I've Been Almost This Lonely Before

I remember the last time I was this lonely. It was my first year of teaching and being a dorm adviser at LMH.

• I never had enough sleep.
• I didn't hang out with people regularly.
• I always had grading hanging over my head. 
• I was responsible in part for the well-being of so many kids, and the job just never seemed to end. 
• I had no idea where to make boundaries. Of course I had to move all those boundaries over the next two years. 

It was all a bear of a task. What I remember, though, was feeling so lonely. I remember kneeling in child's pose that winter, crying out to God about how damn uncertain and tiring the whole thing was. Was I in the right place? Was I doing this right? How would I know if I was doing it right? Why do I feel so alone, God?It was the loneliest I had been up to that point.

This is a harder life in so many ways, but the fact that I have that experience as part of me makes this one easier. It's a lot of the same, but at least I've done some of it before:

• I never have enough sleep.
• I don't hang out with people regularly.
• I always have grading hanging over my head.
• I'm responsible for my own well-being, and I don't know what that looks like.
• I have no idea where to make boundaries.

Why not just solve one problem, and at least hang out with people more regularly?

It's partly because I need to make new friends to hang out with, and that is a slow process. Deep friendships take time, and shallow ones take energy.

I'm afraid of hanging out with only Americans, because, as I've already seen, they come and go so quickly. I've only been here for nine months, and already I've seen people leave who came here with me. That leaves local friends: Moroccan and other African friends who are likely to stick around. But there's the problem of the language barrier. And there's the problem of my disillusionment with Morocco stemming from the students I teach. It's not been a conscious decision, but if all Moroccans are like my students, how can I ever trust anyone? They lie to me like it's their job.

So, I'm lonely. But I'm not ashamed of it. It's like Jessica and the Reverend Mother, talking together in Dune... 

"I've been so lonely."
"It should be one of the tests," said the old woman. "Humans are almost always lonely."

How I Grade and How I Think

(I began this piece last spring. It's true. I wasn't often working at an optimal mental level for the last three years.)

I was sitting in the park, admiring the stream, having just half-composed a poem about the leaves against the sky. I opened my grading folder, and started in. One paper later, I received a phone call from a friend, also a beginner teacher. "Hey, Carolyn. I'm calling to hear about your grading philosophy..." Hahaha! I couldn't have planned it better. Of course, while this conversation took place, highly gratifying, though it was, nary a paper was graded.
___

Teachers: talk to each other about grading. What does an "A" mean to you? I would be willing to bet a lot of us are actually grading on effort over product most of the time. If you're not "in education," you might find it surprising how many books and classes center on this very issue.
___

I wish I knew how to teach a works cited page and avoiding plagiarism, and to do it calmly. I wish I knew how to do anything calmly. To sit quietly and grade 22 papers fairly and consistently, and afterward to keep my head clear and just do a load of laundry and go to bed.

I wish I knew how to stop watching YouTube clips and move through the day. Why does Buzzfeed have to format their articles with lists and gifs? Lists are my favorite way of organizing my thoughts. My thoughts are like cats, sitting on sofas and tabletops, each prowling, playing, sleeping, and sunning as they have need. And lists are like herding these unlawful creatures into a straight line.

Taking Myself in Hand at a Time of Transition

Take this in-between, through-the-cracks moment, and be quiet:

You are a person made of dust.

If there is glory to be had, don’t reach for it.

If the office is quiet, and the internet is down, go ahead and breathe.

Work will come, or it won’t.

Remember tea in Lachelle and Brian’s kitchen last night?

Remember sleeping in that big bed for the last time?

Remember entering the dorm office, the air scented with something that harkened you back like laughter continuing from a distant room of friends you’ve just left?

Remember that it’s time to go, and that’s right.
Leave now.

You won’t be alone along this road.

But even if you are alone for a while, and your fears materialize: (they haven’t,  yet, but supposing) your car battery fails, and your phone is maddeningly right where you placed it last night and trustingly left the house this morning---supposing all your first and second plans don’t pan out, I mean:

just wait a moment longer.

Your job becomes simpler: breathe and remember.

Someone has jumper cables. You’re someone’s son, someone’s daughter.

The only real disconnection is separation from God. And, thank God! That’s 
something you can remedy even now.

But back to the car: just know that a thousand possibilities swirl around you in times like these.

Raise your head in wonder, reach up, and pluck one star.

You can keep it.

