Conversation Numero Uno

This one didn’t seem to post last week so here it is a week later:

Today (Monday Jan. 31), I met my conversation partner, Shinhye. We had been communicating via text trying to decide what day and time to meet up. I had been swamped all day and I felt a cold coming on, so I was a little less than enthusiastic about giving an hour of my time to a complete stranger. All I wanted to do was go home and nap but I couldn’t bring myself to reschedule when we were only an hour away from meeting. When I saw her she jumped up and hugged me. Shinhye appeared extremely perky and told me over and over how excited she was to meet with me. I wish so badly that I would have been capable of having that same attitude, but it just wasn’t happening that day. I told her I was under the weather and tried to put a genuine smile on my face. I really wanted to be engaging and lively but after four hours of class and a three-hour lecture movie thing, my brain was mush.

Shinhye is from South Korea and has come to TCU to study English and advertisement. I assumed she would know more languages because people always say that America is the only country where people know just one language. Contrary to my assumption, she knows about as much Japan as I know Spanish (about 6 words). I consider her blessed because her stepbrother, also 19, is also studying at TCU. I told her I thought she was very brave to come to America but also very smart for bringing her brother with her. I told her of my family and she told me of hers. I couldn’t imagine being so far from home with no one. I’m having a hard time deciding to study abroad for five weeks and she wont see her family for at least six months!

There were terribly awkward silences but I was too dead to really care to fix them. I must’ve seemed like a horrible language partner. The communication was difficult, especially since she would never stop me if she didn’t understand. It took me a while to pick up on that. I thought if she didn’t know what I was saying she would at least get a confused look on her face but she would just sit there nodding and smiling. There were several times when we were forced to give up on a topic because one of us couldn’t make the other understand what we were saying. Eventually we both just sat there staring at one another. She laughed because she felt uncomfortable. I smiled but I wasn’t uncomfortable. I was brain-dead so it was time to say goodbye. She told me to see a doctor and get medicine because she worries for my health. I thought that was really sweet considering she just met me. She told me to get plenty of rest and I assured her I would. We said our goodbyes and I went home to nap.