Austin TP 8+9

This was my last meeting with my tutee Michel. He is gone away to California to receive a second master's degree. Being our last meeting, we made first in the morning, where I gave him his tutor evaluation forms. When he was done, I seriously questioned him on what I had done well, and not so well as a tutor. He was a little hesitant to critique me, but I insisted that he could not hurt my feelings or offend me.

He said that I always made our lessons fun, and he actually looked forward to our sessions. I did not expect too much of him, nor did I baby him or spoon-feed him. However, there were times, he said, where I went a little too fast. In a way, I may have pushed him through the lesson, just wanting to get through it, rather than make sure he fully understood. Now, nobody wants to sit and work forever, but I also wanted to make sure we were progressing, and not being redundant.

Like in Michel's reading activities at CIES, I didn't necessarily teach Michel the meaning of every word we encountered (I tried to cover what I could, or rather, what we had time to cover) but rather look for the main idea. Like anyone else, Michel said I did a good job, but there is still room to improve. A fair evaluation.

Later in the day, we met again. I was going to take him to a house party, but on the way, I had to teach him another lesson on culture. "Have you heard of the Plus one rule?" I asked him. "No," he replied. Earlier, Michel said he had a few friends he wanted to invite, and have me pick up each of them. I explained, "Listen Michel, you know when someone gets invited to a party, it is proper etiquette to bring no more than one other person, hence the +1 rule. I'm bringing you, that's the one. It is especially impolite to bring a bunch of people to someone else's party whom he does not know, or to send your ride on a mission to collect all these other people." (I said this in the calmest, most polite voice possible) "That is a good point," he said. "And maybe we should bring a gift, would that be polite?," he asked me without my suggesting. "That is a great idea," I replied. "Let's stop and pick something up." So we did.

I then explained the Naked Rule, which should be known across the world by now. If you are skunked in a game of beer pong, meaning you lose without hitting one of your opponents cups, you must run a lap around the party host's house, naked. We did not lose after this :)