After the raging success of the first party for the students, I was looking forward to a nice, streamlined time with my second group of sophomores at 5PM, after which I would welcome my first group of freshmen, all tuckered out from their gym competition at 7PM.
Famous last words! These sophomores are the group that I can’t seem to get a grip on in the classroom. They are the ones who are on their cell phones constantly, who are reading books or doing other classes’ work, whose attendance is the worst. This is a wild and hungry bunch!
When I say wild and hungry, I mean exactly that. I was in the kitchen preparing steamed buns and they were in the living room tearing into the snacks. Tearing into them, putting them in their pockets and purses for later consumption, taking pictures of themselves and each other eating them. I was actually shocked to see several of the girls pose with a snack in their mouth and someone nibbling the other end of the snack, as though they were kissing. Do they have any idea how provocative their behavior and those poses were? Or are they really that innocent?
I couldn’t say for sure, but the girls sure did giggle. I figured: it is their party, let them have their fun!
Fun? Oh, fun! And just how was I supposed to entice these girls to play a sedate game like Hot Potato when they were already playing Let’s Pose for Playboy???
Clearly I was out of my league here. I went back into the kitchen and steamed more buns. This is a hungry bunch, remember?
I had gone to Metro and bought bulk packages of frozen buns, the better to feed them with. It was a really cost-effective measure and, had the girls shown some restraint, there would have been enough food for 3 parties. That was actually the plan. As it was, this group inhaled 120 steamed buns and still managed to consume all of the other snacks provided. I was in awe of their verve, and of their appetite. I also want to point out that this is the only group that did not bring a cake or anything else, as the other groups had. Not that anything was expected of them; it is just noteworthy that this group came to party, and the other groups came to share.
OK, so now I had to do something with them; I’ve done all of the steaming of buns I could afford to do without leaving the next group of revelers with nothing to eat. Just as I emerged from the kitchen the freshmen showed up, so the sophomores left on their own. No chance to present Cookie Caravaning to them, and I intuit they would not have been interested anyway.
There was a quick flurry of clean up – Tulip, Yolanda and Hester helped. And then the freshman party started.
I went back into the kitchen and started steaming more buns. Also, I made another bowl of fruit salad. The music was playing and the kids were entertaining themselves, so all is well. Two or three of the girls offered to help me; I put them to chopping up fruit for the salad. The buns steamed merrily away.
This was also a hungry bunch, and they had good reason: they had just finished their gym competition. It was my pleasure to feed them the little bit I had for them, and they also brought a cake to share. I did not have any compunction about this group eating 120 steamed buns and most of the snacks because they had been working out since 2PM. For a while, there was only the sound of munching, and that suited me just fine.
As it turns out, it seems I had developed a case of bronchitis or pneumonia sometime over the last week; I’m not sure which. In any case I had gone to the campus doctor on Tuesday and she had prescribed antibiotics and a traditional herbal medicine. Neither of them had started working yet and I was feeling… well, not exactly in a party mood.
One of the kids popped into the kitchen to ask if they could watch Ice Age. It seems they had been through my DVD collection and found it. I was happy to set the TV up for them and turn the movie on, even though I felt like a bad Mommy for parking the kids in front of the TV and an even worse hostess for not entertaining my guests. I was definitely not in a party mood. Besides, Party #2 had taken the wind out of my sails; I was still reeling about how those girls behaved.
And maybe, just maybe I was beginning to be a little partied out. Therefore I concluded: Ice Age is good.
I went in the kitchen and steamed more buns.
I finished up in the kitchen just about 15 minutes before the movie ended, and we did play Hot Potato for a while. Somehow I ended up with the ‘potato’ 3 times, and sang until my voice gave out. I even debuted a song I wrote, The Waiguoren Rap (look for the lyrics in an upcoming post!) The kids were delighted by it, but couldn’t help but notice that I was flagging.
They gracefully took their leave after sharing the cake that they brought. Again some of the kids stayed over and helped clean up; again I did not mention the Cookie Caravan idea. It seemed superfluous to this group who had been up since 6 that morning and had had classes all day, a gym competition in the evening and the party afterward. My guess is they were just as tired as I was. We parted company after many well wishes and cautions about bundling up and keeping warm: the temperatures were supposed to plummet overnight.
Again the warmth fled with the kids, and I turned out the lights.
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