Best of the QuoteDoc (3-Year Edition!)

Insights

“American food isn’t something you need to explain: just put cheese on top, and then eat it… with your hands.” -Vy (2014)

“There’s one thing I need to point out: I said your voice is ‘lovely.’ Did I say it was good?” -Gao (2013)

“Facebook...yeah, I give it 2 months tops before it’s completely dead.” -D’Angelo (2012)

“This looks like a condom package. But it’s actually a love movie.” -Jeffrey (2012)

[In a sing-songy voice] “An apple a day, don’t need to see a doctor!” -Vy (2013)

“Sounds Spanish for ‘I’m pissed.’” -Ben B. (2012)

“The difference between democracy and Communism is that in democracy, you have a cow, and the government takes a percent of milk. In Communism, you have a cow, and the government takes it, and puts you in jail.” -Ivan (2014)

Carolyn: Is there anything you don’t get tired of hearing, Chad?

Chadwick: Yes. “See ya later.” (2012)

“[Chad and I] don’t talk; we just parent.” -Monica (2011)

Carolyn: How unethical is it to use a toaster I confiscated?

Ben B.: It’s called "recycling." (2011)

Exclamations

“F*** my English!” -Song (2012)

Song: Carolyn, Ben died.

Carolyn: What!?

Song: Ben died... B-A-N-D-A-I-D!  (2012)

“You can ask me, I’m a narrative speaker.” -Andy X. (2012)

Vy: Frank, you are dressed like half Ben, half Luis!

Gao: That’s a mixture of disasters. (2014)

“Aww, you would look cute if you had cancer”- Yokabed to Vy, who was wearing a nylon stocking on her head. (2014)

“Hey, don’t be so gaycist” -Vy (2013)

“You have a Moomoo and a Nono. And now a Queenie? Someone has to tell them that these aren’t names. I won’t do it: I won’t say ‘would Queenie please report to the office?’” -Rachel D. (2012)

Could You Repeat the Question?

Adviser: How do you feel, Steven?

Steven: I feel myself. (2012)

Adviser: Frank, in New York, did anyone steal anything from you?

Frank: My father. (2013)

Adviser: Johnny, who are you living with now?

Johnny: My backpack. (2013)

Written:

Andy’s “sickness” was that he “couldn’t move” because his skin hurt when it was touched.  This happened because he took a shower last night, and the window was open.  It “takes a long time” to dry off, and the wind blew on him the whole time.  Ben said that he needed to take care of himself and close the window, but he insisted that he couldn’t do that because it was a was a public area and people would say he was a bad person. -Incident report by Ben H. (2013)

The joy of a misunderstood idiom:

Carolyn: Lachelle, remember that student that tried to hit on us?

Vy: Oh I do that all the time to you guys. (2014)

To lie together vs. to lie together:

(Carolyn to Ben H.) “That’s what our job is, to lie together.” (2014)

Worst-case scenario:

“The first thing we do if there’s a meningitis outbreak is hire a documentary film crew.” -Chad (2011)

Our Faces When...

For three years, Lachelle and I have worked as part of a team at the residence hall. We often wear similar colors, finish each others' sentences, pray together, stay up late at a kitchen table while she does graduate work and I grade papers, or we sit there with tea and talk everything over. 

But what do our interactions with the students look like? Behold, Our Faces When...

... a student sets off the alarm at 1 a.m. for no reason.

... a student refuses to lift the trash bag off the floor, and ends up getting a line of trash juice from the bathroom to the dumpster.

... a student doesn't understand why he is grounded after breaking curfew.

[Photo credit: Vy Ho]

Robin Rescue

I've told you before about the mother robin in her nest that's visible from the dorm office, in a small, gratuitous vista where the windows line up just so. This mother robin may be a different one from that of prior posts, I'm not sure, for she seems to remain quite aloof, never drawing near when some human inhabits the porch. Her babies just hatched three days ago, but had made not a stir upon their arrival, and so I had assumed they were still eggs.

Around 7:30 yesterday morning, I was performing whatever office duties are necessary in those three hours before another soul is awake on a weekend, when a giant, malevolent crow swooped under the gable, batted its wings for a moment in front of the nest, and flew off once more, carrying a hatchling in its beak. In the process, the entire nest was knocked to the ground, leaving four newly-hatched robin babies barely moving about on the cement porch.

