by Jennifer Markey
As the month of September starts to come to a close, it seems as if there is more than just the season that’s changing. With the cooler weather whipping in, students begin to bring out their jackets, long pants, and sweaters. It also brings out a more ‘festive’ mood among those who live on the campus of Sweet Briar College. As September becomes October, and the seasons from summer to fall, one holiday starts to cross everyone’s mind: Halloween.
Halloween is a special time of year for dressing up in costumes and running around for free candy, but when it comes to dressing up, it seems as if it’s not only the students who will be doing so. With September drawing to an end, residents of Meta Glass have already begun to decorate their doors. Various doors have been decorated with a variety of Halloween items, ranging from black cats, ghosts, cobwebs, to your typical jack-o-lantern. Some had even covered their doors with creepy-looking table cloths or caution tape. Several resident had let out their artistic side, doodling skeleton and pumpkins upon the whiteboards that hang on their doors. Whichever decorations they may use, these residents are trying to make their doors look as spooky as possible.
In the last weeks of September and into the first week of October, plenty of doors have been decorated in the Halloween theme, majority being on the third floor. However, there are still a lot of doors within the halls of Meta Glass that have not been decorated. Which begs the question: “Why decorate the doors in the first place?”
Juliet Hatch is a third floor resident of Meta Glass, as well as one of the many who have decorated their door for Halloween. Her door is covered with white caution tape with “No trespassing” written in bold black letters. Hanging from her whiteboard at the center of her door is a bloodied piece of paper saying, “This is a Velociraptor free dorm room.” “I thought it would be fun,” Juliet answered with a shrug. “Everyone else was doing it, so I thought of it as a communal thing and decided to do it as well. Halloween is a cool holiday. The candy’s awesome.” Initially, her roommate had gotten most of the decorations, as they were going to swap decorating the door each holiday. However, when she left, she took most of the decorations with her. She might add more decorations later on, saying: “But I’m definitely keeping that Velociraptor sign. I was thinking about getting an attack hedgehog sign, but I probably won’t get it.”
Two doors down was yet another door that had been decorated. It was rather simple, the only decorations that could be seen were simple pictures of of black cats, owls, haunted houses, and witches. Nicole Frazier was one of the students who lived in that room. When approached with the question, she laughed with an awkward smile on her face. “The decorations we not my idea,” she explained as she looked at the screen of her laptop. “It was my roommate’s. I had planned on doodling something on the whiteboard, but one day when I got back, it was gone.” Nicole went on to further state that these decorations looked like “80’s-esque Halloween card decorations”.
On the other hand, while the third floor seemed to be the hall with the most decorations, the second floor was not. Most of these doors remained barren, or were simply not decorated in a Halloween theme. Among these residents was Sophia Cary, who’s door was one of the non-Halloween themed doors. “I don’t have the money to decorate my door,” she stated with a shrug. “I wanted to wait until Christmas. I just don’t really celebrate Halloween anymore.” Sophia explained that her parents never let her go trick-or-treating after 14, and the holiday had become more ‘chill’ for her. No more pranking or other activities of the sort. She just sighed and said, “I mainly just lay around on Halloween and watch horror movies.” Sophia liked the idea of putting out a candy bowl and had said she might put one out. “If I had the money,” she declared, “I’d dress up my door. Money is the main reason why I have not done so.”