My New Entourage

Right now I have 5 (5!) seniors from a Bronx high school in my room. I don't have a terribly large room. It is 2:13 in the morning.

I signed up to host 1 kid, just 1, from Thursday evening until 8:30 Friday morning. It didn't seem that demanding a task, and I got some free meals as a reward. There were 60 kids visiting in total, as a part of a program from an inner-city high school. All of us St. Lawrence hosts were asked to go to Sykes formal lounge at 6:00 to collect our pre-frosh.

However, admission seemed to run of of hosts, and I was the last St. Lawrence student to get called up to receive his prospective student. At that point, their were 3 students left instead of the expected 1. Admissions lady asked me to take all 3 to dinner until a new host could be contacted, at which point I would be called and my extra kids would be taken elsewhere. That never happened. Furthermore, these kids sort of formed large groups based on existing friendships, regardless of who was supposed to be staying with who. So I found myself as part of a sizable group for the evening, eating, playing pool, playing broomball, watching The Dark Knight, etc. The group was composed largely of African-American and Hispanic students from the Bronx, who seemed happy enough but somewhat baffled by their rural surroundings, and white St. Lawrence kids who were equally baffled to find themselves surrounded by street-smart teens. A couple of hosts seemed to give up and go to sleep, so eventually I found myself with 5 Bronx students under my watch. For the first, and probably last time, I found myself with a posse.

They are all in my room right now. My roommate Dylan just came in, and is chatting with them, taking some of the pressure off me. He was, um, surprised to find 5 times as many kids in his room as I had led him to believe would be, but handled it well. I think they all might plan on sleeping here. I've tossed some blankets and a sleeping bag on the floor, but I have no idea what is going to happen. There currently 2 of them on my giant purple bean bag. It all feels thoroughly surreal.

Also, they are drinking all my apple juice.