David_CP#10

Well seeing as this was my last meeting with my conversation partner (he told me he was flying out next week) we decided just to repeat and meet up for some coffee again. I’m not a big coffee drinker, but as I think I mentioned in a earlier post, this guy is a total coffee addict. Today’s first subject was airport horror stories. I geared it this way, because from a tutoring stand point (even though this is conversation partner) I wanted to see how he would do speaking about something he really wanted to communicate. As I expected, his speech was much clearer and more fluid. I think he gets in his own way sometimes and over thinks the grammar aspect of speaking. Once he got going and stopped thinking so much, he was much improved. We talked about which airports we liked the most, and spent a good amount of time complaining about how Tallahassee is so expensive to fly in to and out of. We then talked about the places we had visited, and the different cultural shocks we experienced. He talked about his brief stint in Europe, and several of the culture lessons he learned the hard way. He also told me about what it was like coming here, and some of the things he had to work on and avoid in this culture. One thing he asked me, is why Americans are so sensitive. He said a lot of Americans tend to get mad at him when they talk politics, and mainly the role of women. He understood we are different, but his was confused why so many people got mad when he was just sharing how things are in his country. I explained to him several different reasons, and told him what it comes down to is a matter of prospective. He said he had just stopped talking politics unless he was directly asked. We then talked about random things in our cultures for about 20 minutes, and then headed out.