Halloween, the scariest time of the year, the day everyone has an excuse to dress up, and a day celebrated by many around the world, specifically in the US, on October 31^st. You would think this day would be celebrated in the same way  all around the world, but apparently not. My first Halloween day in NY was on October 31^st 2014, and one thing I can say for sure is that it was nothing like all those Halloween days I spent in Jordan, since all I can remember.

     I am the type of person who gets into Halloween; I’ve always loved wearing costumes, participating in all the scary activities I could gat my hands on, like going into haunted houses, or watching scary movies, and even going trick or treating, enjoying all the candy I could stuff my face with during the night. I’ve worn costumes from a Dalmatian to Pikachu to a vampire to a witch to Scooby Doo to a teletubby to a clown to a cook, with a huge and inflatable bum, to an inflatable headless costumes, and those are all just the costumes I can think of from the top of my head!

    This year I started my Halloween celebrations earlier than most, or at least earlier than all those last minute costume shoppers filling the store on the day of Halloween, which I could not understand at all. Well, I was prepared. The first thing I did was go to party city, unfortunately I left empty handed, and overwhelmed by the amount of costumes I could choose from. Not only was I overwhelmed by the amount of costumes, but I was also shocked by the amount of revealing costumes I saw, which made my mission of picking a not too revealing costume quiet hard. I needed the help of my family and friends, as this was a serious issue, at least to me! So, I started my online search for a costume, making it easier for me to send picture to anyone I wanted the opinions of.  My search was narrowed to Daenerys Targaryen from Game of Thrones, a Pop art character that looked like she came strait out of a comic book, Maleficent from the movie Maleficent, and finally Sully from one of my all time favorite Disney movies, Monsters Ink.

     The day has finally arrived! October 31^st 2014, today is the day I am going to attend the largest Halloween parade in the world, a parade that is even meant to be televised, but I had no idea the Parade was not the only time of the day I would be celebrating Halloween in some shape or form.  There were people dressed up in Costumes even at 8:00 am, making Halloween a full day thing rather than just a holiday we celebrate at night. Leaving my last class of the day, I had to rush back to get ready for the parade, but I sure felt like I was walking through a parade on my way home! Thousands of people in costume were filling the streets, making it difficult for me to even walk on the pavement, passing through Union Square. Even the usually empty roads I took when needing some quiet time seemed full. I had never seen so many people celebrating an event, and my Halloween celebrations hadn’t even started!

     Every October 31^st back home seemed like a completely normal day, and the only Halloween part of it I attended was the trick or treating event I attended every year, hosted by the same families every year. An event not everyone could take a part in, one, which you could only attend if you bought what I would call their exclusive tickets! This event was not open to the public, and the same families attended this event every year, since getting a ticket depended on who you knew and if paying for a ticket was an available option to you. I could only go out in costume in the streets of the neighborhood trick or treating route because going anywhere else would be dangerous. Halloween was not a holiday celebrated by everyone at home. Two years ago there was this huge party at this abandoned building on one of the main roads, and after the event had to be closed off due to angry crowds, articles with titles like “Teenagers were seen worshipping the devil last night…” came up on newspaper pages and all over the internet’s news blogs. Halloween only existed in the little community of people I trick or treated with, and celebrating Halloween anywhere outside the bounds of that neighborhood seemed like an insane idea, considering there were very angry people on the outside.

I was all dressed up and ready for my first Halloween parade in New York. My costume choice finally came down to Sully! It was a dress appropriating the male cartoon monster into a female costume. It was a furry blue dress with purple patches all over, furry leg warmers, a miniature tale, a hat with horns, and gloves, which where actually quite useful, considering the cold weather was trying to get in the way of my Halloween celebrations. Unfortunately I had to where a coat over my costume, but other than that I would not let anything else come in my way, not even the endless warnings I got from everyone I told I was going to attend the parade. Someone even warned me about the deaths that occur during this event. I’ll admit she scared me, but I was ready for the parade I had planned to go to weeks ahead. My friends weren’t as ready to risk going to the Parade, so three out of four of my friends ditched out at the last minute!

 I was beginning my journey, along with my friend,  who was dressed in a pirate costume, to 6^th avenue and Crosby Street, where the Parade was meant to start on and then head on to 14^th street. On our way we came across too many crowds to get to the starting point on time. Every street we tried to enter the Parade from, a cop seemed to come out of nowhere and stop us, so we had no choice but to head on to Crosby Street, but we made a few stops along the way, as not to miss the creative floats already going through the Parade, but even getting a glimpse at the Parade was seeming like an impossible task, as I could not see anything from above all those heads standing before me. So we walked, and we walked past all those dressed in all sorts of costumes, some creative, some way too revealing, some scary, and some very realistic ones that seemed to be coming right out of the movie they came from. I wasn’t walking through the parade yet, but again I felt like I was. Halloween was everywhere! You could where whatever you wanted and no one could say a thing about it!

      Just when it seemed like I couldn’t enter the Parade, I finally got to Crosby Street and waited in line for our chance to join the parade, not knowing if I would even get the chance to enter the Parade before it was over.  The unmoving line was worrying me, but finally those in front of us started cheering, and the line got moving! We were entering the Parade! As we started to go through the crowds of people watching the parade we weren’t the only ones cheering, we were being cheered at! This night finally seeming to finally work out. My panic subsided and I got into the fun of the Parade, having time to take photos with those dressed in interesting costumes. I even took a photo with a man in a matching costume, dressed as Sully! Every step I would take a step I would find a very creatively dressed individual, or even group. There was even a group of ‘rioters’, rioting over beer! There were bands and music all over! Although I spent more time trying to get into the parade than actually being in it, the whole thing was worth it because the whole day felt like a parade!

I can’t say my night ended after the Parade because really you can’t spend Halloween in New York and not attend one of the hundreds of parties going on, but I can leave that part to your imagination. Most importantly, from what I witnessed this day I can tell that Halloween in New York is a community thing, and not an event closed up to the public. This is what Halloween is meant to be like.  It was not separating the people, but bringing them together in celebration of one of the most fun holidays of the year!

Green is the New Black!

Vote John Wang! PosterCollective 

My Batman mask isn’t just any old Batman mask; it’s glitter bomb Batman mask. Sparkles, eyelashes, and hats aren’t things you think of when you think about Batman. These features give my mask a funny and feminine twist.  My appropriation of the Batman mask is a sort of Batman alter ego, and it got me thinking about my own alter ego because like Batman I’m more series than outgoing. Going out to take a photo I wanted my mask to blend in with it’s surroundings like Batman does in the dark city of Gotham, which is why the background is just as colourful as the mask itself.