Humanities Halloween Party

At the end of September, as I looked at the late October events, I decided that I would like a witch hat.  I briefly thought of making one, even looking up patterns.  But I found this hat for less than ten dollars, I decided not to spend time sewing.

I wore it Tuesday, which I wrote about in this blog post, and I wore it again yesterday.  We had a Halloween party for English and Humanities majors and anyone who might be interested in our major--which is to say everyone.

I didn't take pictures of the variety of costumes that we wore.  Mine was understated:  a black skirt, purple shirt, and black sweater.  I wore my witch hat all day.

The high point of my work day was the party, and the high point of the party was the caramel apple bar:

 I had heard rumors that we would have one, and I had a vision of all of us putting sticks in apples.  Instead, we had a huge bowl of cut up apples, with a variety of toppings; the picture cuts off 6 more topping options.

We had a variety of candies, along with cookies, small cupcakes, and salty snacks.  My department chair made "frozen eyeballs" by freezing blueberries in round cubes:

She also tried to have frozen fingers, by freezing water in gloves, but that experiment was less successful.

I got to be the person who ran the trivia game.  We had 30 questions, Halloween themed, from our various Humanities classes, for example, "Which Shakespeare play has 3 witches?"  Students chose a slip of paper and if they gave the correct answer, they got an extra raffle ticket.

I am so happy to be at a school that has so many events for students outside of the classroom.  We even avoid having classes from 11-noon so that clubs can have meetings and chapel services don't compete with classes and folks can have meetings.  I am so happy to be part of a department that is willing to go to such lengths to have a festive event.

With all the dismal higher ed news coming from all parts of the U.S., I also feel profoundly grateful to be at a school that's on a good financial footing.  I know how quickly it can all change at one institution, but I continue to remain hopeful that I've found a school with longevity.