Meeting Jacira

I finally was able to meet my conversation partner today. We had had a little trouble finding a time that worked for both of us, but have now figured it out! 

I met my convo partner, Jacira Dombolo, at Union Grounds after walking all the way across campus in the bone-chilling wind. 

I went to shake her hand with my icy fingers, but she greeted me with a hug. I knew in the back of my mind that this would happen because I have Brazilian friends who greet everyone with a hug and a kiss on the cheek. Since Jacira is from Angola, a Portuguese speaking country, I figured the greeting style might be similar. 

After introducing ourselves and clearing up how to pronounce her name, we began asking each other questions. They were simple questions. Small talk questions like "what are you studying?" and "is English hard to learn?" Jacira speaks English pretty well and is not shy. She told me her father speaks English well because he has been in America for business before. She started learning English from him and her older brother before coming to study in America. Her older brother will soon graduate from TCU and after Jacira is finished with the English program, she will begin taking classes at TCU. 

I asked her if learning English was difficult and she said yes of course. Well, I told her that learning Portuguese was hard too! It’s funny how one’s native language seems so easy to them but when a new language is introduced how difficult it is to learn it. I wish that learning new languages was not hard because I would love to be able to speak in other languages and communicate with more people than just English speaking people. I don’t know if it would be a good or bad thing to be able to learn languages easier. The world would probably be a lot different than it is.

So, first meeting with my conversation partner went awesomely. There really was not an awkward feeling between the two of us, which I am thankful for. I am excited to get to know Jacira a little bit better this semester as we continue to meet.

Until next time Jacira!

Unrestrained Laughter #1

The other night my friend Ally and I were watching a new TV series on HBO when we probably should have been studying, or doing something else productive. This new show is called Togetherness. I think it is pretty good and is worth a watch.

In this one particular episode the two male best friends are driving in the car on their way back home from sort of a disappointing evening. One of the friends is an audio technician for movies and the other is an actor who has been out of work for a good while. The audio technician tried to make amends with the director of a new film that was just released, but the director basically laughed in his face. The actor's night started out fine when he got to meet one of his idols in the movie industry. It all started going down hill when his friend (who is a woman) started hitting on the actor's idol. Well, at the end of the night the more famous person gets the girl and the out-of-work actor goes home with his best friend.

So, back to the two friends driving home. The one driving the car suddenly pulls the car over to the curb in an attempt to cheer his friend and himself up. He turns on a song. Cranks up the music. And the two immediately and simultaneously begin air drumming. This is the scene that brought on our fit of laughter. For some reason the air drumming was comical to Ally and I. Of course it is acted out and not real, but this scene brought tears to our eyes because we were laughing so hard. After we tried to mimic that scene, but it's harder than it looks!

We are still working on our choreographed air drumming by the way.