Halloweeeeeeeen

Last night was great. I went as Black Death, which meant I wore black and carried a sickle. But what really tied the outfit together were the three little, stuffed rats I got from Ikea. I attached one to my shoulder, one to my waistband, and one to my shoe. One of my classmates uploaded this picture to Facebook (I'll show more as people upload them):



My dress was ridiculously low cut, and my blue-green bra kept showing, so maybe I should have gone with something more conservative. Oh well!

I tried to make a hooded cape for myself out of a garbage bag. It's funny how the minor details of living in a foreign country can have a big impact. The garbage bag I used was smaller than our black bags in the States, and instead of having a straight seam across the bottom, all the corners are gathered in and seamed in the middle. This meant that I couldn't really wear it properly as a hood. If only I'd known.

We had a party for just our class. I think about 3/4 of our class (of 41) showed up. It was pretty fun. Our social representatives did a fantastic job. We played a "bobbing" for apples game that involved kneeling on a chair and dropping a fork into a bucket of apples and water. I was amazed at how many people were able to skewer apples (I failed miserably), and I thought it was fitting that the Control of Infectious Diseases group wouldn't do proper bobbing for apples. Think of all the germs!

Towards the end, one of my classmates got horribly sick (too much wine). The poor thing was miserable, but being in a room full of women who want to be public health specialists is not a bad place to be sick. She was well taken care of. The rest of us headed to the school's party in our tiny and swelteringly-hot bar. We were all entitled to a free cup of some green boozy drink, but it was all gone by the time we got there (at 8:30 in the evening). Who promises free booze, then runs out after two hours? When we got there, there were a fair amount of people, but everyone was just socializing. It wasn't until we left that they turned on the disco lights. Whatevs. A group of us headed from there to a house party near Holloway Road. I don't know what the temperature is in Seattle these days, but it's friggin' cold here! I shouldn't complain, though, because it's been really sunny.

Anyway, house party was alright. I was told that this group of people believe in slutty Halloween costumes, so I thought I'd fit right in with my low-cut dress. In fact, I was showing, by far, the most skin there. Shoot. I still didn't get hit on, though. :-( Played some lame drinking games, none of which lasted very long. You know things are in bad shape when people start playing Pictionary to pass the time--no booze involved. But it was fun. There was a guy there dressed as Ron Burgundy, complete with fake mustache. "You stay classy, San Diego." I met some peeps, hung out with my buddies, drank lots of vodka and cranberries. It's all good.

After walking a mile in the freezing cold to catch a bus home, my throat started to hurt. I don't know if it was the vodka, or the cranberry juice, or the cold air, but I have a full-on sore throat this morning. It feels trashed. Thank goodness for Michele's Ricola drops!

I am taking it easy today. Nothing planned, except to finally catch up on cleaning, studying, and reading everybody else's blogs! A girl in my class had her birthday yesterday, and she invited people out to a "roller disco" tonight. I thought about it, but since I'm not capable of doing fancy tricks on skates, I always just end up going in circles around the rink. That gets boring real fast. I think I will spend the evening at home and take stock of all the money I've been spending. Yikes! Budgeting lasted exactly a week and a half, and that was a couple weeks ago. I've mostly been spending on stuff I need, but Halloween certainly took a chunk out of my wallet, and I've been spending a bit too much on social events, I think. Now that I've settled in a bit and made some friends, I think I'll scale back the boozing. Having said that, I still have half of a 700-mL bottle of Smirnoff in my room. I really don't think I'll be tempted by it, though. That'll be for special occasions.

Okay, geez! No more talk of booze! How are people doing? How are lives going? Email me! Love you guys!