Halloween used to be an all-day event, but along with age comes the loss of excitement for certain holidays. College student still look forward to All Hallows Eve, but our enthusiasm is now geared towards how “trampy-and-trashed” we can get. Girls prance around in freezing cold weather wearing less than they sleep in. Each year, less layers and more skin is shown. Boys’ expectations for costumes increase; testosterone overrules the instinct to generically dress as superman or an astronaut. They compete to win the best costume.

Apathy though is not merely limited to Halloween. We receive less presents on Christmas, the Easter Bunny stops hiding eggs, and you no longer look forward to getting older on your birthday. Sure, some of us still carve pumpkins, go to corn mazes, and ceremonially dress up in costumes, but instead of being the greedy child that needs candy; we now look forward to the experience of the entire night spent with our friends. It is the event, not what you get.

This altered taste for Halloween may not be such as good thing. We no longer expect to fall asleep in a sugar coma, but there is nothing wrong with that. Perhaps if we revisit our youth, it will help to inspire a stress free Halloween. If not, at least you get to be someone else for a night.

I am definitely ready for midterms to be over. It seems like school has barely started and already it’s Week 5; we’re officially in the middle of test central. I had the pleasure of taking back-to-back exams today, as well as one more tomorrow, and I still don’t really get a break until Thursday. Then the swarm of multiple choice, true false, essay questions will finally cease.

Like most people, I have searched for alternate ideas to midterms, reasons why we shouldn’t have these tests every term. Maybe we could be presented with some real life problem to solve. You know, like those good old days of high school classes where the only project was to create a rocket, or maybe just write a superbly average poem. I miss those days. Not that those were ever actually my midterms, but a girl can dream right?

I get it. Without tests, there would be no way for teachers to test how much we actually studied. I get that the point of college is to learn and gain knowledge and retain it for many years to come. But I sure couldn’t tell you half of the specifics of what I supposedly learned in class last week. I’m not a slacker, I do learn the materials, just not when they are first presented. It generally takes me more than four weeks to cement an idea in my head permanently. So I for one want to kidnap midterms, take them to a cemetery, and bury them six feet underground where they won’t ever resurface.

It’s all about finding something you care about. I care about comics, animals, and technological advances; about cartoons, great movies and TV shows. Find me a class offered about robotic animals, a class that teaches you how to make your own shoes and I’m there.

I recently accepted my fate with midterms; the inevitable push the night before to cram the last bits of information in your head. There isn’t much one can do about it. However, I still have my own ways of making those not so riveting classes worthwhile. If you find me in class, I’ll still most likely be daydreaming about what I am going to make for dinner that night. Teriyaki chicken and rice tonight, in case you were wondering.