With the end of Marking Period 2 on Friday, Oct. 28, the following Monday was scheduled to be the usual Data Day, a day off for students. However, this particular Data Day, Oct. 31, landed on Halloween. So, on Oct. 28, ASB hosted UPA’s annual Costume Day, the in-school celebration of Halloween.

One of the main events was a day-long scavenger hunt. ASB hid 30 small, plastic pumpkins across campus and challenged students to find and bring them back to the front office for a goodie bag filled with treats. 

During lunch, students in costume lined up in front of the office to participate in the Halloween Costume Contest, emceed by Taya Mapakdee (12) and Reya Yeddula (12). The judging panel consisted of teachers Esther Chen, Nicole Sebek, Aimee Verapinto and Daniella Alvarez (10), whose Halloween Bingo prize from Oct. 7 was to judge this competition.

There were six contest categories: Best Individual, Best Pair/Group, Most Realistic, Most Unique, Best DIY and Funniest. Fern Woertink (11) won Best Individual and was dressed as a clown they designed themself, inspired by Harley Quinn. The Best Pair/Group winners were Jasmine Cabana (12) and Christopher Coquilla (12) who wore costumes inspired by Pink Panther and Inspector Clouseau. Inspired by “Genshin Impact,” Wanisa Suwannakinthorn (9), Jacey Tran (9), Anna Katkova (8) and Alyssa Dikovsky (8), who dubbed themselves The Genshin Squad, dressed as Qiqi, Hu Tao, Raiden Shogun and Lumine, respectively, and won Most Realistic. Most Unique went to Chithruby Vangal Jambunathan (8) dressed as the GEICO gecko, Axel Lehtinen (8) as Rick Astley with Triple A, Jake Ryan Rico (8) as Jake from State Farm and Kaylee Nguyen (8) as Doug from Liberty Mutual a.k.a. The Insurance Crew.

The Best DIY costume was a jack-in-the-box made by Trisha Sebastian (8), who was able to climb in and pop out of the cardboard box she made and decorated. The Funniest costumes was awarded to Sarah Cayabyab (12), Alisa Tran (12), Cindy Tran (12) and Maxine Dizon (12)dressed as different types of pregnant moms along with Joshua Asada (12) and Eliud Hadgu (12) who wore stereotypical dad costumes. The prize for winning in any category was a fast pass for the often very long lunch lines.

“I like dressing up and being who I like to be because [Halloween] is a day where you get to dress up without people judging you,” said Sophia Nguyen (7). “I found it fun that a lot of people are wearing costumes, and their costumes are so amazing.”