Halloween

Friday was the perfect Halloween day. The sky was overcast and dark, and there was a chilly breeze. The dark clouds behind the mountains made the perfect backdrop for a spooky night.


One great thing about BYU is that most of the students really get into the holiday. I pranced around campus like a ninny with a silly grin slapped on my face most of the day. There was something about seeing all these funny characters reading textbooks and hurrying to class with backpacks slung over their shoulders that made me giggle. The atmosphere felt light-hearted, more relaxed. It was nice to have a day when everyone wasn't absorbed with academic worries.


I was particularly entertained by this fellow. I loved the way his crown was tipped back on his head, and his grin as he walked along with a bounce in his step and one hand slung in his pocket. He looks like he'd make a good king.

I felt a little bashful as I took these pictures, like a wannabe photographer. Real photographers have chunky black cameras with foot-long lenses and a tripod. No one minds if one of them is sitting on a wall, taking pictures of people as they walk by. In fact, some might secretly hope to be snapped in a photo (laughing casually with a friend, or studiously pondering a book).

But I probably just looked like a creep.


This guy was certainly giving me funny looks.


So I snuck up to the balcony on the fourth floor of the Joseph Fielding Smith Building. The view of the mountains from up there is almost imposing. They have a way of feeling very close to you, like they're watching your every move.


I felt a little guilty spying on everyone from up there, but in a good way, the way I felt as a child when I had come up with a new secret code or established a secret hiding place to read my books and hide my treasures.

This girl caught my eye pretty quickly. I like her ears, and the fact that she's wearing orange.

I like orange.


I don't know what this guy is supposed to be, but his hat is sure funny.


I didn't realize until I'd zoomed in that this young woman isn't wearing a costume. Oops.

I think I had a class with her once...


These two were adorable. As the marriage capital of all universities, it is not uncommon to see children on campus, and they were everywhere Halloween night.


This guy reminds me of a cross between a superhero and a nerd.


I love his cape. It's yellow.


Then there were these two.


I knew immediately that I was about to witness the funniest thing I may have ever seen. Two twenty-something-year-old ninjas actually trying to act like ninjas. It was too good that I had just happened upon them, that I was witnessing it all from that balcony, and they had no idea!

I wish that I'd had a camcorder. They were leaping over things and rolling across the lawn and doing somersaults off of benches like their mission depended on it.


And let me just say, for those of you who don't know, that it is extremely difficult to find two quickly moving, leaping, rolling, somersaulting objects when your lens is zoomed all the way in...or out...or...whatever the correct term is.


I really wish I knew what those two were up to, but it was about this time that a little red battery symbol began blinking in the corner of my display screen, and the bell tower began to chime, and I began to reconcile myself to the fact that I have a job, and it is not to spy on Halloween-happy BYU students.

More on that later.

One last look at the mountains, then.