Communication Mishaps

#1.

"Mrs. Hartman, you have a new student. Meet Patel."

Ok...raise your hand if you would have thought that you're new student's name is Patel. Well, after saying the name "Patel" over and over and repeating "Nice to meet you, Patel" twice, I saw on the boy's class schedule that at the very top it said 'Patel, Meet'. Poor kid...I don't know if he was more embarrassed or me. In the next five minutes I found that Meet is actually a great English speaker who just moved to Memphis from India. Glad I could make his first day interesting.

#2.

I think I mentioned a student who doesn't speak any English at all and only Chinese. Well the students were making portfolios to carry and store their artwork and I had a demonstration on the board for the students using the name "Maddie" to show a right and wrong way of writing their name. The boy started out doing everything exactly right for his portfolio...his border looked the best out of all of them...Unfortunately when I walked by his desk five minutes later I saw that he had written in the biggest, best-written block letters the name "Maddie".

I then wasted a piece of posterboard to write his name big in the center, took it to his desk, and then saw a big smile go across his face as he ferociously erased the name "Maddie" from his portfolio.

#3.

This weekend I got a text message saying "Hey, so I think we're gonna go running about 1 o'clock and then watch a movie later if you're interested". I responded that I would go running but probably not the movie. A couple of hours later, I show up at the friend's house in my running gear, no makeup, and the lovely elastic headband that takes care of my bangs but accentuates my too-large forehead. As I walked in the door I saw all of my friends all dressed in cute sundresses and such, hair done with makeup. I give the confused look and then they explain that instead of physically running, they were in fact running around...like errands and shopping. Could I be any more stupid? Yes....when I went back and looked at the text there was the @ symbol before the "running around" and the "1 o'clock".

Obviously I need to pay more attention when communicating with people these days!