Extreme Ping Pong: Conversation Partner Recap #4

Thankfully, the weather didn’t mess up our ability to play Ping-Pong this week. I met my conversation partner downstairs in the rec center. After talking about how our weeks went and what our Ping-Pong “skills” were like, we quickly started to play Ping-Pong. After warming up and explaining that besides the serve the ball shouldn’t bounce on her side, we were ready to see how Ping-Pong went. We were pretty good at Ping-Pong, besides the fact that a lot of the time we weren’t even hitting the table. We were playing “extreme ping pong”.

While I was running side-to-side and stretching to try and get the ball, we started talking about our summer plans. Mine included teaching at a tennis camp, and hers was going to California and then coming back to teach musical theatre camp. She told me that she would let me know when she was back, so that I could see the camp.

Throughout our game, students from the IEP program were walking past and saying hi to my conversation partner. It was really fun, because I got to experience a bit of the IEP community, and learn their names and countries when they walked past me. My conversation partner even called out to some of her friends in Arabic and said that she only knows a few words.

We also discovered that we were both Catholic. Something that was completely new because we had never discussed religion before. In her town, there are only Catholics, even though her country is officially Muslim. She also said that in her country, no one judged you by your religion and that the religions had all united together in some of the current events.

Since we were talking about religion, we talked about our Easter plans, which both include singing in our churches’ choirs. I also invited her to come and attend mass with me since her host family is Methodist. Throughout our Easter talk, we discussed how in America a big part of Easter is the chocolate. In her country, they focus more on Jesus and religion during Easter rather than the presents. We also discussed how her family is feeling about Easter since her and her brother won’t be there for this Easter holiday.

Back to ping pong, we also played around with how we were hitting the ball. I started off trying to switch to my right hand (I’m naturally left handed). That was an interesting experiment and gave us a lot of laughs. Even though, I have to say I wasn’t too bad at the whole right-handed thing. Playing with both hands on the paddle was a bigger challenge, and was a lot of fun. We spent a lot of time laughing as we tried (and failed) to play Ping-Pong. Ever the clumsy human being, I didn’t walk away from this meeting completely unscathed. When retrieving the ball, I misjudged the distance from the chair, and ended up whacking my eye into the corner of the chair. I was wearing glasses, so thankfully there was no damage.

Towards the end of our meeting, we discussed classes, and my conversation partner brought up how she needed to attend a lecture for her IEP program. She needs to attend a class lecture in English. We discussed which lectures I was in, and which ones she would be able to attend. I’m very excited for her to attend one of my classes and learn more about my major and what I do with my life.  

One of the big challenges of today, was trying to talk while we were playing Ping-Pong. It was a loud environment, so it was hard to hear and understand what each other were saying. Thankfully, that was our biggest challenge, and one that is easily solved. It was great to hang out with my conversation partner and play Ping-Pong. I'm not sure what we will be doing for our next meeting, but I know it will be fun! 

I promise I can spell... (Unrestrained Laughter #2)

I think one of the most unrestrained incidents of laughter happens when you are laughing at yourself. Wait, let me set the scene:

It was a Friday night in the BLUU Ballroom, my friends and I were going to the Murder Mystery Dinner to celebrate my birthday, and also because who is going to turn down free food? We were turning in our ballots to decide who the murderer was. Since I was the birthday girl, and the loudest one at the table, I was allowed to handle our ballot. Right before I went to turn in the ballot, I realized that I had spelled the suspect’s name wrong. It wasn’t just a little wrong, it was extremely wrong. I tried to hold onto the ballot and fix the name, but the sheriff that was collecting the ballots assured me that A) they don’t grade on spelling, and B) it would in no way affect my GPA. So a little unwilling, I turned over my ballot and all was fine. Until he came back a few minutes later, chuckling and saying that he had never had anyone spell the suspect’s name like that. Already, my friends were cracking up because the WRITING major couldn’t spell something properly. Also I was sitting at an all honors college table, so it was even worse.

