It was a dark and stormy night. Well, maybe not stormy. But there was certainly something in the air. Mischief, perhaps? Whatever it was, the atmosphere definitely had an effect on the girls in apartment 370. After a long week of studying Chinese, we were all ready to unwind and go a little crazy.
For behold, this was Startalk: a three-and-a-half week program on BYU campus for high school students around the country dedicated to Chinese. It was an entire year of high school Mandarin crammed into less than a month. From language classes in the morning to culture, crafts, and calligraphy in the afternoons, our days were packed full of language acquisition. It was only in the evenings that the structure waned slightly and we had time to bond and do homework. And bond we did.
This particular night was a Sunday. The first Sunday, in fact. We had gone to a Chinese family ward nearby in an effort to extend the immersion environment. After church, I took a refreshing nap and then baked with my roommates. The baking had somehow pulled a great number of boys into our living room, salivating as the cookies came out of the oven. The cookies vanished alarmingly fast, but Ammon, Mike, Kirk, Justin, and Tanner stayed put. We played Catchphrase for a while, resulting in general hilarity.
“It’s something newlyweds and fruit have in common,” said Ammon.
“Pomegranates? Seeds?” we guessed.
“No, PASSION!” he finally answered, exasperated.
The night drew on, and everyone finally returned to their respective apartments. We wanted to repay the boys somehow for the lovely pictures they’d drawn and hung up in our living room. They had found a huge pad of paper in the cleaning closet and doodled some slightly disturbing scenes: monsters, falling buildings, angry meteors--typical boy stuff. So Gena, Lily, Nicholle and I decided to create a masterpiece of our own, with a more feminine flair. We set to work. Fairies, castles, and random Chinese phrases exploded in bursts of chromatic glory. The room filled with giggles and the scent of markers.
“Gena, why don’t your fairies have bodies?” Krista laughed. “Or hair?” Lily added. Gena was feverishly drawing as many of the queer little creatures as she could. “Wo...bu...zhi...dao...” (I don’t know) she said slowly, adding wings to yet another.
“Justin reads Korean, right? Jin jin, how do you write ‘saranghae’ (I love you) in Hangul (Korean alphabet)? I forgot.” I queried. Twisting to write at an angle I could read, Gena wrote the phrase inside my field of flowers. “Xie xie ni,” (Thank you) I said.
“Do boys like rainbows?”
“Who doesn’t? Draw another one!”
“But the castle’s in the way... Can we put the rainbow over this creepy fairy Elvis dude?”
“Bu xing a! Na shi wo de wang zi!” (No! That’s my prince!)
“Wo bu ke neng shi ni de wang zi!” (I can’t possibly be your prince) I sang, and we all continued into a rousing chorus of Tong Hua (Fairytale). “Wo yuan bian cheng tong hua li ni ai de na ge tian shi!” (I am willing to become the angel you love in fairy tales) we belted, slightly off key, but making up for musical deficiencies with interpretive dance and enthusiasm.
Musical interludes aside, we finished the poster. 6 square feet of awesomeness, every inch filled with color. Chinese and Korean characters tripped over each other, proclaiming love and quoting popular songs. We stood back, awestruck by our own creation. “It looks like a unicorn ate a Chinese rainbow and threw up on a piece of paper,” I whispered. Too engrossed in the colors to really notice how strange that statement was, my roommates only nodded. Hearts, smiley faces, fairies, unicorns, flowers, and assorted fluffy animals covered the expanse. The boys would love it.
“What do we do with it now?” Nicholle asked. We pondered for a moment, and then decided that since Justin, Kirk, Ammon, and Tanner were all in the same apartment, the best place to display it would be their door.
“Now all we need is tape.” Lily said, almost ominously.
“I have duct tape!” said I. “Zan men zou ba!” (Let’s go!)
Gena, the voice of reason, pointed out a flaw in our scheme. “Guys, lights out was like 2 hours ago. Should we be doing this? What if the RFs find out? We could get major kou fen (points taken away), or even get in trouble with the program director.”
I chewed on my lower lip, mulling it over as Lily and Nicholle reassured Gena. She’s got a point. We shouldn’t risk it.
But logic didn’t win out this night. Whether it was estrogen, sugar, or just night fever, Gena was the only one who was thinking rationally at that moment.
Nearly out of our minds with late-night hyper juice, we rolled up the poster, grabbed the duct tape, and walked carefully out of our apartment. Nicholle went first. “The coast is clear!” she hissed. The night was warm, but the pavement underfoot was freezing. The sprinklers’ noise provided cover for our sock-muted footfalls as we slunk to the connecting room between our building and the boys’ building. The door creaked slightly as we crept in the dark space. “Lily, don’t let the door--” Too late. The door slam seemed almost deafening, a gunshot in the darkness. We froze, fear taking over our bodies. Gena quickly regained her composure and continued on. Lily, Nicholle, and I followed.
Finally, we arrived at our target: the door. A safe distance away, I tore 4 strips of duct tape as quietly as possible; Gena unfurled the picture. Barely breathing, we approached the doorframe. Each corner got a piece of purple tape, and it was secure.
“We need pictures of this,” I breathed.
“I forgot my camera!” came Lily’s panicked whisper.
The post-midnight hour made it seem like a good idea. We all sprinted back to our apartment, grabbed cameras, and ran back. Taking turns posing, cameras flashed in the frantic photo fray. Suddenly, the door opened. We scattered--Gena and I down the stairs, Lily and Nicholle across the hall. Gena, faster than I, bolted into the common room.
“Seriously?!” Justin shouted angrily. “I see you guys! Lily! Nicholle! This is not cool!”
Adrenaline pumped through my veins. He hadn’t seen me! I looked at the floor above me and saw Justin’s distinctive frame right next to the stairs. I shrunk into the shadows, but he didn’t come down. As quietly as possible, I flew across the hall, through the common room, and back up to the safety of my apartment.
Gena was already there, and we heaved a sigh. “Where are Lily and Nicholle?” she asked anxiously. “I don’t know. That was crazy! He sounded so mad...” my voice trailed off. There was a sudden commotion as my two roommates crashed through the door. We all collapsed in a heap of relief on the couch and started giggling uncontrollably.
Wide-eyed, Gena sobered us up with one comment: “What if we get caught? He sounded really mad. We probably woke up their whole apartment. If they tell...” Her voice trailed off. My heart beat impossibly faster. Lights out was two hours ago. What if we get kicked out? My parents would be so mad... It’s only been a week! This was so dumb. Why did we do this in the first place? These thoughts and others whirled through my mind and I looked at Gena. How could we have put this experience at risk for something so trivial? We could have just waited until tomorrow.
This memory is still vivid to me, because it helped me realize the value of education. It’s not worth risking with silly pranks or trivial rule-breaking. Even though we didn’t get in trouble that night, I vowed that I would take education more seriously, like the privilege it is. Now that I’m at BYU, there are a lot of temptations included in being away from home. Nobody tells me to do my homework or go to bed early. The Honor Code is hard to live sometimes, but breaking the rules isn’t worth putting my education in danger. Learning is sacred, and I know that I need to live my life in a way that I can optimize my university education.
Oh, and here's a picture of the picture. Just for fun.
Oh, and here's a picture of the picture. Just for fun.
0__o hahaha Funny memories
ReplyDelete