I don't drink. So the crazy college party thing was out.

Work had flyers up all week: Dress as a literary character and win a prize if you're voted best costume.

So I dressed up as Laura Ingalls.

No one else dressed up.

While I'm a shoe-in for the prize, boy did I feel awkward.

Another thing that's been on my mind while deciding how I should celebrate at age 22: Costumes for women my age are all about being as sexy and racy as possible. They take innocent childhood heroines like Snow White and Dorothy and turn them naughty for the sake of sex appeal. I prefer to remain more innocent and dress up (if I do) in historically based costumes, like an Edwardian Anne of Green Gables or an Amelia Earheart. Am I too tame? Too juvenile? Or is this world too rauncy? The sheer thought of an exposed leg used to drive men wild. Now women have to do all sorts of extreme and increasingly hardcore things to elicit the same response. I really do wish to go back to the time when modesty was not looked upon with derision. And I wish living modestly didn't have to automatically mean Christian either. I'm a Buddhist, and I feel excluded sometimes. You don't have to believe in a god to believe in dignity.

Below: An example of a modest item that I like a lot