Trick or treat? (Obligatory Halloween post)

I can't remember the age at which I stopped trick-or-treating.

I remember it was the same year that my brother stopped, even though he's three years younger than I am. It's also the same year that my parents stopped giving out sweets to trick-or-treaters. We used to turn of the lights and go to the cinema to get away from them.

We live in an area where it is not unusual to have your house egged if you ignore them, but it they seem to have gotten tamer in recent years and it seems to be an unwritten Halloween rule that if the lights are off they will assume that you're not in.

I lived in the same house for 15 years. Having studied memory, I know that that is as long as I can remember. We did live in a flat before that but I wasn't old enough at that time.

When you've been going trick-or-treating on the same street for at least a decade, you learn a little something about the people that live in the same place as you. You know which ones are 'never in', you know who gives the best sweets, who is likely to trick you, who will be dressed up as well, who will give you money and even the exact house that the old man who gives you the tangerine lives in. You know which houses have different people in from last year, who has a dog and who has kids and roughly how old they are.

I didn't realise until recently that you learn something about your neighbours on Halloween that you wouldn't learn any other time of the year. It also doesn't seem to be as useful as anything you would learn any other day of the year, but the point still stands.

The last year I went trick-or-treating I went with my best friend at the time in her estate rather than my own. It's a refreshing experience when you go trick-or-treating somewhere new, and you get all new sweets and new faces but I can't help but think back and think that I should have done my last round in my own street, for the memories more than anything else, but as is life.

This year I went out with my best friend. We dressed up (like the big kids that we are at heart), and we went out clubbing and got drunk in fancy dress. My skirt was so short she spent the entire night following me around pulling it down but overall the whole experience was good.

I don't know when the shift happened. Less than half a decade ago I was dressed as a much more innocent looking; last minute, makeshift zombie; with a different best friend asking strangers for sweets and we fast forward to the 18 year old me in the shortest skirt of my life and a pair of fishnet tights and high heeled boots (which did not last all night I will tell you now).

In Mean Girls, they say that 'Halloween is the one night a year when a girl can dress like a total slut and no other girls can say anything about it.' When does this occur? When do you stop seeing Halloween as a fun way to get free sweets and start seeing it as an 'excuse' to dress like a slut and get drunk?

I mean, from what I've seen, most people don't need an excuse.

I'm not going to go into if I think it is begging and if children should do it and some of the extreme measures I've seen mentioned regarding it (laxative chocolate so they won't call again next year) because I don't think it's worth the debate. For me Halloween has always been fun and I think that is what it will stay as.

My definition of fun has just changed considerably since I was 5.

I need to stop posting whilst drunk.

Blah blah blah, don't judge me, blah blah blah, this may not make sense and/or contain typos that I will read as being correct... I think you know the drill from last time anyway.

I've had more to drink tonight than I had the whole of freshers' week.

This sounds MUCH worse than it is.

I had three drinks on the second night and two on the third and that was all I drank all week.

I always ask people not to judge me when I get drunk and then write a blog post - which has only happened twice I think, but expect it to happen quite a bit in the future. I don't know what it is about the alcohol in my bloodstream that makes me want to type into my computer for anybody who may be reading. However, it's not a strategy I'd recommend, because I honestly feel like the keys are switching around on the keyboard to trick me as I'm typing.

But since freshers' week, I think the concern I've had is that people will judge me if I'm not drinking.

It comes with the 'student' label. People think we're all borderline alcoholics who drink through our student loans and then beg money off our parents for bread and milk. And while this is true of some students, it isn't true of any that I've met so far - or at least as far as I know.

While we were on our Big Night Out, my wonderful freshers' rep kept telling me not to feel bad that I wasn't drinking; as long as I was having a good time then everything was fine. At the time I didn't feel bad at all but - and it may have something to do with the idea being planted in my head - I've begun to get a little worried that people might think I'm boring if I go out and don't drink anything. Or if I come home early because I don't feel well or my knee is sore (I did discover last night for anyone with knee problems caused by poor foot posture such as mine, high heeled boots are the way forward. My feet have never given out before my knees on a night out, until last night).

My flatmates are probably reading this. Please don't tell me either way, it's not something I'd really like to know the answer to.

I don't really care if people do think I am boring, it's just something that crosses my mind when I'm in bed at midnight, only slightly tipsy, with a hot water bottle on my sore knee while everyone else is in Sugarhouse.

It occurs to me now, that I don't even know where Sugarhouse is. That's how bad a student I am.