IT'S PARTY TIME! RING IN THE NEW YEAR.

THE HAPPIEST

READY.....AIM....

TOSS!
Dave and I were working on final grades. We’d finished giving final exams five days ago. We wouldn’t be seeing our students again until next semester, the end of February. Dave said, “I miss our kids. Let’s give them a party!” So we got on the phone and called our class monitors, asking them to contact the students in each of their classes. (We’ve yet to meet a student who doesn’t have a cell phone.) Students in our university are organized by majors (classes), most of them are dormmates and take all the same classes together so passing the word would be easy.
There was no school January 1 and 2 and many students had gone home, but we had over 100 show up New Year’s night in the classroom one of our students had reserved for us.
As each student entered the room, we pinned a clothespin on his or her shirt. If any student slipped and spoke Chinese instead of English during the evening, another student could steal his clothespin. There was a prize for the person wearing the most clothespins at the end of the evening.
We had a cameraman take pictures of students and later projected them on the screen to award prizes for the happiest expression, the saddest, the funniest and the scariest.
We played “ Simon Says” and I got all but three out when I said, “Simon says point to your cheek.” (while I pointed to my chin.)
This university has one of China’s top-notch aeronautical engineering schools so we thought it fitting that we have a paper airplane making and throwing contest. Standing at the front of this huge classroom that seats over 200 students, the prize went to a student who gave his plane a toss, and it flew across the length of the classroom and out the back door!
More games were played and it was a fun evening. For us though, the best part was to be able to be with some of our students again before our long absence from them.
To our students reading this who didn’t hear about the party, we’re SO sorry if the word didn’t get to all of you. We missed you!