Okay, so I’m thinking Next House is pretty awesome after all, if only for the fact that 4W totally trumps every other wing in the building. And if you need evidence to convince you, just take a look at what we were doing last night!
… what do you mean you have no idea what we’re doing? What do you mean half of those people don’t even live on 4th West? Quite clearly it’s an amazing dinner study break, and I’ll zoom in on the goods to show you…
Yes, dear readers. That is indeed the venerable feast called hot pot! The story to this enjoyable meal, however, was more than extraordinary; it all started when Hongyou sent a bunch of people a cryptic e-mail stating simply, “Hot pot at 5 or later in 4W lounge.” Intrigued, I scuttled over to investigate what kind of flimsy meal was being prepared for us. I was in for a shock, though; she had gone overboard and bought a bunch of things for us to munch on. There was bok choi, bamboo, broccoli, squid, shimp/fish balls, spinach, noodles, tripe, lettuce, beef, and much more. Several other people who had been hovering around, once they realized this was going to be a HUGE dinner, decided to pitch in their own foods.
I made grass jelly and almond tofu for everyone, although only a few were brave enough to try the dark-coloured jelly. Also, the method with which I made the almond tofu was really makeshift - I had no pot to put on the stove, so I just got out my electric hot water pot and boiled the water in there, and poured it into three paper bowls to put in the fridge, haha.
Anyways, so after we finished preparing the meal (which involved me biking to Macgregor Convenience to get drinks after ours were stolen from the basement kitchen’s and getting rained on pretty badly), we called all of 4W over to eat and were joined with vagrants from all over the place - 4E, 3rd floor, 2nd floor, and even other dorms such as Burton-Conner. We all gathered around the hot pot and took turns stuffing things in and extracting them again with our disposable chopsticks, all the while laughing, talking, and enjoying ourselves while the movie 21 played in the background.
After the food was gone and most of the non-4Westers had left, we gathered in our usual place at the elevator lounge to do p-sets, play cards, engage in another game of Contact, and welcomed Chao’s friend as she sought refuge at MIT while Harvard was having a power outage. All in all, an extremely memorable and enjoyable first weekend with all my newfound friends =)
New template!! Awesome post!