American's are Strange...

This year I have been teaching an American Survival class for first term international students with one of my friends from my Cohort, Alyssa. This class is intended to be an extended orientation to OSU and the services that we have on campus as well as anything that they may face as far as culture shock is concerned in an American University. This has turned into Alyssa and I showing lots of You-Tube vidoes, listening to pop music, and talking about slang and college football. Obviously our class is the best and I love the randomness that ensues each week.

Today we covered popular movies, TV, music and news in America. I was to cover movies and TV. To do this I showed trailers of movies that are coming out in the next month that are somehow connected to pop culture in the U.S. or among college students. One of those movies was Twilight:Eclipse...

When trying to describe the plot line to the students and why people are so into it I saw many blank faces, to which I asked...do you know what werewolves, and vampires are and they responded that they did not. How do you describe that to people...and then how do you make them think that it is cool or ok for a human to be in love with eaither of these two "species" and why in the world would we be so interested in this...

So many of these moments happen in class when they cause me to stop and ponder the total randomness of our culture and the things that I am into. Typically this comes in the form of teaching them about holiday's in the U.S. Each of them shares such rich traditions about holidays from home that are spent with family or honoring something substantial. Describing American New Years was entertaining as I explained in the best way possible that we celebrate on the night before by staying up until midnight have having parties...aka drinking a ton and then on new years we sometimes spend the day amongst family or friends...aka being super hung over, eating greesy food, and watching college football. This translates into teaching about St. Patricks Day and most recently Cinco De Mayo...

Love Love Love American Survival...