Earlier this week we had a “bilingual colloquium” where all the Stanford students spent an hour talking with Chilean students. In theory, the event gave both the Chileans and Americans an opportunity to practice a foreign language with native speakers, so we had to spend 30 minutes talking in Spanish and then another 30 speaking English. Nobody fooled me. The “colloquium’s” real purpose was to spark some cross-continental romance. Everyone in the world told me I would meet a tall, dark Chilean guy when I came down here, but I have to admit, a “colloquium” wasn’t quite the scenario I had pictured.
To be fair, they did a great job organizing it. We had “onces,” a Chilean version of tea and a light dinner, and sat at 1 of the 6 tables set up in our main classroom. It felt a little bit like a high school cafeteria. I sat with one of my girlfriends at an empty table, and a pair of Chilean guys quickly joined us. This was when I realized the colloquium’s true purpose.
That's us in the front.
Talking with them felt a little awkward at first, especially since we weren’t sure what language we were supposed to be speaking and didn’t have a lot in common. The guys were both electrical engineering students at the Universidad de Chile, and they were clearly a little shy. We spent the first half hour speaking Spanish, and although it probably required a bit of patience on their parts, we had a pretty decent conversation.
We talked a lot about the pro’s and con’s of Chilean cinema. Both love darker films, which kept me from adding much to the conversation. I’ve seen a grand total of 2 “scary movies” in my entire life and have no interest in seeing any more. When we switched to English, the conversation was actually harder to sustain–pauses felt longer when I wasn’t making a conscious effort to organize my thoughts in Spanish. However, we started discussing good places to visit in Chile, which was actually really helpful.
Despite the travel advice and Spanish practice, the vibe just wasn’t right, language barrier or not. This conversation definitely didn’t spark a new love interest. At every lull in the conversation I looked around at other tables, wondering how everyone else was feeling. Turns out one group played “Never ever have I ever” (sin bebidas, por supuesto), and another group actually went to a bar afterwards. Although our table exchanged emails and left on good terms, no one made any big date plans.
However, we are having ANOTHER “bilingual colloquium” next week. Stanford clearly has big plans for us.
3 Comments
October 6, 2008 at 3:25 pm
Hey Annie- great blog! Too bad Stanford’s big pans didn’t extend as far mixing in a glass of wine or two for each of you, to get the colloquium off the ground. Great job getting the picture into the post, though, I see exactly what you mean about the “cafeteria” feeling.
October 7, 2008 at 5:19 am
[...] Colloquium Update! Jump to Comments Today was Take 2 of our bilingual colloquium. This time we sat with the frat boy types and got invited to a discoteque within the first two [...]
October 9, 2008 at 3:56 pm
Annie,
Keep us posted on the interesting start to your love life in Chile. Can’t wait for more details. We all look forward to each of your blogs.
You have likely been following the demise of your former employer. Tom Goss, whom you met, reports to Steven that his group has all gone to Barcley’s so they have landed on their feet. But just today in the Wall Street Journal was a report that the British government had injected cash into all the large British banks including Barcley’s so time will tell.
Ginny and I had a great two weeks in Japan. We got within a thousand feet of the summit of Fuji but were turned back by a big rain storm that was predicted to last all day. And it did so it was the correct decision. We then walked for the next week in some great out of the way places and saw Japan from some back country perspective.
Best wishes and thanks for your great writing. Your blog is a fascinating read.
Jon