Halloween

[Shaun Hately]

I thought I'd drop in a small description of my Halloween experience. Halloween isn't 
that big a deal in Australia (at least it doesn't seem to compare to what I see on TV 
from the US). Even when I was growing up (and I'm only 27) it was still pretty rare 
for people to go trick or treating, or wear costumes. It has become more popular 
though (kids tend to embrace a tradition that involves the acquiring of free lollies if 
they can find it).

I'm still quite involved with one of my old schools, and I was roped into helping out 
with an activity on Thursday evening. My old school brings in students at the start of 
year 9 (when they are about 14) from two other junior schools - the school year here 
starts in late January, early February, so at this time of year, they are engaged in 
transition activities, getting them ready to move up to the senior school - these are 
designed to be enjoyable, because they want them to start off on the right foot. The 
school has a couple of lovely old buildings (over 100 years - that is old by Aussie 
standards), and one of these was set up for the event - it's ground floor contains our 
own 'Great Hall' and somebody - not sure who - decided to have a Harry Potter style 
Halloween Feast for the current Year 8 students from the two junior schools. A lot of 
the activities they've been doing over the last few weeks have been tied up in this - 
they did some sort of personality test at school (which will be part of the 
assessments their new teachers see next year) and those were used to sort them 
into houses for the night (the same tests will actually play some part of choosing 
their real houses next year - it's mostly random, but they will tend to look at 
personalities etc in cases, where they have boy who have seemed to have problems 
making friends), all sorts of things had a Harry Potter theme. Personally I wondered 
if kids that age might have found it a bit juvenile but they actually got *really* 
involved in it. I had a great time being Snape - I love drama, and evil is always fun 
to play (I didn't model myself on the movie Snape... more on a real teacher at the 
school). Some of the students at the senior school (I think involved in drama club) 
had rigged up lights across the beams of the Great Hall, and after it got dark outside 
and the lights were turned down, it wasn't a bad fascimile for a starlit sky.

It was a good night. Better than the boring lectures and guided tours I remembered 
from 14 years ago (-8

Yours Without Wax, Dreadnought
Shaun Hately |webpage: http://www.alphalink.com.au/~drednort/thelab.html
(ISTJ)       |email: drednort at alphalink.com.au | ICQ: 6898200
"You know the very powerful and the very stupid have one thing in
common. They don't alter their views to fit the facts. They alter
the facts to fit the views. Which can be uncomfortable if you happen
to be one of the facts that need altering." The Doctor - Doctor Who:
The Face of Evil | Where am I: Frankston, Victoria, Australia