As a student who stayed in State College for the summer before senior year, the weekend the rest of campus comes back for Fall Semester definitely marks the beginning of the end for me.

In anticipation of this weekend -- and as I began to fully realize this really is my last year at Penn State -- I started thinking about all of those things I want to do one more time before spring, starting as soon as everyone comes back from the horrible summer jobs and internships endured mostly for their resumé-boosting value.

The ideas that entered my mind first were the little things I have missed this summer due to the fact that my six-girls-two-bedrooms-two-bathrooms apartment has seemed a bit on the empty side since May. I'm sure my roommates have missed similar things as they have been away from Penn State life for a few months, and also because we are all beginning to understand that this year will be the last for all of our Penn State traditions.

Most of these traditions are historic, shared by the entire Penn State community, but they are more memorable to me because they each have an added personal twist shared only by the group of people who have lived with me from East Halls to Burrowes Street, the people I will graduate with this year and then leave behind.

Before everyone is too busy with classes and studying, although I'm not sure when we'll actually hit that point during senior year, I know at least one more Mount Nittany hike will be in order.

Maybe this time won't be quite as pathetic as the last, when we were so hungry on the way back down that we called Domino's from a cell phone so our pizza would be ready to pick up on the way home. It kind of counteracted the whole exercise factor, but hey, we still got a great view.

Then the madness of football season will begin, with eight home games this year providing more opportunities than ever for tailgating and, hopefully, post-victory celebrations.

With more 21-year-olds in the group this season, we might actually be able to tailgate the right way. We've done it in the cold. We've done it in the rain. We've never done it with beer.

September will call for the fifth of six bar tours in my apartment, affectionately referred to as the Estrogen Palace, and we've been on enough now that the generic bar tour, a tradition in itself, has developed some traditions of its own.

Whoever had the last bar tour buys the first drink for the newest legal bar-goer. Someone keeps a running list of the bars visited and drinks consumed in order to watch the bar tour recipient's signature after each stop become increasingly, well, interesting.

The pig statue outside the Tavern absolutely must be kissed by the bar tourist, keeping in mind that the later in the night this item is checked off the list, the more fun the people at Wal-Mart's one-hour photo lab will have looking at the pictures the next day.

The night will no doubt end with a trip to the Diner, where hopefully this time, the bar tour honoree will not get kicked out for being overly friendly to people at other tables. Who does that?

November, while throwing one more bar tour our way, will also mean our last Homecoming as undergrads. The parade will be a must, even though it looks the same every year, and maybe, just maybe this will be the year that I actually get a piece of candy tossed directly into my hand from a float instead of watching it fall untouched into a bush or trying to dodge all the little kids who, for some reason, think it's for them. I just want a Tootsie Roll. Is that too much to ask?

During finals week, I'll see if I can break my record of checking out 22 books from the library at one time, simply because I couldn't stand to be in the stacks anymore. I swear the longer I'm there, the smaller those stairwells between levels become.

Before we all depart for winter break, we'll do our annual secret gift exchange, an attempt to save money, which usually results in everyone already knowing who bought what for who by the time gifts are actually exchanged. The secret factor never goes too far into the process, but I don't think anyone has ever been disappointed by a gift.

In February, another birthday tradition in which I traumatically embarrass one of my roommates, will be carried out once again.

Years past have involved mass "Happy Birthday" singing in the dining commons, a singing Valentine performing "You've Lost That Loving Feeling" during an O-Chem class in the Forum and a special performance last year by a certain stripper. I'm already trying to think of ways to top that one that don't involve anyone getting naked. Any suggestions?

Thon weekend will be one equivalent to little sleep but so much energy. I always manage to take an entire roll of film, and there's just something about that grand total announcement that seems just as exciting every year as it did the first time I experienced Thon.

Spring break. Whew. Plans are in the works for a whopping senior trip to more than top our budget vacations of the past, including a New York City weekend, Nashville and Niagara Falls.

Following tradition, I'm sure there will be glitches in our idealistically flawless planning. Hopefully, we won't have to battle any snowstorms this year, and it would be nice not to sit on the side of an interstate in the middle of West Virginia, eating giant Froot Loops and waiting for AAA to bring us enough gas to make it to the next exit.

Spring finals week won't be complete without the Mifflin Streak. There's nothing like a little nakedness to break up the monotony of staring at a textbook, and if you actually live in Mifflin Hall, as I did my sophomore year, you can watch the chaos right from your window without getting in trouble with the cops.

However, if you're outside the building or even watching from the study lounge, you might not be as lucky. Trust me.

I'm not sure how long I, or anyone else for that matter, will stick around in the summer before packing up and moving on to bigger and better things. Well, if not bigger and better, at least more adult.

Maybe we'll all be in town for one more Arts Fest, maybe not.

Before the group splits up, however, I know we'll need to engage in one Penn State tradition that everyone on this campus has taken part in countless times. I definitely want one last group picture at the Nittany Lion Shrine.

This could possibly be the most generic tradition of them all, but it will capture, better than anything else, my Penn State experience and help me remember all of the smaller traditions that made my four years at this university my own.