I Miss the Power

So the year will have been 2016. In my part of China the last thunderstorms of summer come with a vengeance, and we'd had one that stripped the university of power the very night before orientation. So this occidental (the pun is barely acceptable so I'll only make it once) awoke to the prospect of welcoming hundreds of fresh-faced freshmen to a campus bereft of electricity.

Now our Dean of Faculty was and is a most redoubtable lady. How best to describe her? Well, on that day my thoughts turned to my namesake Conrad, or perhaps the great American Melville. Which is to say, she reminded me of Captain MacWhirr in Typhoon, or Ahab, if a successful orientation was her whale.

Because she was not going to cancel.

Picture if you will a woman for whom cancellation was NOT EVEN AN OPTION.

If she'd considered it at all, she'd long since rejected it out of hand.

We WOULD greet the second deluge to hit us in as many days, here at the finest college buildings in the whole Shang Dynasty. Here in the barren Choukoutien caves where the earliest Chinese hunter-gatherers hunkered. And if quitting wasn't on the table for our Dean of Faculty, then let it be understood it wasn't going to be for any of the rest of us either.

She was magnificent that day.

I'd already admired her very much before then, but that was when I realised I was always going to.

What is it Grant Morrison has Wolverine say to Cyclops in his first issue of X-Men? "Know what I like most about you, Summers? Your ice-cool insanity under pressure."

Or then again, maybe it's more what Ed Harris says when he's facing the press in Apollo 13:

"Personally I think this is going to be our finest hour."

So greet the freshmen we did. In the shells of seminar rooms with no projectors, no sound-systems, no electric lights. I remember singing to my contingent using a battery radio and a headset mic with my USB of backing-tracks plugged in. With that same hunk of crackly plastic in hand I was later conducting a tour of the grounds, towering buildings still dark-windowed under a sky of ominous black, when the Principal passed us and cheerily offered me an extension on my contract. The man picks his moments.

I've already mentioned nautical themes were on my mind, and in due course I let our newcomers know that in case they hadn't noticed already, here at this university we run a tight ship. The Dean heard me, and I don't think she knew that particular English figure of speech, because she was delighted. She announced to the freshmen at once that there was a new idiom for their burgeoning modern-language vocabulary, a gift on their very first day.

See what I mean about her?

Now, there's something you need to know about the Dean to fully appreciate what's to come, and that's that her favourite song isn't a Chinese one as you might have expected. Rather, it's Lemon Tree, and not even the version you're thinking of, but the 1996 chart hit of that name by German pop group Fool's Garden. You're also going to need to know what the front of Building One looks like, so just before we continue, see below...

As it had been very much the Dean's day, she closed it in fine fashion by leading the hundreds-strong cohort of freshmen in a strring rendition, necessarily a capello, of her all-time fave. Now the thunderstorm had never really gone away, so picture if you will that vast choir arrayed where my student and I are standing, lightning illuminating the turbid heavens pretty much directly overhead. I will tell you know, I wouldn't have much fancied being one of the freshmen who had to stand in a puddle. Orientation 2016 might have made a downright spectacular finish.

But we belted it out. Do you happen to know the song?

If so...then yes. I kid you not.

If this were a work of fiction you'd be crying out by now that it's all a bit of a contrived coincidence. But I'm telling you, that's the way it happened.

First line of the second verse:

"I'm sitting here, I miss the power."

True story!

Oh, our voices carried far above the tempest on that one! What a day it had been, but at long last we were through. And we'd made it. A veritable testament to one Dean's sometimes-terrifying vision, and the indefatigable spirit of China. Being there to hear that nation sing is now among the moments of my life I'm most thankful for.

None of us will ever forget orientation 2016!

You can read Staringale's original challenge here, and I hope it inspires you to write your own power outage story!