Halloween in a Residence Hall

This weekend, I participated in my annual Halloween tradition: close all window shades, grab a bottle of wine, and hide for 72 hours. When you live with a couple hundred college students,it can be miserable to be around them on Halloween. The women follow the celebrity trend by wearing as little clothing as possible to emulate sexy versions of Disney princesses, school supplies, and biblical characters. And the men embrace their femininity by sporting dresses, high heels, and long wigs.

Those students who aren't headed to basement parties featuring Jungle Juice stay in and wreck havoc on the live-in professional staff. For example, last night, my RAs on-duty documented 14 students for throwing a kegger in their double suite room, complete with a beer pong table. Normally, this wouldn't be a unique incident report; however three students were dressed as the toppings for a banana split while another had on an unflattering Harley Quinn outfit.

Tonight, I've already watched 13 students cram themselves into a 6 person taxi van, half wearing skirts short enough to classify as lingerie and 4" stilettos. If they aren't careful, they will end up like my resident last year who drunkenly tripped on her platform heels, smashed her face on the sidewalk, and shattering her front two teeth. Her parents paid for veneer replacements, but she didn't smile for a week.

Halloween is an amazing holiday...one of my favorites. But, when you live-in, you quickly dread the drama, the drunk pimps and cheerleaders in your lobby, and the excuse to dress as offensively as society allows. It also guarantees you won't be in bed before 1am, but you will receive a wake-up call from the duty phone shortly after. Welcome to the hall director's Halloween.

Welcome to the Blog

As a veteran hall director, I can confidently say that I have seen a lot of weird things. I also know that I am not the only one. I have searched the Internet, my local bookstore, and even the university library; however, I cannot find any literature on the experience of the typical hall director. That's where I come in.

My blog will be a random assortment of stories, rants, and opinions from past and present experiences at my institution. Although I am on Twitter, I thought it would be educational, as well as therapeutic, to tell my side of the live-in professional story in more than 160 characters. If you are a hall director, going to school to be one, or have kids living at college, this is the blog for you.

Enjoy and check back often!