Wah!

Today was V's birthday, so we all went out for mediocre Chinese food to celebrate. I've missed Chinese food more than I can say; it was good to get my fill of MSG and fried bad-for-you food. The buffet had a decent selection of salads and marginally healthier things too, don't worry, I'm not keeling over any time soon. The oddest part was the dessert section, where there was a large bowl filled with ... colored marshmallows. I'm still not entirely sure why, but that didn't stop me from loading up on the gummy bears and the ice cream. Now to find an Asian market and satisfy those mochi cravings ...

After dinner, V took us to see a rope jungle gym that she and K had discovered earlier that week. This turned into a two-hour-long session of rope climbing, picture taking, general tomfoolery , and pretending that we were all of about ten years old, all of which felt fantastic. The night was chilly and silent, with occasional wisps of clouds lighting a feathery halo around the nearly full moon. Our laughter easily carried through the night, irrepressibly bubbling up at any inane, yet inexplicably hilarious comment. We had cake and playground games - Wah!, telephone, ZipZapZop, Boppity Boppity Bop - and laughed until our sides hurt, then laughed some more.

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I really do need to figure out how to describe Wah! to unsuspecting bystanders. My half-assed explanation left us playing somewhere between a two-beat and a three-beat game of Wah!, I can only hope to teach everyone the proper rules and rhythm (like so). Here is a detailed (and coherent!) description of Wah!, courtesy of sk8ngli on the xkcd fora:

Everyone stands in a circle. One person will start by raising their arms above their head with their hands clasped. They will point at another person in the circle while yelling Wah!. The person pointed at will then raise their arms and yell Wah!. The two people immediately to their left and right will then chop sideways and yell Wah!... I was taught to think of it as chopping down a tree. You yell Wah! with your hands going up (becoming a tree) and the people to your sides will chop you down by yelling Wah!. After being chopped down, you have to send your Wah! to someone else in the circle. Thus the game repeats in rhythms of three Wah!'s.

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V turned 21 today. I suppose this is where I'm supposed to muse on being 20, no longer a teenager and soon heading out into the Real World. But the fact is, I don't feel like an adult, I don't feel capable of handling Life as a college graduate, and the thought of no longer being able to laugh like a ten-year-old kid while climbing around on a jungle gym fucking terrifies me. I've spent a good 7/10ths of my time on Earth so far as a student, completely sheltered from reality. In less than two years I'm going to be kicked out of academia (good riddance) and set out to Find My Path, Fulfill My Purpose, Make Enough Money To Eat and Donate The Rest To My College. And there it'll go - jobs, paycheck, mortgage, loans, retirement funds - and before long I'll be the one complaining about young hoodlums laughing their fool heads off at midnight on the jungle gym when they're clearly old enough to know better. They say that college years are the best years of your life ... I just wish I could save a couple minutes from each day so I could relive them when I'm older.

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To get a head start on the Growing Up, I'm starting my spring semester apartment search soon. Students who stay the entire year have a choice of staying with our host families, or moving into a student dorm, or finding our own apartment in the city. I'm going to try to stay close to campus (two thirty-minute one-way hikes to Arabic each week is more than enough, thank you!) and out of the way of any sketchiness. I'm probably going to end up sharing an apartment with several other Spanish students, but have my own room and access to the kitchen/laundry/facilities/internet/etc. Hopefully, I'll get them to play Wah!, too ...