Jaime CP4

this is a bit of a cp/tp hybrid. But I figured as it was not rigid instruction I would go with the CP....

Last Monday I tagged along with Yasuko and Katie to go to Mike’s Seafood for some Asian style groceries. Neither Yasuko nor I had been to an Asian store in Tallahassee before, so needless to say we were both excited.

Before we embarked Yasuko tagged along with me to Circle K to watch me get my trust 44 (see: reference to massive drink I tote about with me to every class) The scene was rather comical with Yasuko emitting a chorus of exclamations at the sheer size of the “very American” 44 oz. “Wow, I really feel I am in America! Everything is so --- big!!!” Probably the best part of our Circle K trip was when I began to mix diet dr pepper with diet coke. This blew her mind and she told me I was amazing. My caffeine ways have been called many things, but this was the first time I had been called a genius for my culinary approach of diet/caffeinated drinks. I am pretty sure amazing might not have been the word she was looking for, or that perhaps it was “amazing- you drink this much and you’re not dead.” She mentioned how the servings in the U.S. are so big, and I chuckled and a couple of people stared to see what was so amazing at the coke machine.

“Jaime, is this normal?” I think this is perhaps the most-asked question by Yasuko towards many of the things that I do. How do you tell your language partner- “no, I’m a bit of an odd one”? But then, how many of us TEFL-ers are really so normal? And then, what is normal in American society? It’s hard for me to explain to Yasuko that I cannot think of a “normal” in America- but I can think of an “average” that encompasses certain lifestyles, that these lifestyles fall within a range in respect to what part of the country they live in, and that in respective to this “average range” most of us here fall a wee bit out of the standard derivation…

Lucky for me Katie was waiting and we had a store to get to, but in the future I will have to broach the subject of normality in American culture with Yasuko…

After the store, I again tagged along with Katie and Nic to head to the public library with their conversation partners. While we were browsing books I humorously pulled out a book titled “How to Elope” and showed it to Nic. Nic hands the book to Jongouk , and I have to explain to Jongouk what elope means. He pauses, and ever-so-cautiously asks me “Why are you giving me this book?”