Jeff Dinert CP2

I am so excited that the posting is working because I can catch up on my past blogs today. I tried to contact my other conversation partner and haven't gotten a reply as of yet, but I'll keep trying in order to ensure I make my hours and for some heterogeneity, but as it is Hoa and I have met three times, and this is the blog for the second meeting. We went to dinner at Bella Bella, and the decision was made primarily because Hoa hadn't had Italian food prior to the night, and my family is abundantly Italian thus it was decided. So we went on a date so to speak but in the end he went home to his wife, and I to another. I picked him up from his lab at the Chemistry building. He is at class all day at CIES, and thus he has to make up his lab hours primarily on the weekends. So we went to dinner, we sat down and I ordered and appetizer, and then Hoa wrote down the word, and now has that useful tidbit of information about the beginning of most American menu's. I then explained in brief the basics of all the menu items and he seemed to follow, and he had his first Italian meal of fetticini alfredo with shrimp, a salad with creamy garlic dressing, some bubble bread. He had asked me to correct him on his English, and I did with adding S's to plural forms and numbered beyond one terms, and also some of the tenses being present when they were meant to be future or past. This was strange at times for I didn't know if I should be editing every aspect of his speech, or wait until there was a concurrent theme to comment on. I chose the latter method, and he and I began to talk about how to possibly motivate the youth of his country to want to achieve more. He talked about very simply in language, but very understandable, that he didn't know if having a large family who took care of everything and helped one another far into adulthood like traditionally It is in Vietnam helped or hurt kids by not forcing them to take responsibility for themselves. I taught him the word "enabling" in English and said the lack of large family structure in America did in fact encourage us to get out on our own and do what we thought we wanted to do, but it also made us a bit selfish in some cases toward the needs of folks not immediately associated with us sometimes. Anyway, I learned a lot about Hoa and Vietnam, and he learned that I had once gotten in a lot of trouble and when I had to take responsibility for myself is when I found a option to get better with someone beside my families help. Anyway, I showed him how to sweet talk a waitress, and he laughed at me before I paid, and then I took him back to his lab. We would be meeting on Sunday for coffee, but this was good time and very helpful to me in listening and explaining things that he was interested in.