Some moments

I thought something else after scanned my card. Then the door closed. And it can't reopen before 2 minutes blackout time. 

On the other side of the door, a girl also stuck for the same.

She was chatting and joking with others. They were waiting for her. 

Then we started to talk. I didn't know how it began. But it just began. 

'Ah, so we can swap our cards and try from the other side instead.'

'That's a good idea.'

So we exchanged cards over the threshold, scanned from the opposite side. The door opened. We smiled, returned the cards back to each other, and waved goodbye.

When I arrived at the north gate, it was just past 2pm, exactly the minute the gate was closed.

A girl sighed next to me, after trying her card, the same result. 

It started to drizzle.

Then she nodded to me: 'Come on over,  in my umbrella.' 

That was the moment I suddenly realized now it was so easy that someone unknown was willing to open up to me, for no reason.

So we walked side by side under the umbrella, detouring to the front gate. She told me how she hated the canteen food, noodles with beef was barely acceptable, but never with chicken or duck. And now she missed the gate time by just one minute. 

In the short moment of silence, it felt peaceful. Slow and peaceful. Like in the old campus.

Then in a drawing session, the teacher said: From your lines, I can see you are so different from each other. Some are very calm, some are passionate.

The first cube drawing was reviewed. It was calm. There were stains on the paper.

Is it the rain? He asked.

Yes, it was raining when I brought it here.

That is good. He said. Including the stains.

Ice cream, Chips...

Dodo went out to see her friends at noon. Skipped a PE class. It doesn't make sense to stay at home watching a PE session on TV. I fully agreed.
Then I persuaded Zz to have pizza in sun under a spring tree. His classmate passed by, in a mask. He was embarrassed: It's her idea, not me...
Online schooling doesn't work for them. Dodo keeps chatting with friends, Zz can't finish all the homework now and then. If it works, that's true love for study. If not, they are just human.

The online classroom will immediately disconnect when time runs out.
So one day boys counting down in the class chatbox:  3 mins left...  2 mins left...
The teacher finally burst out: I don't need you to count down for me!

One day in the supermarket, transportation was very difficult at that time, so shelves were half empty.
A man walked around, not much to buy. Really no good options.
Then he stopped and took a box of ice cream of last summer.
It was an enlightening moment, yes, ice cream!

I told AQi about this on our way drove back to Dad:
And there was this mid-aged man in the grocery shop: Er, two boxes of chips? Days are rather boring now...
We laughed.

In the kitchen on new year's days, I kept thinking of grandma. The dishes she cooked in those early days. The fried eggs with bamboo shoots. When there was one dish short in springtime, she would say, so let's fry some egg with bamboo shoots, just go and cut a few back in the bamboo forest over there. They were instantly ready. And she always said I was the smart girl that can find the new bamboo shoots.
And many winter noons we walked back home from school, she had that little pot with pork cabbage soup on the oven, rustling and bubbling, the aroma filling up the kitchen.
I never thought of these. They surged up themselves, silently and strong. The powerful old details.

The online schooling talked about the virus situation. Zz watched and ran back to me excitedly: See? The TV program said: Comfort your children and don't let them go panic! Exactly! Come and comfort me: I am panic.
He was scared, weeks before when the numbers kept climbing up every morning.

Then it came the spring: plum, peach, sakura, wisteria, one after another.