By Heather Monahan
Features Editor
The haunting hour may be upon us, but ghouls and ghosts aren’t the things haunting Bonaventure students, and it certainly isn’t limited to just Halloween. Some don’t even like the occasional spook from scary movies or haunted houses this time of year.
Senior accounting major Rita Belloma has two things she considers her biggest fears – spiders and mice.
“I’m not completely sure why I’m scared of spiders, but they completely creep me out,” Belloma said. “Most of it is from stories I’ve heard about how many you eat in your life while sleeping.”
While she doesn’t have an exact reason she’s afraid of spiders, Belloma knows precisely why she’s scared of mice.
“When I was younger, my brother and his friends would play tricks on me and hide fake mice in my bed,” she said. “They also chased me around the house whenever they found a dead mouse.”
Though Belloma has tried confronting her fear, she said it hasn’t quite worked.
“I’m a baby when it comes to mice. I’ll jump on anything that is close to get me as far away from the mouse as possible,” she said. “The mouse could be dead and I still freak out and run away!”
Junior English major Jade Padula has had some trouble facing her fear of heights.
“When I was little (and even now sometimes) I couldn’t walk next to the glass railings on the second floor of a mall,” Padula said. “I also don’t enjoy elevators that have glass windows. It petrifies me to see how high I’m going.”
Freshman biology major Vinnie Waver has a deeper fear that haunts him.
“(I’m afraid of) getting sick with a coma and not being able to communicate with people but still being conscious each day,” Waver said. “It would be like living inside of a dream and seeing and hearing everything that everyone has to say about you but not being able to say anything back. It’s like being trapped in your body.”
Though he’s never experienced the terror himself, Waver said he knows people who have.
“(They) attest to it as one of the scariest experiences of their life,” he said. “They have the constant fear of never experiencing life again and never knowing if they will wake up again.”
Senior biology major Meera Babu said her biggest fear is not achieving her dreams.
“It’s more that I don’t want to disappoint the people who have given me so much encouragement,” Babu said.
While all Bonnies have a certain biggest fear, not all like the feel of being scared.
“There are times I enjoy being scared around Halloween,” Belloma said. “Typically, I find haunted houses and hayrides not scary at all because I know they’re all fake. Movies, on the other hand, I’m not the biggest fan of being scared from.”
Padula said she is also uncertain on her feelings towards scary movies and haunted houses.
“I went to one haunted house when I was younger and never thought I would go back, but I went on a haunted hayride in college and really didn’t mind it,” she said.
Unlike Belloma and Padula, Babu is certain about her feelings towards horror films.
“I’m not a big fan of scary movies,” she said. “I don’t like feeling scared the whole night.”
Waver, on the other hand, said Halloween is his favorite holiday and thoroughly enjoys haunted hayrides.
Whether or not you like being frightened by hayrides and movies, most Bonnies can agree they have a deep-seeded fear that lies within.