The laughter would have eventually stopped if that was the last time it was brought up, but I was not that lucky. Before the sheriff called out the ballots, he mentioned that he wouldn’t count spelling. My table again broke out into loud peals of laughter. I’m pretty sure my face was bright red at this point from a combination of embarrassment and laughter. We anxiously waited for our table name to be called, and finally it was. The actors proceeded to laugh at my spelling and made fun of it for a few minutes. I had spelled PonZee, as Ponsy. They spelled it out to the crowd and tried it with a new accent. The entire incident was hilarious to the ballroom, and to my table. But, it didn’t stop there.

The actor who played PonZee, stopped in front of our table and growled out “Who did it?” My table quickly rejoiced and pointed at me. I had no words, I was laughing too hard to say anything in my defense. He quickly came over to my side of the table, looked down at my program and pointed out his name. It was already opened to the page… I smiled and my table continued laughing.

This incident was hilarious because you wouldn’t expect the writing major to be a bad speller. I was supposed to be the one who could write the name down correctly, and I failed. Big time. It was also funny because of how the actors dealt with my misspellings, I knew that none of the teasing was actually meant to upset me and it was pretty funny. A lot of the humor in this story is also situational. We had seen people get teased all night, we were at a funny murder mystery, and so we were already in the mindset to laugh and be entertained. This helped us find an ordinary situation funny. My friends seemed to find the incident extremely funny, and it made the night a lot more fun. I think that my willingness to laugh at myself when I misspelled the name helped my friends find the situation funny. I knew that no one was actually being mean in their laughter, and I was laughing too. Plus, it is almost always better to laugh than sulk when embarrassed and it’s not like it actually affected my GPA (thank God). 

Hanging out in Union Grounds (Conversation Partner Recap #3)

Unfortunately, it seems like the weather likes messing with my plans to spend time with my conversation partner. We have already had difficulties planning meetings due to the ice, but now the rain has had its say too.

On Friday, we were supposed to go with her IEP group and play volleyball. I was extremely excited because I loved hanging out with the other girls in the IEP program when we went rock climbing, and volleyball has been one of my favorite sports to play since I played in middle school. However, the weather decided that volleyball wasn’t going to happen.

Instead I met with my conversation partner in Union Grounds and we spent some time talking with each other. We started off our conversations by talking about our weeks and how much homework we had and how busy our weeks had been. She had a normal course load and I felt like absolutely everything was due on Friday. We also talked about the fact that I had Body Project training this weekend and that my birthday was on Sunday, March 22. She made sure to text me on my birthday, and I put her birthday in my phone so that I can make sure to tell her happy birthday!

We kept discussing school and I found out that my conversation partner is close to graduating the IEP program! I was extremely excited for her, and I know I will be sad to see her leave. It’s great that she is graduating though so she can start working on her college degree. I know that she will do great in her field.

 Beyond talking about school, we took some time to talk about TV shows and, of course, Netflix! I was interested in understanding the types of TV shows that she had in her country. I wanted to know if there were different genres of TV shows. She told me that there were many different genres of TV shows, but they also can see American shows. The genres of shows that we discussed were game shows, news, and talent/singing shows. It was interesting to see how American shows were similar in genre to the shows she had in her country, and how far American pop culture can travel.

Beyond talking about TV shows, we just sat around and had a regular conversation. It was interesting to me to see how easy it was to talk to her even though her first language wasn’t English. I didn’t really have to actively watch my words, though if I noticed that she didn’t understand a certain word I was able to find another word that she did understand. Unfortunately, her “mom” came to pick her up early. So we didn’t get to spend as much time hanging out as I would have liked.

This week though we decided to play it safe and pick an activity we could do indoors. Hopefully, the weather won’t be able to wreck an indoor activity! Though I should probably go and knock on wood now… It will be fun getting to pick back up my ping pong skills (not that I actually have any), when we go play ping pong this week!