Will tonight's Halloween party scare grad school-induced pressures away?

It is that time of the year when everyone in grad school-land is feeling the pressure of papers, marking, teaching, research, and conference proposals. Our stress is exacerbated by the following:

1. silly students who don't do their readings and who ask inane questions ("Isn't Socrates, like, you know, Spiderman?")

2. power-tripping/unreliable authority figures (Hey Dr Snootybottom: being a tenure-track professor doesn't give you license to treat grad students like shit. I understand that your position in the academy is still precarious but lashing out at grad students brings bad karma. Oh, and by the way, halitosis, even for academics, is never a good thing. PS. I would consider Botox. You look like Winston Churchill with a wig).

3. a lack of alcohol

4. financial insecurity, compounded by the impending holiday season

5. a lack of a social life

6. Non-grad school friends, who look at us aghast when we explain the pressures we are facing. ("But you are getting paid to go to school. I, on the other hand, have more important real-world concerns." To my dear friends in corporate law, while I understand that the stresses of being an overpaid corporate law minion can lead all of you to have an inflated sense of self-importance, please understand that grad students are faced with different, though similarly mentally exhausting, schedules. While your work day has a designated 'end time,' ours is continuous. Besides, none of us can resign to our $350 000 designer lofts at the end of the day - instead, we have to think about our research for 24/7. I remind you that we are living not on a salary but on a stipend - hence, we can hardly afford to numb ourselves to capitalist purchases. Of course, if buying $2 500 espresso machines makes you feel less like the tool you are, so be it. Quit your self-righteous pontificating, buy me dinner which you can charge to your firm, and we'll call it even).

To alleviate all of the pressures we are facing, I will be hosting an epic Halloween party tonight for my academic department, which will hopefully be so debauched that we will forget, at least for one night, all of the looming deadlines we have to meet. Needless to say, I am pretty excited about this party. I will be donning a pink wig, false eyelashes, and excessive face-paint - the effect is supposed to be 80s punk rock star, though I realize I am probably going to look more like RuPaul. What the hell. Drag queens have all the fun; maybe I can even stuff myself using a sock to get into character.

Since it is a little fiesta I am helping organize, food and booze are obviously pretty important. Also, KC, the co-hostess, puts Martha Stewart to shame. Her culinary skills and party hostessing skills are impeccable, so whatever she prepares is bound to be fantabulous.

We will be having a cheese platter. As a caveat, purchasing all of the cheeses that we desire depends also on our budget and on the other organizers. So part of this list consists of me letting my gluttony get ahold of me as I type this - I doubt whether the department will be willing to fork out $50 for a pound of European cheeses.

All of these will be served with crackers and bread. Coincidentally, did you know that when creating a cheese platter, protocol mandates that you serve an odd number of cheeses. I read this in an etiquette book once. Apparently, odd numbers are more aesthetically pleasing. Whenever I make cheese platters, I like to make sure that there are 7 types of cheeses. 7=good luck, no? The cheese platter, needless to say, will be the highlight of the event.


Next to the cheese platter, we will have a chips, veggies, and dip table, with home-made hummus. I find that the best hummus recipes are the ones with lots of garlic and lots of tahini; I prefer moderately chunky hummus, enough so I can taste the texture of the chick peas. KC will cook fabulous mini quiches. One type of quiche will have cheese, apples, whipped cream, and thyme, another one will have all of the above ingredients, although this particular quiche will have black olives rather than apples. KC will also make mouth-watering vegan filo wraps - perhaps filled with pureed black beans? Hmmm.

In theory, I also want to have bruschetta on bread shaped like little stakes (you know, the ones you use to kill vampires), but our budget doesn't allow for it. In theory, a Halloween sushi tray might be a good idea as well. Perhaps we can serve salmon sashimi next to sushi; the black seaweed juxtaposed with the orange-hued sashimi will look decidedly Halloween-y.

We will also have baked goods: squares with jam inside, various types of cookies, and lots and lots of Halloween candy.

Now, dear readers, if I had the money, I would also love to have a Halloween chocolate fondue fountain, an assortment of fudge shaped like ghosts, and pumpkin pie.


Lastly, we will have a wickedly spiked Halloween punch designed to make the most misanthropic grad student dancing on table tops by midnight. My secret ingredient to our Halloween punch is raspberry vodka, which deceptively deludes partiers into thinking that the punch they are drinking has little alcoholic content. Flavored vodka=god's gift to people who don't really like the strong taste of alcohol.

Alas, knowing our little motley crew, it is more likely that said inebriated graduate students will get into an ideological debate. Hopefully, such debates are kept to a minimum; maybe I can persuade KC to coat the cookies with Ecstasy to encourage love rather than war?

Thinking about tonight's festivities is making me less and less inclined to do work. Thus, I shall go and start preparing. Happy Halloween!