Something I unexpectedly learned about myself this year: I love to dress up. It started with a Twilight watch party that one of my classmates hosted at her townhome, with the brief of dressing up peak emo, straight back to 2008. I dug up a blue wig, black leather jacket, silver chain, and miraculously snuck out of my apartment without any of my roommates noticing me.
The medical students I saw every day turned into goth teenagers, and we all sat down to watch Bella move to Forks. It was my first Twilight experience. I don’t know if Catherine Hardwicke intended it to be a comedy, but everything was just funny.
My next costume experience was hosting a Pride & Prejudice (2005) watch party, something I had long joked about doing with my friends. I set up our long dining table with food, tea and lamps. I wore a long white skirt and a red cardigan, channeling Kiera Knightley standing earnestly at the cliffside.
I also turned up with a low-budget Suki cosplay to Avatar —The Last Airbender in Concert at the Hippodrome in Baltimore. I wore a knee-length green dress and baggy green pants, with a black skirt I foisted on my torso to look like armor. It kind of worked. I went with one of my classmates, and we remembered just how much we loved Avatar as the music instantly pulled at our heartstrings.
When my classmate invited me to a Halloween murder mystery party, I went all out on drugstore makeup for my role as Creeper, Dracula’s zombie butler. I put on a suit, painted my skin gray, and plastered on wounds and fake blood. This was the rare occasion in which my inexperience with makeup was an asset, because it meant I ended up looking positively gruesome walking through Fell’s Point.
These experiences have influenced me to take more risks with fashion in everyday life, simply because it’s fun. My default was to tend toward simple business casual neutrals that blend in. Now, I find myself wanting to wear monochrome outfits, or large earrings, or flouncy skirts. Clothing can definitely offer an opportunity to express yourself and stand out, especially in a field like medicine, where you can feel small sometimes as a student. I’m grateful to my classmates and these theme parties — even though they’re silly, they are reminders that there are so many possible lives out there, and that there is not just one way to be a medical student.
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