A pitiful sight it was: one little brother with tiny fuzzy feathers inched himself around on the porch, subject to the biting morning wind. A smaller one fell out of the sideways nest, and rolled a bit, but could not lift his own head. Neither were old or strong enough, it seemed, even to chirp.

I am ashamed to say my reaction was merely to watch with heartache. I thought surely there was nothing I could do. I had the notion that if I interfered, the mother would not touch her babies again, or worse, I might be subjecting myself to some kind of bird disease. Gloves occurred to me, but only in passing.

Grace, an ambitious, excited tenth-grader who hopes to be a crime scene investigator, had just woken up, and was now keeping vigil with me. Her first remarks, I think, had to do with perhaps intervening, but I gave her my thoughts on the subject, which made her feel that it was impossible to save them. Dissuaded, she began to expound without abstraction on the Darwinian example before us, even asking if she might be permitted to dissect one of the unfortunates. I told her it would be indecent to discuss the matter until they were certainly dead.

The mother robin had returned to find her hard-built nest fallen, one baby taken, another (a large, but entirely featherless one) sprawled out in death, and three barely moving but to shiver. She squawked in anger from the deserted perch. Another robin hailed her, and they surveyed the wreckage. It was tragic; how can I tell you? I wanted to know how an animal comes back after such a devastation; could I learn from her example? She moved from floor to perch to ground to banister, chirping about her losses to the wide sky and the robin world. The crows were not listening. She could not rescue her babes.

Finally, Grace and I surveyed the disaster up close instead of through a window. It looked so easy to push the creatures back into their nest, and put the nest back. Grace was already arrayed in gloves, and fearless, ready for the impending and promised dissection. Without needing the ladder, she had all the living back in place before I had even arrived. We went away, hoping the mother would not reject her young despite our meddling.

But Robin did no such thing. She seemed overjoyed to have her life re-assembled for her. A day later, I see three little craning necks supporting three tiny and vigorous beaks in their rescued nest. The mother flies in and out, in and out to give them each their fill. She needed help. Grace had the courage to give it.

What became of the dead baby bird? I wish I could skip this part: Grace dissected it on a foam plate on the table.

Leaving the Dorm: Thoughts and a Prayer

"You Can Never Go Home Again"
I explain this concept a lot when I talk with residence hall students about returning home. After several months abroad, with unfamiliar food, less-than-clean bathrooms, loud roommates, and boring Sundays, they have in their heads an idealized version of what being at home will be. They imagine the simultaneity of all their favorite things. They imagine being able to control their lives, only sunny days.

I have learned that home is growing even while we're growing in another place. We (who "we" are, precisely, I'm not qualified to say) have this tendency to complain about wherever we are, then to idealize it when it's gone.

It seems right to attempt to disabuse them by explaining the phrase, "you can never go home again." (And I promise I don't whisper it in a raspy voice, like a threat...)

The Menial and the Repetitious
Last night, as everyone was headed to their halls around 10 pm, Wendy (a tenth-grader) and I sat on the floor in the hall, and talked about our impending loss of each other's company. We agreed that even though I would visit next year, "It just won't be the same." What is it about how things are right now that's so good? How is the menial and repetitious so sacred? And why don't we notice it in the moment?

What do I mean by the menial and repetitious? Just the normal stuff.
The people who live here just do normal stuff together:

- We say goodnight five or six nights a week. 

- We eat breakfast together once or twice a week. And when we are sitting there in the cafeteria at 7:20 am, we barely say anything. There is nothing to say. (We clearly stayed up too late last night, and every night.)

- We take the trash out together late at night.

- We laugh at Youtube videos. 

- We complain about the weather. 

- We talk about food, teachers, classes, and homework.

- And on a not-so-rare occasion, we talk about the heart and its workings. 

Next year I'll be on the outside of it all. I'll be back for visits. But it won't be the same, because life is built with the menial and the repetitious. I know that I have already lived some of my greatest moments, and am unaware of what they were: it was something I said, did, or did not say that a student will remember forever, that may change the way he or she treats his or her own kids... and who knows where that ends!?

A Prayer
God,
I'm humbled when I think of the impact of all those interactions, for better or for worse.
If there is glory to be had, may it be yours alone! 

