My second tutoring session was with Manal from Saudi Arabia. We decided to meet at Starbucks, for last time The Sweet Shop was much too loud. She bought an espresso coffee and a red velvet coffee cake that she offered to share with me. It was delicious to say the least. We picked up from where were last time, starting by talking about life and seeing how she was doing with CIES. She seemed happy and positive about her school work and life in Tallahassee. She mentioned that her husband is going to start taking English classes in Tallahassee, so now she will have even more opportunities to practice. She wanted to review a first draft of an essay she was assigned for class. I have noticed this with both of my tutees, they really enjoy working on writing and are hungry to learn more about how they can improve their essays. We went through the essay step by step, but ended up mainly focusing on the Conclusion of the essay. She was struggling to incorporate her thesis and supporting points into a cohesive paragraph at the end; however, with my guidance I think she got the hang of it.
My third conversation partner meeting was with Josue, my conversation partner from Paris, France. He suggested that we go to a restaurant for this meeting, and recommended the Colombian restaurant on Tennessee St. called "Super Perros". I had never been to this restaurant before, so it was interesting to not only converse with someone from outside of my culture but also at a cultural restaurant with an atmosphere and menu different than what I am used to. Most of the menu was in Spanish, so we were able to bond over trying to figure out what the menu was saying, and ended up sharing a lot of laughs over it. During our meeting, we caught up on how he was doing at CIES, what he's involved in in Tallahasee, and discussed deeper topics such as the current political affairs going on in France. This led to a grander discussion about American politics, and it turned out we had similar views. It was interesting to connect our ideas across border lines, realizing we all want the ...
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