Today, Gabriela and I met once again. She was extremely exhausted from her week of writing papers and doing speeches. Apparently for the Intensive English Program here at TCU, each student must present a speech every week, and they have papers due each Friday. This blew me away; I can’t imagine having to do a paper every week. She told me that it is much harder for her to do this than for an English native. She said she gets points knocked off for grammar and such, just because she doesn’t speak the same as an American would. She seemed pretty frustrated by this, and I felt her pain: when I was younger, writing essays were the worst, because I didn’t know all the grammar rules. I don’t know how she does it: speaking Spanish her whole life and then all of a sudden trying to speak and write English fluently—it is crazy! We decided to keep our meeting short and sweet so she could go back to her dorm and rest.
We went to Smoothie King together, and were talking for a while, and then some of her friends came in. They were two boys from Guatemala. When they saw her they came to her and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, and she kissed back (like it was straight out of a movie!). I will admit, I was a bit uncomfortable sitting there. I felt awkward because I didn’t know whether to introduce myself or let them go on their way. I decided the latter would be the least awkward. I actually didn’t realize that there were so many cultures that greet each other with a kiss on the cheek; I thought it was just a European thing. It’s funny how such a small gesture can make someone feel so uncomfortable, just because we are from a different culture.
As we were leaving, she saw my phone light up when I pressed for the time. She saw that the picture on the background was of a dog, and she said, “Is that a husky?!” She seemed excited and I told her that my boyfriend just got a puppy a few weeks ago and it is half husky/half wolf. She was a little freaked out by the whole wolf thing—believe me, I am too—but she told me that she had a husky back home that she loves dearly. She said she missed her dog so much, and I thought it was cool because they named her dog after a myth-type thing, and it basically means love. I have no idea how to pronounce it, and I won’t try to spell it, but you can just believe me on this one. It was cool to find something so simple to talk about that we both love: dogs! :) I had a great time meeting with Gabriela today!
Wow, I had no idea that the program they are all in was so much work. I feel like that would be difficult for me to write a paper every week and I speak and write in English regularly.
ReplyDeleteAs for the kiss on the cheek thing I totally understand what you mean! I visited my sister in Miami, Florida over the summer and a lot of her friends are from Cuba. Every time my sister introduced me to people they would kiss me on the cheek and the first time it happened it was so awkward because I pulled away and then we had this awkward exchange. Its funny how cultures vary so much from ours, especially when a lot of Americans believe that ours is the only one that matters (which is not true).
ps. Don't be scared about the half wolf thing. My Alaskan Malamute was half coyote and they really are just the same as any other dog. :)