Volunteer Explorer

Only two students showed up for class again last night. I'm trying not to take it personally. It is the holiday season, after all, and people are understandably busy. And the low turnout justified my lack of lesson planning. The three of us had a lovely conversation, however. We moved deftly from discussing the English learner website I had forwarded to them, to hearing about Van's latest strategy for taming her acne breakouts, then on to a free-spirited comparison of movie styles we like. Along the way, Regina and I learned that Van has been sort-of seeing a young Vietnamese man via Skype, though she is reluctant to label their interactions as dating. We two married ladies offered our advice and wisdom on communicating with reticent men, as well as the truth behind the axiom that opposites attract. Van remained ambiguous about the possibility of a satisfying long-term relationship, especially with a Vietnamese man, because of the tradition of the daughter-in-law becoming ...

I've always known that I didn't want to have children. My mom remembers hearing me say unequivocally, when I was about ten, that I didn't want children. Remaining childless has been a conscious choice in many ways, but it has also been merely staying true to myself. This doesn't mean I hate children. Granted, if given the choice to socialize with children, adults, or a mix of both, I'll take option B every time. But I don't hate children. They can be quite entertaining and surprising sometimes. I simply do not ever wish to be completely responsible for someone else's existence in the exigent way that parenthood requires. When I was first married, people often asked me when I was going to start having children, in that sure way people use when the have already assumed an answer.  My responses ranged from enigmatic (we're not really planning) to hostile (what if I can't? what then??!!). One of the few positives about being a woman over...

Our feast consisted of crepes, hot and spicy tomato soup, steamed shrimp dumplings, a lo-mein-like stir fry dish, macaroni and cheese, and rice pudding. Ying also brought some dubious looking eggs that were black as night. She and Regina, our new student from Korea, discussed how both their countries hold these traditional pickled eggs in high esteem for special occasions. I sampled one because I am a big fan of most pickled things.  It was unlike anything I had ever tasted. And not really in a good way. "Is it the texture that is odd?" Regina asked, seeing my complicated expression as I tried to swallow. The texture was, indeed, odd. The yolk of the essentially hard-boiled egg becomes liquefied during the long pickling process, while the white of the egg—now a strangely translucent dark gray‒remains fairly firm. The combination of tart flavor and slimy mouth feel hit me pretty hard. Try as I might, I was unable to eat the second half of my portion. I had to work...

"What's your relationship with food?" I asked my ESOL students last night. Yuwei's brows knitted together in his usual intense look of consternation. "Do you eat to live, or live to eat?" We were preparing to discuss an article from The New Yorker that I had sent out earlier in the week, a seasoned food critic's reminiscence of his mother's detailed recipes against the backdrop of revolving food fads. Each student, in turn, talked briefly about how being so busy during the week made it difficult to enjoy food, made a "grab-and-go" mentality a necessity. We all agreed, however, that going to a restaurant on the weekend or sitting down with family on a special occasion for a long, leisurely meal was a treat. Jana brought up some research she had done in college about the change in family ritual from dining together to eating separately, and alone. "This is why there is so much problem now," she said. "Dinner wa...

Mid-term. Hawk. Saber rattling. To drag one's feet on something. These are a few of the terms my ESOL class asked about in our discussion of an op-ed last night. The article was about whether Obama's reluctance to rush into yet another war in the Middle East indicates weakness or a strategy of calculated delay. The author drew no firm conclusions, and we decided his aim was merely to bring up the idea for consideration. Once the article's fodder for discussion was exhausted, we turned to the upcoming election. My husband, Dave, joined us to help outline an overview of the political parties and how our election system works. I knew I wouldn't be able to keep my personal opinions out of a conversation about political parties for long, and I wanted this to be as unbiased as possible. One of my students is a new citizen, two are visiting students, and one has been a citizen for twenty years. So their experience and attitudes about the American political system ...

"Distinguish between the preposition to and the infinitive marker to . If to is a preposition, it should be followed by a noun or a gerund." This appeared as part of a chapter in Diana Hacker's A Writer's Reference, Sixth Edition , the textbook I was using to help my ESOL students tackle preposition use. The chapter was aimed specifically at ESOL learners and had much helpful information. Prepositions—words that have to do with spatial relationships, like with, from, by, at, for and on —pose particular difficulties for new learners of English. There are few hard-and-fast rules for prepositions in English, but using the wrong one can vastly change the meaning of a sentence. My favorite example of this malleability is the verb to get , which drastically changes meaning depending on which preposition one adds to it. One can get up in the morning, get in a car, get on board with an idea, get over something or someone, get out of a responsibility, get on with o...

I leaned back and gazed up at pinpoints of white against a velvety azure sky. Constellations rotated slowly, almost imperceptibly, above a baroque edifice ensconced with alabaster sculptures. The seat under me creaked, reminding me that this nighttime scene was an illusion, a theatrical imitation of a Moorish castle on a Mediterranean coast.   Forgive me if I wax poetic today. I spent yesterday evening at the Akron Civic Theater with my ESOL students and a crowd of other teachers, students, administrators, and supporters of Project Learn of Summit County. Rita Dove—Akron native, Poet Laureate, and natural storyteller—entertained us for almost two hours with the story of her life punctuated by her poetry. How can one woman, standing alone in front of a black curtain and behind a simple music stand, keep over a hundred people rapt in silence, but for the occasional gasp or reflexive laugh or burst of applause, for such a period of time? I'll tell you how: On that plain b...