When I Say "I'm a Teacher," I'm Just Getting Started

Lachelle encouraged me to look back over the day and look honestly at what I had done. Who knows? This kind of data may be too tedious for the average reader. But I found it interesting to take a minute-by-minute look at one of the busier days of this week. I recently read in an article that we only think we are busy because we see it as a symbol of status. We take pride in our busyness, as though it meant we are important. I am getting over that. I find less and less joy in too-busy-all-the-time girl, and more and more fulfillment in can-look-you-in-the-eye-and-listen girl. As I looked at this hourly, I found a few things to be true: 1.) people matter most. 2.) variety is a joy. 3.) class prep time matters,too, and even though people matter most, don't let people take that away from you!

6:30-8:30 am     Office shift: dealt with some sick kids; scrambled to schedule two doctor's appointments for two different students with two different problems

8:30-9:50 am     Prayer Action Team meeting in my apartment--so convenient!

9:50-10:22 am   Usually this is my preparatory time for class. It was instead taken up with talking about a truant student who caused a commotion near the gym.

10:27-12:14 pm     English 9 (winging it more than I like)

12:14 pm     Help RH student back into the dorm to find her glasses; run into lunch date friends I had nearly forgotten about; ask them to wait just a moment while I deal with glasses; forgot to check to make sure all sick kids had gone into school.

12:18-12:44 pm     Hang out with these two dears who had come to visit as many teachers as they could, and instead found that they were not allowed, and could only enjoy their lunches with a very distracted, overly-caffeinated teacher that neither of them had had officially.

12:48-1:31 pm     Academic Writing class (I have to skip out during the free write to do the copying that I didn't do in the morning or during lunch)

1:31-1:45 pm     Cover for another teacher who had to pop out for some brief thing.

1:45 pm     Call mechanic. Bill is less than half of my greatest fear. I will keep the car.

1:45-2:08 pm     Do odds and ends around classroom. (Each thing is small, but as a whole, they are the difference between teaching during class and just moving papers from bookshelf to desk to podium and back for 43 minutes.)

2:08 pm     In the school office, finding answers to attendance questions. On the phone, finding advisers to give rides to aforementioned students with nearly simultaneous doctor's appointments in different locations. It is decided that I will take one of the students... everything will work out.

2:10-2:30 pm     Blank space. I have no idea. I think I tried to find some food in my apartment. Unsure if I was successful.

2:30-4:30 pm     Trip to dentist to get student a root canal.

4:30-4:35 pm     Stop to get someone birthday present.

4:35-5 pm     Drive back. Stuck in traffic behind wreck. Realize I must hurry because of senior presentation night.

5-5:25 pm     Dinner at cafeteria. The hardest part of the evening, dealing with some relational struggles among staff... left early when Ben arrived so I could be anywhere else.

5:25-5:50 pm     Being present in dorm office.

5:50-7 pm     Finding food in apartment. Reading Anne of the Island.

7:15-8:30 pm     View two senior presentations. (These, in some form, are required for all seniors to graduate in Pennsylvania.)

8:30-9:50 pm     Grading notebooks in classroom.

10-10:35 pm     Saying goodnight to girls on my hall.

10:35-11:20 pm     Praying and listening in the lounge with one student and Lachelle.

11:20-11:30 pm     Talk with Lachelle about issues from the day.

11:30-12:30 pm     Blog, grade, Facebook, Hulu, YouTube, etc.

Lies I'm Tired Of

All my life, I've been told, I've been sold,
that my skin is too pale.

On the other side of the world,

Leixin has been told, has been sold,
that her skin color is too dark.

And now we're sitting across from each other in the library,
bravely whispering, discovering how we've been shamed,
and how we've thought we were ugly
for no FUCKING reason.






Alternate ending #1

...and how we've thought we were ugly.

I'm done buying it.

Alternate ending #2

...and how we've thought we were ugly
to please no one but a liar
who delights in our misery.

Immovable Object, Meet Unstoppable Force

Maggie, a student here, is obsessive-compulsive when it comes to her bed. She wants it to be clean. So clean. It must remain clean. Each night, after her shower, she goes right across the hall, changes quickly, and gets in bed before she has the chance to encounter any more dirt.

On Wednesday afternoon, people were coming in and out of the dorm, claiming their children and their children's clothes for the five-day holiday. One student's five-year-old sister, Sara, was running through the halls at this time. Sara has Down Syndrome, and she is the busiest kid I've ever met. She runs and runs. She runs to the edge of the stairs on the girls' hallway, looks around, then goes down the stairs and up to the boys' hall. She's tough to catch up with, and impossible to stop.

