Attack of the Freshmen!

My interactions with freshmen this year have greatly increased. One obvious reason is that I am now teaching 3 freshmen oral English classes. Commonly my students will ask me to help them with certain things throughout the year, like judging contests, which I have done twice this past week. Other times they will ask me for tips about how to study or find information about something specific, like the girl who asked me to give her tips on how to read Hamlet...that was an interesting lunch...

But the freshmen that I refer to here, THESE freshmen, are different. These freshmen are not my students but they launch attacks on me any spare chance they get. These freshmen usually get me when I am walking back from class and they sneak up on me without any notice, without any chance for me to plan my defense. These freshmen are the ones who say the same two predictable statements every single time. First, "Where are you from?" Second, "I want to be your friend!" Really? They want to be my friend after hearing me say one word? How do they know I'm not a mad scientist or a prison escapee or part of the mob? Haha...okay, maybe my appearances don't suggest those things but you just never know... :)

So, as I have had no choice but to succumb to these attacks, I have repeatedly been the victim of "helping out with something," you know, like things that good friends who have known one another for 15 seconds do for each other.

There is one Chinese teacher on campus who has decided to assign her freshmen oral English classes to conduct a free-talk interview with a foreigner, preferably an American or Canadian. Seeing as how there are about 5 Americans and Canadians on campus we, and by "we" I mean "I," am doing most of the interviews. So far I've had 5 free-talks, about an hour long each, with groups of freshmen, all ending in a promise from them to be my forever friend and to teach me Chinese...sigh... One group even ambushed me in a classroom where I teach and begged me to do the interview until I broke and conceded to their interrogations. Maybe I should assign my oral English classes to conduct an interview with a certain Chinese teacher named Ms. ------!

In the end, the only thing I can do is follow the little guy below... I surrender!!!