Jason & Susan

Yesterday, Susan watched the movie “Charlotte’s Web” and the thought of spider(s) brought back some memories.

1. The first (and only) time she read the entire book (Charlotte’s Web) was to her students back in 2002. It was her second year teaching 2nd graders at SMIC school, her most favorite class of all the years she has taught. Everyday after lunch, she’d set aside 20 minutes of time to read to her kids in the reading corner. It was the highlight of the day because her kids just absolutely loved listening to stories, but also, they got to learn a new word each day that fell in the category of SAT/GRE vocabulary words. They just love big words like abandon and salutation and gargantuan. It made them feel smart (and they were!). It took several weeks to go through the entire book and near the end of the story, Susan clearly remembered the moment when Charlotte had died, her kids were all teary eyed and feeling sad. It was a moment to remember. Yesterday as she watched the movie, memories of those moments in the corner of her classroom came back to her… 20 of her darling little children sitting on checkered-color mats and listening attentively to various stories and tales. She’d like to think that everytime these students think of the story Charlotte’s Web or watch the movie, they’d remember those precious moments as well. Most are still here at SMIC (Joy, Wesley, Eric, Michael, Grace, Coco, Ethan, Crystal, Alice, JongHyun, Cathy, Austin, Sara, Jenny, Jason) and the rest are scattered all over the world.

2. Not quite as pleasant but fond (and memorable) memory of another spider story was the evening of November 25, 2005, the day before Jason & Susan’s wedding. It was right after the wedding rehearsal that the gang took several party vans to Puxi to have dinner at Bellagio. Jason and Susan, along with several relatives were in one party van, chatting happily about random things when out of the corner of her eye, Susan saw a dark shadow lurking beside her head. She turned her head slowly to see what it was and it was only a split second between registering what the dark shadow was and letting out a heart-stopping screech that caused the driver to swerve on the freeway causing everybody else in the van to screem in the same manner. Thankfully, there were few cars on the freeway, otherwise it’d have been a tragedy rather than a joyous wedding occasion. What appeared to be the dark shadow was actually a spider with body-size of an orange and legs as thick (and hairy) as pencils. It was no exaggeration. Never in her life has she seen a gargantuan spider that size, let alone 3 inches away from her face. After the driver recovered from the sudden swerve, he turned around and yelled what madness was happening in the back. Upon seeing the spider himself, he realized what the commotion was about. One hand on the steering wheel, the other searching around his seat, he pulled out a sheet of tissue and handed it to Susan. @_@ $$#@!! HOW EXACTLY DO YOU SQUISH A SPIDER THE SIZE OF AN ORANGE WITH A PIECE OF TISSUE?!?!?!?!!!!! The driver realized his mistake, fished around the bottom of his seat again, this time handing over a dirty old rag. Jason heroically grabbed the rag, watched/followed the spider’s movement, and with all force and energy, covered the spider, pounded, squeezed, and smeared it until there was no more air underneath the rag. And when the rag was removed, it was not a pretty looking sight. What was left of the spider was a huge blotch of spider gut spread all over the headrest. He gave the rag back to the driver and sincerely apologized for the “damage” done to his van. He just laughed and tossed the rag out the window.