Yes, I know. My plan to post everyday in November has already fallen short. Here it is, November 2nd, and I didn’t post yesterday, did I? Nope. Ahh well.
I wanted to post a bit about Halloween before it got too far away from Halloween.
First of all I was amused when my office mates mentioned how keen they were on the idea of decorating our office for Halloween. On the Tuesday before, we went out to Carrefour and got a bunch of decorations, a few costume pieces and even a pumpkin. I forget if it was Wednesday or Thursday during lunch that we decorated.
It was a mad and fun dash of stickers, balloons and spider webs. (I did most of the spider webs…I love doing the spider webs. Did you notice the spider webs?)
Most of the work I had been doing recently with my 11th graders was a bit dull, so I thought they deserved a bit something more fun. Something to show them that writing in English can be enjoyable. I also felt like being a little dramatic. When the students came into class I turned off all the lights. I had prepared ahead of time by drawing the curtains and blocking out as much sunshine as I could so the room would be as dark as possible. Then I turned a flashlight on my face and asked what holiday was coming up.
I started class with a spooky story. I had looked for a few online and decided to do a slight variation of one about a murderous doll. I looked a long time for something good and scary (I honestly had trouble sleeping in my lonely apartment after that night of research) and that would be easy enough to understand and still be creepy. Here is the basic story I told (slight variations were made in each telling):
“Once there was a girl named Sarah. Her mother gave Sarah a little doll, but she didn’t like it very much. She thought it was creepy. This doll had long brown hair and big brown eyes.
One night, Sarah woke up around midnight because she thought she heard a strange sound. This sound was a very quiet voice that was saying (said in a creepily quiet singsong voice): ‘Little doll, little doll, in the kitchen. Little doll, little doll, on the stairs. Little doll, little doll, in your sister’s room. And now she’s dead!’
Sarah woke up the next morning and her sister was gone. She told her parents about the little doll, but they didn’t believe her. They called the police and looked all day, but Sarah’s sister couldn’t be found. Sarah was very scared when she went to bed that night. Around midnight she heard the voice again: ‘Little doll, little doll, in the kitchen. Little doll, little doll, on the stairs. Little doll, little doll, in your parent’s room. And now they’re dead!’
Sarah woke up and found her parents gone as well. She was all alone. She didn’t know what to do. She knew no one would believe. She stayed in the house all day, too scared to even move. That night she couldn’t sleep. She just stayed in her room and waited. At midnight she heard the voice for the last time: ‘Little doll, little doll, in the kitchen. Little doll, little doll, on the stairs. Little doll, little doll, in your room now. AND YOU’RE NEXT!’”
Every time I told the story I said each “little doll” part quieter so they had to strain to listen and then abruptly changed to a louder, rougher, demonic voice for the “AND YOU’RE NEXT!” I think that plus the repetition, the suspense and the dark room made for a decently scary story. I got a lot of them to jump and a few of them to scream, which made me very happy. J
I then passed out paper, pens and flashlights and told them to write their own scary stories. I think writing their stories in the dark using flashlights added a lot of fun and spookiness to the class. A few of them got really creative and added sound effects or tried to tie their stories into the school to make them creepier. They were a few that weirder me out. One that really stuck with me was a story about a young girl whose shoulder’s kept hurting but all her doctor’s said she was fine. When a psychic suggested her parents take a photo of the girl to look for ghosts, they saw the ghost of a man who had been hung in their house. His feet were resting on the girl’s shoulders. *shudder*
On Friday a few people in the office dressed up. I didn’t want to wear my Athena costume to work, but I had my jester hat and shirt from last year’s Halloween so I just wore them.
From left to right here is Jane (the head of my department), Lotus, June, XuPing/Shopping, and me...the freakin' giant.
On Saturday I went on the LGBT Annual Pub Crawl. I went last year and had a TON of fun. This year wasn’t as good as last, and it was probably due to a lot of factors. One of the biggest was that I didn’t have Ron to hang out with this year like I did last year. Also, there were a ton more people than there was last year but the bars are still just as small as they were before. Which meant that people often got a drunk and then hung around outside. Which was difficult to do when it started raining. Oh well. I still had fun. I even won a prize this year for…erm…well…for having the largest breasts on the bus I was on.
I got really into my costume this year. I had the main part of the costume made at a tailor that Lucy recommended. This is what I gave her as reference:
I was really annoyed when the costume wasn’t ready to be picked up when the tailor said it would and then when I did pick it up it was a bit too big. I don’t think I’ll be going back to that tailor. For shoes, I bought a pair of plain brown sandals and then painted the top part with gold nail polish so that it looked like gold with leather. I also got some gold leaves at the craft market which I attached to a bent hanger to make myself a laurel crown. I also got some gold rope I wore as a belt. I painted my fingernails and toenails gold and had gold eye makeup and gold glitter on my arms and chest. Last but not least, I wore the matching ring and necklace that Elysse and Heather got me from Cyprus. Unfortunately, this is the best picture I got of my whole outfit. It's rather blurry and dark.
Because I was feeling extra crafty and didn’t feel like carrying a purse, I also sewed pockets for my cell phone/keys/extra makeup/etc into the skirt of the costume and a pocket for cash inside my bra. It worked out really well.
Here is a picture another pub crawler took of me on the bus. Also a bad quality picture, but at least you can see my crown better. I love how it came out.
I am a little annoyed right now because my camera has cracked out on me. The flash doesn't work anymore and I don't know how to fix it. I feel handicapped. How can I document my life here without the use of a camera? UGH! If I send it home to be fixed I just know it will take forever. I wonder if I can get it fixed here.
And because my electronics seem to like failing on me in pairs, my laptop battery is 100% GONE. It has been failing on me horribly since I got it back from CNS at Drew this summer. Yesterday I got a warning that it could no longer hold any charge. If the power chord gets disconnected my laptop shuts down immediately. I am going to try to go to the electronics market tomorrow to get a new laptop battery because this is BEYOND inconvenient.
Anyway, that's all for now. Hope you all had a good Halloween!
Much love,
Stephanie/Athena
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