This past Friday I undertook another activity in order to
help speed up the process of obtaining thirty hours of community service. After a few weeks of calling, waiting,
following-up, emailing and then more waiting, I finally got paired up with a
conversation partner. I expected that
she would be similar to me in that she was a student at Purdue and she was
around my age. But I was wrong. Her name was Jinmin Chung. And Jinmin turned out to be a thirty year old
woman, who is seven months pregnant, married, is shorter than me (and I am only
18), but is in fact a student here at Purdue working to get her master’s
degree. Now this is not to say that I couldn’t
relate to her, I was just extremely surprised by the person I was paired with. She was a very nice lady who really seemed
interested in getting a more firm grasp of the English language. We meet in the Union near Starbucks and after
introducing ourselves we talked for what seemed like forever. I then told her about how I grew up in Hawaii
until the age of 7 and then about how I moved around a couple more times since
living there. I told her about how
ridiculously small my room is on campus.
I told her about how I was majoring in physics. I told her lots of things. And then, just as you would expect, she told
me about herself. It was a really great
opportunity because I got to learn about someone else’s life and I got to make
a new friend. Then at one point, when we
got bored of conversation, we went into the basement to play some pool. I ended up having such a good time that I
lost track of time and was late to global café (my weekly service activity). I am looking forward to Wednesday which will
be the next time we meet.
I am glad that your service is coming along so well Matt. It seems that your service hours will go really fast since you are enjoying your time so much. My service is very similar to yours in that I help immigrants/international students to learn the English language; however, it seems Jinmin is much more advanced than the Hispanic students I work with. I find it cool how you are teaching her the language in such an informal, conversational way. Furthermore, when you two meet you are indirectly teaching her about the American culture. This is great because what you teach her she will be able to pass on her child, so you are basically helping two people. Through my service I have found that there are so many people living in the United States that truly do want to learn English, but they have simply not been given the opportunity and people scrutinize them for not knowing the language. I feel that many of these people who scrutinize them would find it incredibly difficult themselves to learn a new language if they were sudden thrown into a new country. Also, you cannot blame them for wanting to come to the United States because in comparison to the majority of countries it is such a wonderful place to live. Keep up the good work Matt and I hope you service continues to go well.
ReplyDeleteIt is a great experience, isn't it. And I am glad you finally got your conversation partners. By the way I am doing my service in the International Center as well but in different positions. For me it is not a surprise to see all different kinds of people there. I believe when you sign up for a conversation partner, you might have a little concern about who you are going to partner with. But he or she probably is not beyond your expectation. Well it turns out to be a surprise, isn't it. My position is about the organizing the requests, arranging the partner, language courses and so on. And each time when I was there, I see all kinds of people are looking for conversation partners: visiting professor from Korean, student from Columbia, couple from China, volunteer from Iraq. I am not surprised to see those people. But when they sign up for the conversation partners and write down their preferences, I know there will be a surprise for the volunteer on the other end of this relationship. And you just provide my thoughts. But it is a great experience, isn't it.
ReplyDeleteWow, really puts the saying "Don't judge a book by its cover" into perspective. I love meeting new people and learning what is the same and different between your lives. Sounds like you have gotten into a great program and a rewarding one at that. I can't wait to hear more about the people you meet. I want to travel more globally when Im older so I hope to meet some amazing people on my journey just as you are now. Keep up the hard work and can't wait to hear more!
ReplyDeleteWow, that sounds really awesome! That sounds like a ton of fun, and just a great experience in general. Personally, I feel that the surprises are the most rewarding part of volunteer work. It sounds like you have a couple of service partners you are already hooked up with, and like you are already well in motion towards getting your thirty hours done. That’s also super cool that you were able to open up and talk so freely with somebody you just met. That’s not something most people can do easily; it sounds like you really found a volunteer experience that works well for you! Meeting new people is always so much fun, especially when they come from a different background and have different life experiences to share. That’s probably one of the best ways to expand one’s own comfort zone and the overall scope of one’s view of life and humanity as a whole. Hope you continue to enjoy it!
ReplyDeleteThank you, everybody, for the wonderful feedback.
ReplyDelete