Written by Rachael Bonoan, Biology Ph.D. Candidate

This year, the Graduate Student Council (GSC) put on a Halloween party in our newest graduate student lounge (which is likely to be a topic in a future blog post)—Curtis Hall. The party was planned and executed by this year’s wonderful Social Chair, Taylor Sands-Marcinkowski (Wanda from the Fairly Odd Parents). The other executive board members (pictured to the right, photo courtesy of Psych grad student Clint Perry) that helped pull the party off were President Jeremy Watcher (a Roman dictator with his sticks as a sign of authority), Secretary Mike Pietras (computational scientist—he’s actually a computational scientist), and yours truly, the Community Outreach Chair (a tough cookie). Our other executive board members (Vice President, Treasurer, Academic Chair and Student Life Chair) were unable to make the party—they were in Los Angeles representing Tufts at the 29^th Annual National Conference of the National Association of Graduate-Professional Students. Even though they were in LA, I think we had more fun in Curtis Hall.

At the party, we had LOTS of candy, other snacks, and a costume contest! The first place winners of the costume contest came dressed as the characters from Pixar’s recent movie Inside Out. From left to right, Kasey, Dave, Jenn, Becca, and Kelsey are all affiliated with the Biology Department here at Tufts. Kasey and Becca are recently graduated master’s students, Jenn and Kelsey are 6^th and 5^th year Ph.D. students respectively, Dave is a graduate student at MIT and Kasey’s boyfriend. This year, the first place prize was a gift card to Foundry, a nearby restaurant in Davis Square (another possible future blog topic). Kasey—as Joy—was characteristically overjoyed that her group won the costume contest (notice her feet are a good few inches off the ground).

Our second place winner was on the other end of the Halloween spectrum—he was scary. Parading as an exorcist priest, the international Physics grad student went above and beyond for his first Halloween! The exorcist priest won a gift card to Diesel Café, a coffee shop in Davis Square for his prize. Among other characters, we also had pirates, a woodland nymph, Maverick, and Luna Lovegood show up at the party. (Sadness got really into her character for the group photo.) What I like most about GSC social events is that I get to get out of the Biology Department and meet grad students from other departments. At this party alone, there were grad students from Biology, Chemistry, Physics, Computer Science, Engineering, Drama, and more!

The GSC’s next holiday-themed event is our Thanksgiving Food Drive—coming up soon!