Second

My second meeting with Mireya went really well. I was much more prepared this time. We began by working on some worksheets on the sounds of vowels and consonants. She did really well on that. Afterward, she said that she wanted to know how to work a computer. Unfortunately, we didn't have time to get to a computer and figure it out, but we decided to meet in front of the library next Saturday morning. Another thing we talked about was helping her with her driving test. She said that she's taken it in Spanish three times already but the questions are too hard and don't make sense. Her sister told her that the English test was easier, so I've also started helping her study for that. I'm especially excited about next week, because I'm going to help her set up her email and TCU account. Hopefully, things will keep going really well!

First Meeting

I first met with Mireya yesterday morning. As it was a Saturday and it took place at 9am, I was a little sleepy but did my best to wake up. Mireya and I met in front of the 1873 restaurant and I began by asking her what it was she wanted to work on. She said she wanted to learn how to read better, and wanted to work on her pronunciation of certain words. She thought that if she knew how all of the letters (especially the vowels) sounded, she would be able to pick up on reading a lot easier. I never really realized how many different ways to pronounce the letters there were until I began trying to teach her. "A" alone has a billion different types of ways to pronounce it, or, at least, that's what it felt like as I began trying to teach her. There's the way to pronounce it in "apple" and "can," but it can also have a more open sound like in the word "all". She wanted me to write out how they were supposed to sound, but I got stuck there. How should I write down the "a" sound in "apple"? The open "a" was a little easier (just by writing down "ah") but then what about the word "said", that has an "a" in it, but the "ai" is pronounced more as an "e". As I began trying to teach her, I started to realize what an aberration the English language is. It's so random and has so many exceptions that it's really hard to teach somebody. We also worked on writing down the numbers so she could write checks instead of using her debit card all the time. Towards the end, we got off on a tangent about words that we use in English that originate from other languages so they sound differently than you think they should. For instance, the word buffet (which is actually the word that got us off on the tangent) in English should be pronounced how it's spelled, but it's actually pronounced "buh-fay". It was hard to explain that. Overall, Mireya and I have gotten off to a great start and I really hope I can help her out a little more than I did the first meeting. But she seemed really excited about it and we're planning to meet every Saturday morning (for better or for worse on my sleeping pattern) at 9am.

The street I grew up on....

I grew up on an average-looking neighborhood street with small, one-story, lower middle-class houses on either side. The trees were young, nothing spectacular to look at, and stood straight, not yet having the weight of old age to bend their supple trunks. The yellow grass in each yard was dry from the intense Texas sun, and looked prickly and brittle. Even the name of the street was average: Eldridge Street. In fact, the only thing particularly remarkable about the street was the hill. From the evenly paved cement suddenly rose a steep and mountainous hill that veered towards the sky, or at least, seemed to, from my five-year-old point of view. In the winter, the hill would ice over and I'd take one of my mom's baking pans and slide down the hill, going faster and faster every second. Sometimes, cars would get stuck trying to drive up the hill in the ice, slowly drifting back down to the base, despite their spinning tires.

Before exams, before homework, before stress about work or relationships or GPA's, there was just an average street with average houses, surrounded by average trees, and a mountainous hill that a little girl slid down on her mom's baking pan.