halloween: a living literature exam

It's 4:30 pm, and the sun is giving up.

Crank your radiators and fire up those lamps, ladies and gentlemen. Scottish winter (or, as I'm calling it, the Descent into Darkness) has officially begun.

BUT on a brighter note (hah hah!) the impending winter did nothing to deter our really fabulous Halloween celebrations last night!

I, for one, had been at a loss for what to be for Halloween. I'd finally retired my tried-and-true Tinkerbelle costume, which I'd been revamping and reworking for the last 4 Halloweens running. I even left the costume at home so that laziness couldn't get the best of me. So, when the girls in my programme suggested we all dress up together, I was ALL about it. Naturally we decided on "everyone go as your medieval literature area of expertise!"- aka, the nerdiest Halloween theme EVER.

So by the time we were done, we ended up with a Criseyde (for Chaucer's Troilus and Criseyde), a Wife of Bath (for, of course, The Canterbury Tales) a Guinevere (for the various King Arthur tales), a Morgan le Fay (also for the tales of King Arthur- they were "at each other's throats" all night, of course), a court fool (for comedy in Middle English), a Valkyrie (for Old Norse legend), a Grendel's mother (for Beowulf), and a Pictish warrior (for Old Scots lit).

We decided that if anyone asked us what we were dressed as, we'd refuse to offer further explanation of our characters....kind of like an impromptu test: do people actually know their literature?We knew they wouldn't, but it was a little fun to frustrate unsuspecting "cats," "fairies" and "pop stars." ;)

So, last night, we all got together at my flat about 3 hours prior to the party at the St. Andrews Aquarium, and basically turned my living room into a costume workshop (I still have shreds of dresses that we "distressed" all over my floor :P). We were a whirlwind of hem-sewing, makeup-doing, body-painting, hair-plaiting, toga-making, dress-pinning medievalists. It was a sight to behold.

Without further ado, some photos of our truly epic, delightfully geeky Halloween (also, for inquiring minds, this is my flat! finally some photos :))

Prom pose on the stairwell! From the bottom left, Liz as Guinevere, Julia as the Wife of Bath, Aya as a Valkyrie, me as a Pict, Tamara as Grendel's mother, Caitlin as a court fool, Charlotte as Morgan le Fay, and Amanda as Criseyde! :) What a good-lookin' / slightly terrifiying bunch!

Warrior buddies! (and a view of my living room!)


And finally, a group "personality" shot- LOVE this one. (and a view of the kitchen! haha)

So after all these shenanigans, we went on a "quest" to the Aquarium (we're. so. nerdy.) where we danced our faces off all night long!

Or rather, danced our faces off for a couple hours, and then pooped out around 1 am. What? We're grad students (read: old farts). We just can't party like we used to....

And with that, I gotta go translate some Latin and read the Romance of the Rose. Happy Halloween! :)