CD Halloween Night

Writer: Ng Sze Hwee
Photos: Zhang Jiyuan
Editor: Ong Qing Liang

It was a dark, hazy and serene night. Everything seemed exceptionally peaceful, seemingly serving as a prelude to the gloomy forecast for the night. What you are going to see is not for the faint-hearted definitely. Are you ready?

Sadako pays a visit to CD

Sadako and her friends

The creatures started their haunting at around 8.30pm, creeping along the corridors of CD, knocking on blockers’ doors and scaring the wits out of unsuspecting blockers who opened the door. Toilet-goers were not spared either. The monsters hid outside the toilets, pouncing on exiting toilet-goers. Well, luckily the victims had already relieved themselves. Otherwise, I guess the uncle will have a hard time cleaning up the results of uncontrolled bladder action the following day. The responses were varied and priceless—Some were so scared that they slammed the door after giving a high-pitched “Ahhhhh”; some stoned while looking at the enthusiastic monsters, while some laughed with them. The scaring continued as the block committee members went randomly down CD block to look for more potential victims.

As the clock struck 10pm, another scream was heard. “HALLOWEEN… CD Halloween!!!!” It was a call for the blockers to go down to the lounge for supper.

The lounge was intricately decorated with dangling bats and spooky music filled the room, creating the perfect eerie atmosphere. When everyone had arrived, the night started with the first game: ”The Word Search Puzzle” . Blockers were split into different groups and competed to complete the search for 20 over words in a pile of jumbled up words and letters. I must admit this was one of the hardest word search puzzles I had ever come across. However, with our unwavering determination and strong team work, my team emerged champion! And, we won 2 puppets!

CD blockers engrossed in the word search

Sweet victory!

Next up, we had some food. However, the amount of food was unusually little this time round. As we were wondering why there was so little food, Terence announced the start of the next game: “The Bid For Food”. All of us were divided into 2 teams (A and B), with ) and had to bid for 7 items with the “Halloween bills” ($100 each) pasted on our doors. Team A, having brought down all their “Halloween bills”, naturally had more spending power. The 7 items were unknown to us but a clue was given as to what they could be. The identity of the item was only revealed after the bid was final and the catch was: the team who won the bid had to FINISH ALL the food, regardless of what the food was or how bad (or good) it  tasted. And here’s the menu for the night…

Item 1: Dragon’s poo. Something sweet.

Final bid: $200

Winning team: Team A

What it was: Cupcakes with M&M’s chocolate! Yummy!

Dragon's Poo!

Item 2: Vampire’s blood

Final bid: $200

Winning team: Team B

What it was: Tomato juice

Team B sharing the Vampire's Blood

Item 3: Rancid goo

Final bid: $700 (Note: this made team B even poorer)

Winning team: Team B

What it was: Super sour Jelly! (haha! )

Cringing face

Item 4: Old scream

Final bid: $1000

Winning team: Team A

What it was: Oreo with the creamy side-up, topped with M&Ms.

Item 5: Blue balls

Final bid $400

Winning team: Team A

What it was: Blue fishballs.

Blue balls

Item 6: Devil’s fruit

Final bid: $200

Winning team: Team A

What it was: Dragon fruit with wasabi (yucky hot…)

Item 7: Witch’s potion

Final bid: $1200

Winning team: Team A (the richer group! Team B lost as they had no more money!)

What it wa: GINGER BEER. Cheers to our victory!

All in all, it was a memorable Halloween party especially as one bottle of ginger beer ‘exploded’, ending the night with a ‘Boomz’. Happy Halloween! :D

CD Halloween Night (Another Perspective)

Chinese Writer: Yun Lan
English Writers: Yun Lan & Angel
Editor: Liu Chen Yao

10月30日，KE CD Block提前一晚庆祝万圣夜。CD Blockers 们知道当晚十时有个 “万圣夜夜宵” （称之为 Brownie Night），但他们不知道Blockcommers们还精心准备了些其他别的…Surprise…

晚上九时整，筹委们迫不及待分成两组进行 “秘密计划”… Da da~~~~ Trick or treat!! 在国外，这”不给糖就捣乱可是万圣夜不可或缺的活动。小孩们装扮成各种恐怖模样，接着逐门逐户按门铃，主人家一打开门，他们便大喊：“Trick and Treat!!!”主人家便会拿出巧克力、糖果或其他小礼物送给他们。

筹委们装扮得稀奇古怪后，逐户敲门，待有人一开门，他们便发出一些恐怖的叫声，由于没有事前通知，有些人真的吓了一大跳，当然，有些很steady的blocker很淡定地说: hello…Ahem! 哈，由于筹委们体恤Blockers们没有糖果等小礼物，这Trick or treat的角色稍有更动 – 装扮成恶魔的筹委们没礼物拿，反而得分发小礼物给主人家。只要主人家选择“treat”，筹委们便“奖赏”他们一份糖果或巧克力。

大约晚上十时，吃夜宵的时候到了！CD blockers聚集在lounge进行一些小游戏…问答比赛、Fear factor…赢家们都获得一份小礼物：Kinder Bueno, Kitkats, Cloud 5…！在游戏进行的当儿，筹委们分发冰淇淋和Brownie让大家享用, haha, 今年的CD万圣夜庆祝活动在一片欢愉声中落幕。

