STRESS SERIES!: Experiment Number One: Throwing a Party

This week, to combat the slow, sneaky stress of the mid-semester stretch, we decided to throw a Halloween party. Why? Because Halloween is so awesome. Who is we? The Royal We. What is going on again?! A party.

Normally at the end of the week, we are basically non-functional.

Figure 1: Non-function.

The idea of throwing a party was daunting at best, and at worst caused our brains to explode. However, we bravely soldiered on with digging the box of Halloween goodies out of the basement and Googling "snarky costumes lol."

Half-way through decorating, we were hit with the tired stick (otherwise known as the "WHAT AM I DOING I HAVE TO STUDY!!!!!!11!!" stick") and ended up taking a twenty-minute coma nap under a cat.

Figure 2: Cat Nap is Incomplete Without Cat

This actually was an excellent idea and left us feeling very relaxed. Cat also seemed to enjoy it.

One stressful and perennial fear is that we will take Halloween more seriously than others. This manifests itself by involved costumes containing a large volume of fake blood, capes, and other props. While it seems like an awesome idea, it is awkward to be the only one at a party who looks thus.

Well. This is awkward.

So we spent some time coming up with a costume made up of one piece of paper that we could take off if necessary (IE, if we were the only ones in costume). We then spent some time making gross food (gross both because of the way it looked and because of the amount of butter present).

It's a HAND-MADE CAKE!!! Get it??!

Finally, we decorated the heck out of the apartment. Spiderwebs everywhere.

I... don't know how to feel.

The party came and went with plentiful food, fun, and ease. Clean-up only took about twenty minutes, and we filled the dishwasher ONLY ONCE (the true definition of a successful party).

While we were worried about costumes and decor, and while making food for an undetermined amount of people was a little difficult, we found this event to actually be moderately de-stressing.

DE-STRESS SCORE: 6/10

Surprisingly, after we were done cleaning up and had had a good night's sleep, we were refreshed because the party broke up the monotony of the weekly homework routine. It was nice to prioritize hanging out with friends, eating nasty, buttery food, and putting spiderwebs on the cat.

I'm still here.

We would definitely recommend taking a break to spend time with friends during this crazy season. Lucky for you, Halloween isn't over! Grab a vat of fake blood and enjoy the most wonderful season of the year.