What on earth is going on? What happened to “JewCL”? The only Jewish Society things that are going on, as far as I can see from the sparse emails (the first of which was only to say “give us money”), are actually Hillel events. That’s no kind of Jewish Society at a university where a very high proportion of the students are Jewish.
Don’t get me wrong. I’ve met the JSoc leaders and they are absolutely lovely. They made a great impression on me at the Freshers’ Fayre (where all societies try to attract you to joining, with sparkly freebies including pens and badges). I was so excited to start life at a university where the JSoc seemed so interested in me, in looking after Jewish students.
But there has got to be something going wrong when I’ve got more emails coming in about something happening in Golders Green when UCL is in Camden! It’s been a month now, JSoc, get your act together and start some UCL stuff up! And not just pub crawls please, as when you don’t drink or you don’t like schlepping around from bar to bar when you’re clearly too inebriated to stand, let alone walk, is… well, it’s just not cricket.
Halloween. My Father hates it. He says, I’m not sure jokingly or not, that it’s begging. I can see that point of view. So for 18 years, when Halloween came around, I sat in my room, I felt lonely, I felt bad for being part of the “young generation” that likes Halloween, that likes dressing up and having fun.
You know what? I can make my own decision now about Halloween. Yes, I am going to dress up in a stupid costume. Yes, I am going to go out and have fun. No, I’m not going to go round asking for sweets but yes, I will hand out sweets.
I’m very proud of my costume – cost me £3.28. Genius. Make-up set for £2.25 from Wilkinsons, then £1 for a cape and 3p on a set of rather wonderful fangs. My friends and I have a plan for them to wear tshirts saying “I got bitten by Count Naomi and all I got was this infernal immortality” or “to sing a rubbish cover of a Korn song” (that’s a joke for a young audience I think) and the like. Eyeliner bite marks obligatory on the neck, it’s time to spritz on the fake blood and go out into the night.
A Jewish Dracula… This will be interesting. Live humans must be VERY un-kosher.