Let's think of some com-
mon stereotypes about
Hopkins -- everyone is
serious, all the time. Ev-
eryone studies, all the time. Professors, administrators and staff are grumpy and boring, all the time. In other words, we're a college campus with a $40,000 stick stuck up our ass.
But then, how does one explain the spooky and mysterious series of events this past Halloween? Students in costume were working at the circulation desk on M-Level; Darth Vader and a guy in a banana costume were spotted roaming the campus during classes on Monday; St. Paul Street was flooded with particularly odd-looking people at all hours of the day and night, and for once, they were actually students.
So imagine how pleasantly surprised I was when I saw a Hopkins student walking around in scrubs on Saturday night, appearing to have a literal stick protruding from his backside.
It was almost as great as when, on Monday, I saw an angel, a bumble bee and a renegade hippie staffing the administrative offices in Garland Hall.
Could it be that Hopkins students actually have a sense of humor, and that Hopkins administrators actually know how to have fun?
It seems that Halloween provides the Hopkins community with the unique opportunity to engage in an unfortunately rather uncommon activity around here: laughing at ourselves.
Why shouldn't we? We're arguably easy enough targets.
For example, take some of the Facebook groups which Hopkins students voluntarily join -- "I Am A Lemming" has 47 members. "Why Am I So Awkward?" has 62 members. "I Like Sleeping" has 250 members. "I Tried to Ford the River and My [expletive] Oxen Died," a group dedicated to fans of the elementary computer game Oregon Trail, has 745 members -- that's almost a fifth of our student body.
It's no wonder that so many Hopkins students choose to dress up as Napoleon Dynamite and the weird artist kid from Wedding Crashers for Halloween. You have to wonder -- can we really call these costumes, or are we just being our stereotypically nerdy, offbeat selves?
At least Halloween lets us take a break from our stressful, overworked lives and laugh at ourselves a little. In fact, not only do we poke fun at ourselves, but we use costumes as a venue for poking fun at each other.
Halloween weekend this year saw students dressed as everything from a W.A.S.P. -- a bee wearing pearls and carrying a designer purse -- to "Jersey Trash," an ensemble complete with trash bags and earrings made of condoms. An even bolder student attached downloaded photographs to his clothes and claimed to be the Internet.
Why we choose Halloween as the one time to remove both our collective stick and our inhibitions remains a bit of a mystery.
It could be because it doesn't require having a valentine, or because we're not expected to buy obnoxious gifts for friends, co-workers and everyone that lives on our halls. Random people dress like idiots and give away candy -- it's as simple as that.
It also seems that Halloween provides us with a more complete glimpse of the student body, if you know what I mean.
"It seems that the majority of girls, no matter what character they're trying to be, end up being a scantily clad version of it -- scantily clad secretary, scantily clad turtle," said junior Josh Chaffee (otherwise known as Don Johnson from "Miami Vice" at the Sigma Alpha Epsilon fraternity's annual Halloween party).
I know that I certainly didn't expect to see the quiet girl from last year's philosophy section dressed as a naughty French maid and doing mischievous things with her feather duster.
And as we all know, I certainly didn't expect to see boys putting actual thought or effort into dressing themselves under any circumstance.
But this time, I'm not complaining. People at Hopkins take different approaches to Halloween, but there is a common thread between them all: Everyone takes advantage of the opportunity to be something distinctively un-Hopkins -- silly, comical, light-hearted or perhaps even downright idiotic.
In that respect, Halloween, childish as it seems to some people, is very much needed on this campus, particularly during a time of year when midterm exams and papers have been piling up for several weeks and students have become progressively more frazzled by their schoolwork.
The holiday let us all step back and realize that there are times that our hard-working, over-achieving personalities can take a night off, and that we can afford to let academics come second to having a fun time, at least every once in a while.
Or maybe, even going beyond the holidy itself a little more -- if a few of us felt like attending a 10 a.m. lecture dressed as giant mutant pumpkins or Oompa Loompas sometime in February, I don't think anyone would object.
Even at Hopkins.
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