Maggie and a few other girls happened to be with me in my kitchen that afternoon, when Maggie's roommate came in, asking in Chinese who the little girl was. We told her, and she said, "She came into our room, looked around, and went to Maggie's bed. She moved all the covers, and left!"

Maggie bolted out of my kitchen to collect her sheets and blanket, and immediately did a load of laundry. Maggie's roommate stayed in the kitchen, looking puzzled. "I don't understand it," she said, "She just came in, went straight to Maggie's bed, then left. It's like she knew."

Friday Moment

This happened and you have to believe me.

I had taken my class to the library for a research paper, and we were getting settled down to do work. Ashley, a student who used to live in the residence hall, stopped me and took me by the shoulders, and placed me to the side of the computer aisle. She then proceeded to run past me for a total of five feet. I was dumbfounded, without a clue. She then whispered in my ear, "Do you smell the perfume?"

I eventually had to kneel on the ground I was laughing so hard.

Sorry, Bugs

Prompt: If you could be any animal...

I wouldn't. I love my life. But I wonder what the bugs must think. I hope they don't have higher orders of processing. Honestly, it seems unlikely. But, oh! the horror if they knew how despised they are on the girl's side of the residence hall.

People scream at the sight of them. So unclean are they, the little black bugs with an orange, striped pattern on the back, that a girl under 18 will never be found to touch one, indeed, will not even suffer being in the same room as one. They are the root cause of such upheaval, that they must feel the weight of their presence, their sheer unwanted-ness.

When a girl does muster the courage to touch one, it is only by force of a shoe, or a box of tissues, thus ending the life of the unappreciated being.

It's wrong, bugs, and I'm sorry.

Third Year Goals

School has started, and God is just as good as ever! I feel unsettled and unruly in my heart, though, and I can't imagine what would quiet me. I doubt I'd do it if I knew. I am ready to call it fatigue and leave the question to be sucked up by the fan in the window.

I'm undertaking a few challenges this year, friends. The first is a prayer challenge: to pray in the girls' lounge for a half an hour two nights a week, from about 10:15 - 10:45. The second is to read one book from my writing class's reading list every two weeks. I often say, rightly, that I don't have time to read; but I want to make time, because I enjoy reading and because I have the happy excuse of calling it career development.

This being my third at the residence hall, I have two points, and am able to finally draw a navigation line between them. Year one, I thought my job was tough, filled with apathetic or annoying teenagers who were inherently my excuse for not building community. Year two, I thought it was my sole job to build a community, to pray it into being, and then, when I failed, to accept that I should have done more and better.

Year three, it seems obvious now that building a community is not something a person can do alone. There's no amount of willpower or hard work that can form it. No way. It takes a friggin' village, and the grace of God. The residence hall is a village. Sorta. By the end of last year, it was time for me to admit that the students of the RH were a big part of my community, and therefore my calling and my ministry.

Also of note, a writing student informed me today that she is considering getting a tattoo of a semi-colon, because though the sentence seems to have stopped, like life, it goes on. Awesome.

A Dorm Story: What I Learned About Knees

Students were getting in and out of a taxicab minivan in front of the residence hall. Lachelle and I happened to be talking there when we suddenly noticed that Krysta, a student from China, was leaning pitifully on the floor of the minivan, awkwardly situated with her knee. 

Upon closer inspection, we found that her kneecap had dislocated, and it lay at an odd angle, frightening the poor girl almost as much as the pain. It became evident that in no way was she moving from the edge of the cab.

Lachelle went to find crutches, of which the dorm has an abundance for reasons untold. We called 911, and waited. I suggested that the perplexed cabdriver keep his meter running, for she could not move even the vertical meter upward to sit in the van and be taken to the Emergency Room. She could not, in other words, have chosen a more expensive seat upon which to become immobilized.

To make matters worse, the tough but shy Krysta was “parked” directly in front of the residence hall entrance, and it happened to be dinner time. Students were pouring out, wondering and gawking. Krysta, did not hesitate to tell them, I’m pretty sure, to keep moving and to mind their own business. 

When the EMTs arrived, we had racked up a sizable cab fare. But Krysta was treated almost immediately in the ER, and experienced great relief, after which we waited for three hours to get the x-ray and its results. 

If you’ve ever had knee trouble, you know the story does not end there. We were in and out of physical therapy for the rest of the school year. As inconvenient as that continued to be, it was actually an incredible use of time, because I got to know Krysta on these frequent drives, and she got to see that the advisers cared for her. I found that she was not actually shy, and that she had a great interest in a friend of mine: Jesus. The story continues this fall. In the meantime, some morals:

Moral 1: take care of your knees,

Moral 2: especially when the only seat available is going to charge you by the minute.

