rolling Stone and The New York Times. With the release of her full album later this year, Cara might start to piece together a more succinct identity, but she’s in no rush to establish herself as a brand—still just 19, Alessia Cara writes with a fresh voice that doesn’t need to grow up just yet.

—Lea Rice

Camp Yale is almost here! Friendship bracelets, campfire songs, the ever-enigmatic “vegan shepherds pie”—all of your favorite camp memories are about to come flooding back. When packing, it’s essential to Be Prepared, as any Boy Scout worth his astronomy badge could tell you. The following packing list is just the basics, so do not worry if you feel that you need to add a few things. I’m sure your new suitemates will love your ceramic toad collection.

Compass: Useful when venturing into the stacks. GPS signal cannot permeate the many layers of books and dust, and you will almost definitely lose your way once you enter.

Trail mix: Sustenance for your first walk to Science Hill. Be sure to ration your supplies— if you can still smell the Commons stir fry, you have hardly even begun.

Headlamp: Should you find yourself in the basement of a fraternity, this will help illuminate both the clean floor and all of your new classmates’ smiling faces!

Rain poncho: Necessary for weathering the deluge of tears from your suitemate that left a significant other at home.

Emergency mylar space blanket: Though not immediately essential in the month of August, a godsend after your first 3 a.m.fire alarm in February.

Whistle: Keep this on a string around your neck at the Activity Bazaar, to be blown only if you are trapped in the a capella section or some other, similarly dire state of danger.

Swiss Army knife: To whittle a small flute with which to lead the squirrels of Old Campus, cementing your position as Yale’s next great Pied Piper.

Binoculars: A necessity for spotting your new friends as they walk across campus. Once the targets have been acquired, try sprinting towards them and saying their names at varying volumes—I’ve yet to confirm that this works, but it feels like the only correct move.

Throat-Coat Tea, a kettle, and a mug: A capella rush, duh.

Comprehensive First Aid Kit: For the potential sprained ankle and inevitable bruised ego.

Keep reading here!

CREDIT: Monocles

Throw out your Acuvue Oasys and donate your Ray-Bans to a nearsighted squirrel— modern eyewear is irrelevant. Monocles make things happen.

D: Chapstick

FAIL: Groundhog Day

I think I’m a pretty spirited person. You probably are too. But with all that Saturday mornings have to offer—sleep, regret, challah French toast, the exhilarating, high stakes game of trying to pet squirrels on Old Campus—let’s be honest, neither of us has made it to many football games this season. It might be too late to be a loyal fan, but there’s still time to convince people that this weekend isn’t your first time in the stands.

When you show up to the tailgate repping #teambulldog—from your Yale beanie to the individually stenciled Y’s on each of your toenails—don’t forget to wear a smile as well. You live for football. Tackles, punts, head trauma, white spandex pants—as far as everyone else needs to know, these are the things that get you out of bed in the morning. Remember how you felt when you achieved a perfect ratio of Reese’s Puffs to Cinnamon Toast Crunch at brunch a few Saturdays ago? This weekend, aim for that blend of fervent pride and zeal when someone asks you if you like football. No, you don’t like football. You freakin’ love it.

If you’ve been more of a tailgate enthusiast than sports buff this season, you’ll need some talking points for the first time you actually make it to kick off. To really sell your fictional attendance at all of this year’s games, it’ll help if you know something intensely personal about each of the athletes. Dig deep and be specific. To your friends’ admiration, you’ll divulge which tight end has been to seven Ashlee Simpson concerts and how that running back is transitioning to a new brand of shampoo. Exactly where does the defensive line stand on the divisive issue of pastels: reserved for spring, or a year-round color palette?

Buzzwords: blitz, holding, flea flicker, red zone, pigskin, gridiron. Use all of these (bonus points if they’re all in one sentence), peppered with intermittent referee haranguing. Also, wave knowingly at the coaches whenever they turn in your general direction. They don’t know you, but they don’t need to. To everyone else, you are best friends. To take it a bold step further, pretend that you were actually on the team yourself for some time, and adopt a limp from “an old gridiron injury.” So sporty.

If disaster strikes and you’re asked to differentiate between an offside and false start call or to name a single player on the team (??), don’t panic. Find an alternative topic; there’s no reason that line of identically dressed young men on a field can’t become a game of Who Wore It Better.

So by the end of the game, no matter which team prevails, while your friends will leave the stadium racked with guilt for their comparably poor attendance this fall, you’ll walk away the day’s real winner.