Written by: Youeal Abera, Staff Writer
I think it’s safe to assume that we’re all exhausted from midterm season. The luxuries of reading for fun, nutritional meals, and eight hours of sleep are replaced by lecture notes, coffee, and power naps on transit.
The campus itself becomes just as dreary as the students feel. September’s exciting start-of-semester events are long gone. Now, the campus is once again the site of a daily grind where we all just attend lectures and tutorials. Needless to say, October at SFU is fairly sombre.
Halloween, and all the goofy dressing up that comes with it, should be a good way to get rid of this melancholy. Instead, though, lots of us just hold onto our outfits until we party in the evening.
Halloween only comes once a year. It’s the only holiday where we can dress up as different characters and be as silly as we want to be. Sure, we may have grown too old to continue the fun tradition of trick-or-treating, but we can still have fun through the personalities we choose to embody. Not that you need to imitate Dracula while you ask your prof to explain an equation, but you might as well get some use out of your costume while you can.
Besides, the lectures in October are almost always half-empty, since people have finally realized they may not be as motivated as they thought they’d be in September. People are tired from the hours of studying they put in the night before, and odds are they may not notice your wig and powerful colours. Those classmates who do will have something other than coffee to give them a bit of energy to start their class.
For those who think that wearing a Halloween costume to class is a vacuous, childish act: would you rather have Tim come to lecture in his regular Fila shirt and sweatpants, or a two-piece suit, a floppy toupé, and a Michael Scott nametag? I get the need to treat school seriously, especially with work piling up at this point in the semester. But briefly encountering a cryptid in MBC won’t kill you. If you wanna worry about yourself, go right ahead, but Tim’s doing nothing wrong and you should let him run.
Of course, like with any outfit you wear, there’s still an etiquette to what you bring to school. You shouldn’t be taking up an extra seat with eight spider legs, or wearing offensive costumes — though the latter shouldn’t be welcome anywhere to begin with.
Wearing a Halloween costume, or seeing someone in theirs, won’t magically erase the hells of school. But getting to be a TV character, a movie monster, or even a celebrity can make campus a far cheerier place. I’m tired of friends and peers who only associate Halloween with parties and trick-or-treating. Putting on a costume is the best part, and it’s a perfect opportunity to bring more energy and flair to our daily grinds.
If nothing else, I plan to lighten up Burnaby campus with a backwards hat, Jordans, and an inside-out uniform blazer to proudly bring some Fresh Prince into my morning class. I’d love not to be the only one.