Final year.

It's here. The looming summer is over with. So, with sour, miserable faces and wool-clad limbs, we brace the onset of northern autumn and of our final year as degree students. 

It's supposed to be great? Who said that.  Today is my second *technical* day as a third year. (I'm only actually in three days a week, but shh.) Reading lists have been doled out, schedules explained and deadlines highlighted in luminous colours in our diaries and planners. This year matters. This year determines your future. These are the kind of supposedly motivational statements that will be thrown at us from lecturers for the next 20 weeks or so. So, yes I'm majorly stressing out. 

Also, this week, after a really hasty decision, I'm having an impromptu birthday party on Friday to celebrate my turning 21, albeit five days premature. We have food to make, a room to decorate, hair and make up to be done, outfits to be planned, taxis to book, a cake to collect, balloons to blow up, and the rest of the room to pay for. Oh, and fit uni in, and all the work that comes with it, round the troops up and achieve all of this and be at the venue before 7pm on Friday night for the celebrations to start. Excitement is brewing but stress is too. My skin is breaking out, the slight furrow between my eyebrows is becoming more evident by the hour, and I'm feeling drained. All I want is someone to greet me off the bus I'm currently falling asleep on, carry my heavy bags filled with uni books, fetch me a good cup of coffee and run me a lovely hot bath. 

Tomorrow, I have a day off. Thank god for small mercies. 

All Hallows' Eve.

It's here, finally. Well, in just over an hour anyway. One of the most widely celebrated, yet not-totally-religious festivals in the northern hemisphere. Hallowe'en, as it is originally punctuated, is a festival to, supposedly, celebrate those who are no longer living, as well as those who died in vain; the martyrs of our time. Some people say it has Christian or Pagan roots, although this is open to intepretation. All Hallows' Eve/Halloween/the day of the dead, whatever you call it or have come to know it as, in this day and age, here, in England, in 2013, we have a modern tradition of our own. Usually, children dress up in "spooky" costumes and head to parties to take part in apple bobbing, carving pumpkins and general ghost-hunting pursuits. However, I don't know when this came about, but now, it's kind of fashionable for adults to do it too. Except, the parties with creepy fruit punches and spiders webs are replaced with vodka and other hard liquor. The trick-or-treating aspect replaced by partying in bars and clubs. The funny, cute and softly-scary outfits made for the youngsters take a dramatic turn when you hit the big 1-8 destination of adulthood. Halloween is a whole other kettle of fish (or cauldron of apples) when you reach a certain age. The masks/outfits go from scary to macabre, funny to ironic, cute to slutty, faster than you can say "Trick-or-treat." The cleverer your outfit is, the shorter your skirt is, or the more dead you look, the higher your Halloween credentials are. Everyone who's anyone wants to go out for Halloween, I've found. 

As a rookie to this, I'm a bit unprepared. I've never, as an adult and moreover, as a uni student, been out in town in full-on Halloween fancy dress. I've always wanted to, but for some unexplainable reason, I never have. I've been out in fancy dress before, sure, but not with the same hype surrounding it. So at 20 years old, I'm ready (and very excited) to be doing it tomorrow for Halloween for the very first time since I went to discos and parties when I was about nine or ten. It will certainly be an experience, surrounded by hundreds, if not thousands of uni students all sporting their best Halloween face paints, SCREAM masks and costumes maxed out with wasted, misunderstood irony. This is what I love and yet hate about going to uni locally, in Newcastle. It's party central. Every single night. But, especially on occasions. Tomorrow night, there will be queues everywhere for miles. Hundreds of girls freezing their arses off in too-short tutus and lots of eyeliner, while zombie-clad lads stare on in a mixture of amazement and disbelief. Then again, wouldn't change it for the world. And in good spirits, and fishnet tights, I'm ready to embrace a new tradition! So, best get my pirate outfit at the ready, rip my fishnets and white-out my face. Get ribbons for my buckaneer jacket, sort my garter and make sure the black lippy is always at hand for a touch-up as and when. Just stayin' I've got a feeling tomorrow will be kind of amazing, and also, as it should be, pretty fucking scary. 

Masks, face paints, stockings, leotards, wigs, eye patches, onesies, whatever.. At the ready. ALL HALLOWS EVE IS READY AND WAITING GUYS. Hope you don't scare too easily. 

Kisses. 

-A 

 

(I couldn't resist. If you get this ref. let me know!!!) 

Halloween is looming.

Yes. It's that time of year again. I say it every single year, I will do something for Halloween, and this year I AM. *scream, cheer, whatever you like!* I am currently wandering around the house dressed as a pirate. But wait- not just a pirate, but a kind of, I dunno, zombie pirate. Something halloween-y to put a spin on an outfit I actually nabbed from eBay (or was it Amazon?) anyhow.. This year, I'm a zombie pirate. You wouldn't actually believe the responses I got when I asked around "what should I be for Halloween?" Well, 'drunk' was a given, I'll admit that. But 'a slut' I had to laugh..yet again. My dad came in as I pranced (I dunno, not very pirate-y is it?) into the living room in my er.. Attire. He took one look at me and went "aren't you supposed to be scary?" (This was pre-scary make up application btw) and I had to fight every impulse i have to not say the very, very famous line from Mean Girls: 

"In Girl World, Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it."

Safe to say, I did not breathe a word of this to my dad. And note: it won't be slutty. Even if I am wearing fishnet stockings...

So what's everyone doing for Halloween? Are you going out or staying in and partying? What are you dressing up as? I really want to know/see! Tweet me or Instagram me: @eleanorward_