Last night was the first IV event of the year. It was an ice cream social/game night for the incoming freshmen during orientation. Since it was an RIT-sanctioned event, we weren’t allowed to promote the club beyond announcing who we were at the beginning, unless the students initiated such conversations. The event was to run from 10pm to midnight, but for some reason setup started at 8. That took all of five minutes, since all that needed to be done was to move tables and chairs into clusters for different games. So, for the rest of the time IV people sat around and talked and played games.
Katlyn had recently had her gall bladder removed. She showed off her scars to several people. When she lifted her shirt, you could see four spots on her stomach with dried blood covered with medical tape, one at her belly button and three above and to the side. “If it was someone else, I’d be disgusted,” she noted. “But it’s me, so it’s interesting.” This pattern, I presumed, was due to an endoscopic surgery, where a camera and other tools are inserted through holes in the skin. I say “presumed” because while I have seen one of these surgeries before, I only saw it from the inside (amusingly enough).
A year and a half ago for the final meeting of my small group, we went to the leaders’ apartment to hang out. One of the highlights was the showing of the video from Julie’s appendectomy back in the sixth grade. She was rather proud of it. We got to see what the surgeon saw as he located and removed the malfunctioning appendix, slicing through various tissue and cauterizing the wounds. I thought it was interesting, though others were less than thrilled.
But back to the present. As more people arrived, the room got quite full, and several groups playing games spilled out into the hallway area outside. I played Apples to Apples for an hour or so with an ever-changing group of players. I won one round by matching “Chewy” with “Brains” (someone else put down “Brain Surgeons” as well). After that petered out, I wandered around and eventually joined a game of Uno with seven others. It went on for quite a while, though I nearly won once. I had just put down my next-to-last card, a wild, and had called it to be green. The next player asked, “Do I have to play a card if it matches?” He held up a card, which I surmised to be a green reverse, and said, “Because if I put this down, he’ll win.” They agreed to let him draw instead, and the game continued. Finally, just before midnight, Jon came around telling people to start finishing up. At that moment, someone put down their last card. He must have a magical game-ending aura about him.
As usual, I stuck around to help clean up. Most of the freshmen left, while most of the IV people stuck around and talked for half an hour more (or kicked a soccer ball around in the middle of the room).