Things That Are Not True

(but that are hard not to think during study hall in April, and which will become even harder not to believe in May), a list:

• Teenagers will never grow up
• I am a failure as a human being
• No one understands
• This moment will last forever
• I will never finish my grading
• I will never become a patient, understanding person
• God is not speaking to anyone anymore
• Jesus already came again, and we've been left behind

Why My Job is Weirder and Better Than Yours

I present two examples.

The first, on Wednesday evening, while I was "off duty," I spent over an hour at Goodwill in search of a leopard print blouse and stiletto heels to create a costume for our activity on Friday evening. Later that night, 11:30 pm found me in the downstairs girls' hallway, opening a series of large boxes, and itemizing each object on a long sheet in order to ship the whole lot to China the next day. There was no avoiding these tasks, thereby qualifying them as indispensable parts of the job.

The second: my residence hall mailbox currently holds the following items: a water bottle, a dirty spoon (which is not my own), an opened paper clip with which I attempt to pick the lock on the filing cabinet when I have locked my keys in my apartment, a shipping label for the box situation above, a handmade dice that I roll when I feel stressed, red lipstick, and a toaster.

Saved from Homogeneity

Not long ago, I had the high privilege of sitting down to lunch with seven students. We were talking about language, and we were able to discuss idioms in Korean, French, Spanish, Mandarin, Cantonese, and Vietnamese, all in English. Then, the ceiling opened up, and a light shone from heaven, and a dove descended. And a chorus of voices in these languages said what I'm sure was, "this is diversity, in which God is well pleased."

Adviser Advice

On the last week of school last year, I asked Lachelle, Chadwick, and Ben what advice they might give all advisers everywhere, having survived the job for three, seven, and two years, respectively. I remind myself of them today for two reasons: first, because the students will return to the residence hall in two days (after which there will be students in the residence hall non-stop for the next six months), and I want to remember these sage words as I begin the long plodding; and secondly, because I had written them in last year's planner, which can now safely be thrown away. Without further ado, here were their responses:

"If you don't know what to do, use Google." -Chad

"Get off campus at least twice four times a week." -Ben B. 

"You don't need an answer right away." "Slow down." "Unless it's time to call 911." -Chad, Lachelle, Ben

"Avoid all students on your day off." -Ben B.

"Even the students you like are going to do horrifically stupid things." -Chad

"Know your limits." -Lachelle

"You can like people and not trust them at the same time." -Chad

Study Hall Tonight

Frank exclaims, "what happened!?" as the printer spews forth many more pages than he anticipated.  Later, I approach him to lower his voice, and he gives me a self-deprecating smile, plaintively confessing, "I am going away." Suddenly, I hear a soft, high voice singing. Little, happy Vy is contentedly  reading some very thick classic while listening to an opera, which she apparently knows by heart. Now how am I gonna shut that down?

I am suddenly overcome with one of those flooded moments: these people are precious. I look over at Andy, the very big, very loud guy, who is right now hunched over his math problems, not making a sound.

I look over to see a girl furtively toss a social studies book to two others at the table next to her. It falls just short and crashes in a splayed mess on the floor. The three girls look up wide-eyed. I turn and bite my lip to keep from laughing out loud.

Meanwhile, Frank bounces over to the three-hole punch at the circulation desk. In one swift motion, his papers and the three-hole punch are on the floor. And that is it. I burst out laughing, exactly in the manner that I go about shushing all evening, and though I try, I can't quite contain it; hiding my face in the 500s section, I wipe away tears. Some days, keeping people quiet is an impossible joke.

Why Hugging a T-Rex is Not Funny

I wrote a joke on the whiteboard in the residence hall a while back: "Reminder: Sunday is hug a T-rex day!"

Nono and Qing walked in and saw the board. They discussed it together in Mandarin, but eventually the conversation flowed over to me:

Qing: What is a trex?

Me: It is a big dinosaur.

Qing: A dinesor? What is?

Me: With motions. You know, raaaarrrr!

Nono: Oh! She tells Qing in Mandarin what I'm talking about.

Qing: Less confused for a moment, then re-confused. Why should we hug it?

Me: Suddenly at a loss. Because, probably nobody ever hugs them.

Qing: It's dangerous.