Studying Will Pits OR The Dangers of Language Learning

Here is a story that was gut-bustingly funny at the time. But I have to warn you- I'm not totally sure of its transferablity, so considered yourself forewarned.

I'm teaching a class on paraphrasing and summarizing this session. (I know, it's thrilling already) So we were practicing our mad paraphrasing skills with this sentence, which I had written up on the board:

He studied every night, but he still failed the exam.

(I try to use encouraging sample sentences like that)

We underlined words and phrases that should be replaced with synonyms, including "every night". As we discussed alternative ways of saying that (personally I was rooting for "each evening", though there was a pretty strong following for "daily", followed by some confusion as to why it wasn't an exact change), one student (we'll call him Bob) asked the following question:

Bob: Teacher, can I change it for an idiom?

Me: Sure, if the idiom has the same meaning as the original phrase. What idiom did you want to try?

Student: "Will pits"

[confused silence, as I silently flipped through my English vocabulary in search of an idiom that has a meaning remotely close to "every night" and that sounds somewhat similar to "with pits". No dice.]

Me: Um, 'will pits'?

Bob: No, Teacher. WILL PITS.

Me: Can you spell it?

Bob: W-i-t-h p-i-t-s

[I write "with pits" on the board. Bob nods emphatically. I continue to grasp frantically at anything in the ballpark. It turns out this ballpark is totally empty.]

Me: I'm sorry, Bob, I don't know what that means.

[some discussion ensues in Arabic, as the students discuss what might be the problem with this particularly stellar idiom]

Student 2: I think the spelling, it is wrong. I think it is "pets", not "pits".

[I erase "pits" on the board and replace it with "pets". Bob nods expectantly. Strangely, this doesn't really help me.]

Me: I'm sorry, this still doesn't make any sense. Pets are animals that you keep in your house, like friends.

Bob: No, no, no. Not "pets". PETS. It's like the black one. It is in the night.

Me: BATS? With bats?

[I draw a (not-so-hot) picture of a bat on the board]

Bob: YES!! With bats!

[this is said with great exasperation, as if he'd been saying this exact thing for the past five minutes]

Me: Um, Bob, I don't understand. Why would you study with bats? Are you sure you have it right? I don't think it's an idiom.

Bob: Yes, Teacher. I am sure. I made it myself.

[It should be stated that I generally try not to laugh at my students. I remember all too well how it feels to try to learn a language. But I just can't hold it in. I bust out laughing. So do most of the students, including Bob.]

Me: Well, you can't really make up your own idioms, Bob. Other people might not understand them. I think maybe you should just replace "every night" with "each evening" instead.

Bob (looking a little disappointed, but compliant): Ok, Teacher.

Three Short Stories

Story #1: Today I helped to proctor the TEOFL exam, which is a standardized test for people who speak English as a second language (a lot like an SAT or ACT or GRE). It's four hours, as as I was walking one of my students back to pick up his things afterward, I asked him how it went. He said, "The easiest part was the essay writing."

I couldn't help myself. I'd taught this student in two classes during the session that ended yesterday. Those classes were Reading and Writing, and Writing Skills. I said, "That's probably because you had such an AWESOME writing teacher, right?"

[he agreed with me, of course, but I laughed and told him I was kidding]

Story #2: This afternoon I was walking back up to my apartment after taking some laundry to our scary, basement laundry room. Across the privacy fence that separates my apartment building from the parking lot behind Pizza Hut, I saw a man get out of a car with his two boys and walk into Pizza Hut. As they walked, the dad put his arm around the shoulders of the maybe 10-year-old boy.

I immediately began to tear up. I'm always sentimental when it comes to family. But right now I'm a virtual tear fountain when it comes to any type of relationship, as I feel so alone out here. Anyway, I was feeling a sad and lonely and a little irritated at feeling that way when, about 2 second later, I looked over again to see (and hear, delightfully) the dad hock a big loogie and spit it on the outside wall of the restaurant on their way in.

Now I know I'm making hasty generalizations here when I say that this one action made me stop thinking about how kind and wonderful the father was, but sometimes the truth hurts. It was gross. I giggled out loud, and immediately felt a tiny bit less lonely.

Story #3:

[background info: During my last semester in Wheaton, a friend of mine bought me a gift membership to eHarmony. At first I was pretty hesitant, but you know what they say about gifts...and horses...or maybe that's gift horses? And their mouths? Whatever. Anyway, so I did it for the three months that she bought for me, and it was actually pretty fun, though (obviously) nothing significant came of it. ]

Earlier this week this same friend asked me if I had considered doing that again, now that I'm back in the US. I hadn't, but then I started thinking about it, and decided that I would like to. So I jumped online, but quickly realized it's out of my budget right now, which was disappointing. Then this morning I had another friend message me and offer to either buy me a coffee club membership (coffee is gross), a gym membership (I silently scoffed at such a waste of money), or an online dating membership.

Seriously? I was so excited! And not just at the idea of finding some tall, hot DeKalb farmer boy to sweep me off my feet. It seemed like a direct message from God. This message:

"Leslie, I know you're confused and lonely and a little bit mad at me right now. But I need you to hold

on a bit longer. I promise you'll eventually understand, and I promise that I am doing

this for your own good and for my glory. You aren't going home right now, because it won't

work into the plan. But I'm going to give you THIS, the gift of an eHarmony membership from

a friend, to remind you that I love you more than you are capable of understanding. I'm not

trying to make you miserable as a form of entertainment. I know you're hurting, and I care. It

matters to me. Please trust me, that there's purpose behind your pain. In the meantime, here.

Distract yourself with men."

I'm pretty sure God likes the idea of his daughters being distracted by men, aren't you?

Anyway, it was really encouraging to me. The End.

Stepping Away From the Ledge

So since I'm in a much less...shall we say volatile? place now than I was at the writing of the last post, I thought I should update you, cyber-readers and friends.

I don't really hate everything about my life. Really only a couple things. I do actually hate that I'm so far from home. I also hate that I have a neighbor who regularly wakes me up in the middle of the night. But I finally emailed my landlady about it, and she said she would take care of it, so maybe that won't be an issue much longer? I also truly hate that I can't go home this weekend.

But in all honesty, most everything else in my life is at some level which is better than "hate".

That being said, I am still looking for other (contractual) employment. Ideally in the great state of O-Hi-O. And most ideally in the great Lima region.

And I get to go home three weeks from today for Thanksgiving!! WHEEEEEEEEEE!!!!

The End.