Grapes, masks, scary rabbits...

This Friday was our school's big annual Halloween Party. Apparently this party is the school's claim to fame. There was a haunted house, games, face paintings, arts and crafts, trivia competitions, a restaurant, mostly a lot of fun and chaos. We stayed at the school preparing until midnight the night before the party, and then arrived three hours early to finish the preparations. I think that it was worth it, mostly for the absurdity that Halloween brings. Costumes really are something to hide behind; I think that something strange comes out of being behind a mask, taking on a new identity behind that mask, and presenting yourself as something other than yourself. The foriegn teachers had a costume contest, and Anthony came in third place. I painted his blue face, thought that it was a little extreme, but I think that it all really suited him. He only made one girl cry, and to be honest I might have been frightened of a purple balloon man too.

I originally wanted to dress as a banana, so that the two of us could be couple fruit, but as the day grew closer, I grew more skeptical of my costume making abilities. I found a rabbit mask instead. I thought that it was rather frightening; almost Donnie Darko like. The mask itself looks like it is from the 1950's. When I asked the Korean teachers if they thought that it was scary, they replied that it was cute. I think that this Westerner's perception of horror is vastly different from their Eastern perception. Perhaps I just find surreal images to be terrifying. I know I certainly wouldn't want to be chased by someone behind this mask, especially since the plastic underneath produced an unlikely amount of drool. I ended up taking off the mask as I painted faces for the majority of the day. My face painting vision was still skewed, even without the mask; it was a quite a bit different than that of the example posters that we had hanging in our room, and I think that I might have surprised some of the students. My student, "Jasmin" was the only one eccentric enough to go for the full face painting. She had pretty good vision as she asked me to add blood red lips and blood droplets on her lips. I thought her rather different for wanting this image because a lot of people here find cats to be a sign of bad luck. Though, I shouldn't have been surprised as she is quite unique in many ways, and not only that, but she's also brilliant; I can't help, but love her for wanting this image.
Some of the students were too shy to have their face's painted, and I ended up doing their hands instead. This is my student, "Jenny." She's very practical, and probably one of the smartest students that I have in that age group, not only that, but she's quite observant too. I think that she will become the type of person to have intellectual conversations at cafes; for now she's light-hearted enough to have a "hobuck" painted on her hand. After the kid's party we threw parties for our Junior classes. I had some of my classes make pumkin masks; they were rather good at it too. "John" was the only student who was outgoing enough to let me take his picture. Together, we laughed at the hilarity of hiding behind a pumpkin face.