the people i meet make me so international

it's sunday night and i can't wait to get back into the classroom tomorrow. it's been a week of sitting at the edge of my seat, thirsting for the teacher to call on me. i want her to call on me all the time. she's a dynamic teacher who storms around the room, stomping her feet and slapping her leg in excitement/frustration, cracking jokes, and putting people on pure blast. i love it and i laugh throughout class even though i don't know if i'm supposed to.

the demographics of my class look like this:
u.s.: 6 students
korea: 4 students
japan: 2 students
china: 1 student
haiti: 1 student
australia: 1 student
france: 1 student

yes, the class is diverse, each person bringing perspectives and experiences from different corners of the world. an older man from the u.s., who goes with full force to learn spanish, introduces himself by revealing he is from arizona, the state with a lot of controversy. to describe his state's position, he puts both hands up in defense and says, "i'm not against the mexicans. i'm not against mexico. in fact, i know a lot of them...." i've heard this line too many times. it could have been a lot of trouble but oddly, he is growing on me.

during one class we were discussing the environment and the teacher asks which countries have a lot of mountains. students start listing them off: mexico, peru, switzerland, nepal, tibet...then the chinese student cuts in, "pero tibet no es un pais." some students, including me, respond with an "ohhhhh." and the teacher halts the conversation and says, "this is spanish class."

another time we were talking about natural disasters and she was randomly picking people to sit in front of the room to talk about an experience with a natural disaster. after three students spoke, she noticed they were all korean students and she said, "wait a minute, we can't have the korean empire rule." this is why i love her.

i'm excited to soak in small glimpses of the world. i find it fascinating that the common language between me and the other asians in the class is spanish. plus, we make up half the population in the class, which is exactly proportional to the world's population so maybe it won't be a korean empire but an asian empire :0