Candies and Costumes and Pumpkins and CATS by Rachel D. '16

A typical day in East Campus. Okay, it was not quite typical. It was a little abnormal. It was Halloween.

I was surprised to see the lack of costumes worn during the day around MIT’s campus. I personally was wearing a firefighter costume I bought off Amazon for a separate occasion, but I covered it with my favorite flannel shirt because I felt a little weird being out of the norm. It’s strange that I still feel that way, like ever, after having dyed hair for more than six years now. I’ve always dressed out of the norm. Wearing just a flannel shirt is out of the norm.

Regardless, I covered my costume, went to a really cool meeting in the morning, went to my class, handed in my problem set, and went home and crashed/slept with my kitten until more meetings at 4pm.

I was really tired. I slept <4 hours the night before because I was trying to finish some assignments/homework, and it really made me feel awful. Cat naps with my cat are fantastic.

But I left my kitty and went to the meetings, and I put on more layers after my meetings because it was cold out and Swarky ’16, Max J. ’17 and I were going to the local supermarket, Shaws, to buy ingredients to make dinner for our vegetarian Co-op that night.  Shaws is about a fifteen-twenty minute walk away from East Campus.

We bought our things to make quesadillas, made the quesadillas, and then it was about time for the traditional East Campus Trick or Treating and Costume Contest.

But before that could happen, a rather energetic and carrot-obsessed spiderman made its way through our hall.

Halloween at East Campus starts at around 8pm, and you gather your closest friends (and/or strangers) in costume and prepare your body for candy (gather pockets, backpacks, socks, etc.). Then you go to the housemaster suite, located on the second floor of the west parallel of East Campus. This year, Rob Miller ’95, our new housemaster, dressed up and handed out papers for us to fill out to determine which member of the house team (including Rob and our GRTs, or Graduate Resident Tutors, that live on each hall) deserves to win the best costume award. Then he gave us candy, and sent us on our way to trick-or-treat around the dorm.

Our mob of East Campusers slowly grew and shrunk and changed shape and function throughout the night, but it was still a ton of fun.

Sabrina S. ’16 dressed up as “The Ghost of P-sets Past.” This was one of my favorites :)

And Valentina C. ’16 dressed up as the dreaded “Novembat,” ready to pounce on any upperclassmen who broke the November Rule!

And Dan S. ’17 dressed up as…. well, you should ask him :)

The GRTs of the Houseteam got especially excited and involved in the costume contest!

When asked about his costume, first west’s GRT responded with “What costume?”

There was my GRT, Chris, dressed up as Annie, the orphan in the musical/show Annie.

He even sang about tomorrow to us!

And there was Fourth East GRT Andy dressed up as Princess Leia.

And then there was GRT Andy and GRT Chris together, singing and running through the halls together like the crazy people they are. We have the coolest House Team in the whole world.

So all in all, Halloween was a lot of fun. Rory sure enjoyed chasing around the candy wrappers in my room and trying to help me write this blog post.

And the next day we got the chance to celebrate a belated Halloween with the nth annual First West Pumpkin Drop from the Green Building.

The following Pictures were taken by Tristan H. ’18:

And a frozen pumpkin parts flinging battle erupted on the dot. It was a lot of fun – I got pelted in the back by some of my freshmen :D

So Halloween was a lot of fun. I have a fuzzy kitty, and I got a lot of candy from the various members of our house team and from some friends. Things were pretty bad these past couple of weeks, and sometimes dressing up like maniacs or hugging a cat or watching your GRTs sing around the dorm or flinging pumpkin pieces at friends is all it takes to make a terrible week a million times better.