A lot of my next couple of posts are going to have this "first" or "first time" titles because I just recently moved here and am experience a lot of things for the first time. One of those things (and the one this post will be focusing on is Halloween!). It's almost here, and one of the traditions I’m getting to experience for the first time is pumpkin carving. So it's a thing where people carve designs into pumpkins, put lights or candles inside them, and hang them outside their homes. I’ve seen it in movies and photos, but yesterday, I finally got to try it myself.
My school’s Office of International Students and Scholars (OISS) organizes a lot of these types of events to immerse international students in US culture and get us to meet each other. Like most of the other events they organize, I was very excited to go, both for the pumpkin carving experience, but also to meet people and hopefully make some friends.
Something I’m realizing since moving here is that you have to be very intentional about meeting people. Your life is basically starting afresh, and friendships won’t just appear because you’ve arrived. I live about two minutes from OISS, so whenever they organize something like this and I’m available, I try to take the opportunity cos they're fun.
Plans didn't go according to plan
Before leaving home, I had planned to take plenty of pictures and videos of the carving process so I could show you guys how everything happened, but I ended up taking none. I’d like to tell you it was because my hands were covered in pumpkin seeds and all that slimy stuff inside the pumpkin, so I couldn’t reach for my phone. That sounds like a reasonable explanation, except there was some very delicious food there, and I somehow managed to wash my hands in the middle of carving to go get some, so clearly, that wasn't it.😂
The conversation probably delayed the pumpkin
I was in a group with three lovely ladies and one of them was an artist, so I knew we were going to nail this. I think our group had the most fun, though admittedly, I wasn’t monitoring everyone else’s table.
We talked a lot while carving, and I found out some interesting things about them. Before you give “interesting things” a meaning I didn’t even think of, I basically just mean the conversation was good. Lol. Good enough that by the time we finished our pumpkin, every other group had finished and left. Thankfully, that meant I could take pictures of the pumpkins from all the groups. To be honest, I was sort of jealous seeing what some of them did. Perfect faces.
At some point, they played a video explaining the history of Halloween. I watched it, but I was too occupied with trying to carve the perfect design into my side of our pumpkin to pay proper attention. I would’ve loved to share what I learned about Halloween here, but I fortunately wasn’t listening. And considering how the carving went, I’m not sure my divided attention paid off.
Four people, four sides
Because there were four of us, we divided the pumpkin into four sections. Everyone proposed a design and was responsible for carving it into their side. The ideas were a tree, a spider web, a lady’s face, and Medusa’s head. That last one needs some explanation because what we ended up with was a rabbit.
The plan was to carve Medusa’s face, with you know, snakes for hair. But after cutting out a large circle for the face, we realized we’d created a big hole and there was now nowhere to put the eyes or the other features that would make it look like a face. A small detail to consider before removing the face entirely, apparently. But by the time we noticed the problem, one of the snakes had already been carved, so we were forcefully committed to something, we just weren’t sure what that something was anymore.
Eventually, we decided to turn the large opening into the rabbit’s body and add a head. So if you’re looking at the photos wondering how a rabbit (which is not scary and so not halloween worthy) became part of our Halloween design, that’s how. It wasn’t the original plan, but we worked with what we had.😂
Guess which one was my idea
After we finished, we went outside to take a group picture with our pumpkin. I wish I could show you all four sides properly because everyone had their own thing going on.
Anyways, now that you know the four original ideas were a tree, a spider web, a lady’s face, and Medusa’s head, which one do you think I proposed? Remember, everyone also carved the design they suggested, so you’re guessing both my idea and my handiwork.
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All photos are mine