Jessica CP1

Tea Time: I arrived to the first Tea Time meeting a few minutes late after rushing across town from work. I must have looked a bit lost walking into CIES but with Ryan’s help I met up with Cloris, my conversation partner. She and her sister Venus were there along with another friend. We introduced ourselves, grabbed a seat and started the usual “So where are you from? What do you study? What’s your family like?” conversation. I discovered that they had come from Panama, and that their older sister had already studied with FSU. Cloris was fairly quiet with her sister doing the majority of the talking and  I was unsure of her level of English so I asked. She said she understood most of what I’d said, and Venus chimed in that Cloris is usally shy anyway, but she’s also a beginner in English. Their friend was sitting a little farther away and looking entirely bored, so I asked about his experience with English too. Venus turned to him to translate and he replied to me in English “A little.” I responed to him in Spanish that he shouldn’t worry, he’s going to get a lot of experience through CIES. Both he and the other two looked a bit relieved that I spoke their language so we chatted for a bit in Spanish, breaking into English every so often. I’m really stoked on learning more about Panama from them and we set out to have our first conversation partner meeting next Wednesday at a coffee shop. All three of them seem like very sweet open and exciting people. We alread have plans to swap travel photos (they’ve been to Argentina!) and stories when we meet up next.

While I am excited to be able to communicate with them in Spanish, which is great practice for me, I do think that I’m going to have to make a conscious effort to speak as much English as possible with her. I know from experience with learning a foreign language that it is very easy to rely on your native language if you know the person you’re speaking to will understand. I hope to be able to show Cloris and her friends the highlights of Tallahassee also. They seemed to be very open to taking trips around town to museums or different hang outs. We’ll see what’s to come!