Hey everyone,

So Halloween just ended (you may have noticed from the sudden flood of Christmas products today), and it really made me miss the old days when I used to go trick or treating.

If you know my backstory, you’ll know that I was in Hong Kong for five of my teenage years, which meant I missed out on five years of free candy since trick or treating was not recognized in HK. If you knocked on someone’s door on October 31st there, pestering them for candy, you may get rewarded with your very own restraining order.

It’s not just the candy that I miss. I have always loved dressing up as someone/something else. I remember one of my first costumes was Sailor Moon. After that, I kept finding excuses to wear costumes. I discovered cosplaying, which was an outlet, but what’s so special about Halloween is that everyone can be in costume! Every year, I get my mom to make me a costume (she loves designing them), but sadly, I don’t have much reason to wear them. Unless I choose to go to a party.

A quick picture I snapped with my friend before the party. I was Mulan for the night!

Parties aren’t always my thing, but it’s one of the few ways someone my age can wear a costume. Last year, I chose not to go, so I missed out on dressing up. I chose to party this year, and while I didn’t really enjoy the partying bit, I was in costume. I guess you win some, and you lose some.

But what I’ve noticed is that at parties and on campus, very few people actually care about their costumes. Put on a pair of bunny or cat ears, and voila, costume completed. On Halloween day, I didn’t have the guts to wear a costume to school. I did in my first year, but it was quite embarrassing since no one else dressed up. But I saw a few people walking around with costumes this year, and it made me super happy. Huge props to them for being brave and throwing on a costume! It really takes more guts than you would think. I sincerely hope that they had a wonderful time being someone else for a day, and I could only wish that I had their courage. My blog gets a lot less traffic than UBC Compliments’ Facebook page, so I also posted something similar to what I said above there. Hopefully, my message reaches the people who dressed up!

So how was your Halloween?

– Karen