For my sweet sixteenth birthday, a handful of friends came to my house and went on a scavenger hunt. One of those friends was Simon, a 17-year-old on whom I had a wicked crush. When we all dispersed to hunt for our list of items, Simon suggested we get in his car and go to another neighborhood to have a better chance of finding more items on the list. I hadn't ridden in many cars with boys that I liked, so I was thrilled to go with him. We were gone less than half an hour, but when we returned my father was furious with me. Dad had always been defined by his fears, and not knowing where his kids were or what they were doing was one of his biggest. He told me I had ruined the event by turning it into a joyride, instead of the innocent game it was supposed to be. Nevermind the fact that Simon and I hadn't so much as held hands yet. When I suggested to my Advanced Conversation class that we do a scavenger hunt at the library, they mostly laughed nervously. Yuwei's eyes gr...

I have made a new friend. I'll call her Ruth. She is from Nigeria, here in Akron to study engineering and get her college degree. We connected right away when she came to the writing lab for some help with her English and Public Speaking assignments. She has poise and calmness that make her seem older than her 26 years, but smooth, chocolaty skin that makes her look very young. Yesterday I took Ruth shopping at the Goodwill store. Thrifting is my favorite kind of shopping; it feels like a treasure hunt, yet maintains a reasonable budget. Ruth's host mother had taken her to a Target store a couple of weeks earlier to get black pants and shoes for Ruth's on-campus job with catering services. For nearly the same amount of money she paid for one pair of pants and one pair of shoes at Target, Ruth purchased three large bags full of tops, pants, jeans, dresses and sweaters. While we worked our way through rack after rack of clothes, Ruth asked me about Halloween. Scatter...

Lascivious. Vulgar. Admonish. These are some of the words my Advanced Conversation students wanted help understanding yesterday. And they happen to be some of my favorite words. They are favorites not because of their definitions, but because of the way they feel in my mouth when I say them, and because of the reactions they can elicit from listeners. Few people react mildly to hearing about lascivious speech or vulgar acts. And no one likes to be admonished. Besides, when I hear or read these words, I automatically picture Hieronymus Bosch's "Garden of Earthly Delights," with all its wanton nudity and twisted depictions of tortured sinners. Unsurprisingly, the newspaper article my student gleaned these words from concerned a college football player who had behaved very poorly in public and whose punishment was being benched for several important games. ( Benched was another word my students were unfamiliar with.) Just before our class started, I was ove...

The transition from student to faculty has been odd for me in its ease. I thought I would have more difficulty thinking of myself as an instructor, especially because I don't technically instruct. I spend my days in the Writing Lab explaining, informing, and guiding, but I never instruct. Still, I have a natural kind of authority when I'm around the students in Polsky. I'm sure it's in large part due to being twice their age. But authority is perception, so I'll take it however it comes. The chain of command at Polsky, real or imagined, was thrown into fairly stark light last Wednesday, when a tornado passed through the Akron area. Chelsea, the most seasoned of our peer tutors, interrupted my session with a student to tell me—show me, actually, on her phone—that the University was issuing a tornado warning and that all faculty and students were advised to take shelter on the lowest level possible of the building. I had just received a similar warning on my ...

I received the 2013 Annual Report from the International Institute in the mail this week. Seeing it sandwiched between ads for gutter guards and lower car insurance rates evoked an odd mix of emotions. Sadness and regret bumped up against equal measures of relief and…something else, something I couldn't name right away. It was something like the feeling a traveler might have who changes her plans at the last minute, then realizes the plane she would have been on went down over the Atlantic with no survivors. Or maybe it was like the feeling of seeing the guy you almost married in college at a reunion, now married to someone else and fat and balding, and realizing he is nothing at all as you remember him. Disaster narrowly averted or escaped. This is the project that made me change my mind about volunteering with the Institute. This is the project that made me change my mind about writing for other people, about writing for a living, about how much of my time and energy I a...

It's still surprising to me that, after living in Akron for 25 years, there are places I never knew existed. Or maybe I knew they existed, but only on a theoretical, almost mythical level. Experiencing them first-hand for the first time feels like discovery. My husband often takes the bus to his job in downtown Akron, and we use public transportation almost as a rule while on vacation in New York, Chicago, Paris, Prague. Deciphering color-coded maps and navigating labyrinthine platforms is part of the adventure of exploring a new city. Emerging from echo-filled subway halls to find ourselves in front of the museum or landmark we had aimed for is a singular kind of victory. And while I never balk at these kinds of adventures in other cities, I--like most other car-owners in the car-centric Midwest--have avoided public transportation in my own hometown. Until yesterday. I cancelled my Advanced Conversation Class last night so I could spend the full day with my hubby. He ...

"Why is there this American English and then the English that is used in England?" Rosa asked me this question in the middle of this week's Advanced Conversation class. I conduct this class for about half a dozen English language learners on Thursday evenings at the public library. My students have tested out of all the other levels of ESOL offered through Project Learn, but still wish to increase their fluency. These two hours become something of a hybrid between a casual conversation group and an English grammar class. When Rosa posed her question, we had been discussing the word "haste," both its definition as a noun and its verb form. I had mentioned that the verb "hasten" is not very common in American speech, that it might sound pretentious, and that Brits might use it more frequently than Americans. I countered her inquiry with one of my own. "So, why is the Spanish spoken in Mexico different from the Spanish spoken in Spai...