知多一点点。。。

萬聖夜（Halloween）在每年的 10月31日，是西方世界的傳統節日，主要流行於北美、不列顛群島、澳大利亚和新西蘭。當晚小孩會穿上化妝服，戴上面具，挨家挨戶收集榶果。華語地區常將萬聖夜誤稱為萬聖节。

万圣夜英文稱之“Halloween”，為“All Hallow Eve”的缩写，是指万圣节（All Hallow’s Day）的前夜，类似于聖誕夜被称为“Christmas Eve”。“Hallow”来源于中古英语halwen，与holy词源很接近，在苏格兰和加拿大的某些区域，万圣节仍然被称为“All Hallow Mas”，意思是在纪念所有的圣人（Hallow）那一天，要举行的弥撒仪式（Mass）。

萬聖夜通常與靈異的事物聯繫起來。歐洲傳統上認為萬聖節是鬼魂世界最接近人間的時間，這傳說與中國的盂蘭節類似。美國明尼蘇達州的阿诺卡（Anoka）號稱是「世界萬聖節之都」，每年都舉行大型的巡遊慶祝。

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One night before the actual day, on 30th October, CD Block had their Halloween night celebration. Blockers were aware that there was a Halloween supper (aka Brownie Night) planned for the night, but what they didn’t expect was the “Special Programme” the Block Comm members had in store for them…

At 9pm, the Block Comm members eagerly split into 2 teams to execute their “secret programme”: TRICK OR TREAT!! In Western countries, this event is the main highlight of Halloween. Little children dress up as all sorts of horrible creatures and pay a visit to their neighbours, yelling “Trick or Treat!!!” when they open their doors. They will then be awarded with chocolates, sweets and other goodies from the adult “victims”.

After the Block Comm members have dressed up as monsters, they went around knocking on doors. Whenever an unsuspecting blocker opens the door, the “monsters” would let out creepy noises. As this event was not publicised to all, some blockers did receive quite a scare! Of course, some “steady” blockers just said “hello” in the most normal way… Ahem, weren’t we scary enough? As the “monsters” anticipated that the blockers would not have little gifts prepared for them, the roles of Halloween were reversed. The poor “monsters” received no gifts in the end, and even had to give out chocolates to the “victims” instead. Everytime the “victim” says “treat”, the “monster” will give him a chocolate bar or a candy. Oh well… no one chose “trick”.

Suppertime started around 10pm!! The blockers gathered in the lounge to play games: quizzes, fear factor… The games were attractive because the victory comes along with nice snacks: Kinder Bueno, Kitkats, Cloud 5 …..!! While playing the games, the block comm members dished out ice-creams and brownies for all. And that was how CD celebrated Halloween this year.

Did you know?

Halloween is a holiday celebrated on October 31. Halloween activities include trick-or-treating, ghost tours, bonfires, costume parties, visiting haunted attractions, carving jack-o’-lanterns, reading scary stories, and watching horror movies. Irish and Scottish immigrants carried versions of the traditionto North America in the nineteenth century. Other western countries embraced the holiday in the late twentieth century. Halloween is celebrated in several countries of the Western world, most commonly in the United States, Canada, Ireland, Puerto Rico, Japan, the United Kingdom, and at times in parts of Australia and New Zealand Halloween, also known as All Hallow’s Eve, refers to the night before All Hallow’s Day. The word “hallow” comes from the old English word “halwen”, which has a similar meaning to “holy”. In countries like Scotland and Canada, the festival is known as “All Hallow Mas”, which means the day to commemorate the saints (hallow) by holding Mass.

Halloween is often associated with the supernatural. European tradition believes that Halloween is the time when the spirit world is closest to the human world, sort of similar to the Chinese Ghost Festival tradition. Minnesota’s anoka in American holds the title of “Halloween Capital”, and organizes huge parades to celebrate the festival.

CD Halloween-cum-Brownie Night

Writer: Chia Hui Min
Editor: Jonathan Chan

What do black cats and evil-looking pumpkins bring to mind? It’s time for Halloween! CD blockers celebrated Halloween night last Thursday, 30^th October, by having a yummy brownie night. CD block comm-ers, Gavin, Yun Lan, Ashish and block head Jordan, went around CD block trick-or-treating with their handmade masks, sweets and loud BOOs!

The four of them with their hilarious masks!

Some of the more successful scares came from the D3 girls, who totally screamed out loud! Most of the guys did not get much of a scare though. After scaring the wits out of almost all the CD blockers, Ashish and Jordan proceeded to B block to give away more sweets and frighten more people along the way!

Denise of D block got scared by Ashish!

Brownie night commenced soon after, with lots of moist and delicious brownies, coupled with vanilla ice-cream.

CD girls

Some games were played while everyone was savouring the lovely brownie and ice-cream combo. We started off with quizzes about fellow CD blockers and the Halloween festival, and then proceeded onto guessing what mysterious objects were inside two tin cans. Brave souls volunteered to stick their hands in, and their descriptions of the objects were made known to everyone.

Some of the brave souls who volunteered

Prizes, including sinful Hershey’s chocolates, were given for the correct identifications. The first tin can contained eggs with egg shells, while the second tin can contained a sock with leaves and branches.

First tin can - gooey egg contents with egg shells

Gavin's sock

With that, we ended the night by taking a lovely shot of all the blockers who were present:

CD!