That Look

[Unkotare]

you see when someone gets that you get them. When someone (for whatever reason - save the "I hate immigrants" bullshit for the FZ) is at a loss in trying to communicate and they finally run into someone who gets them, the look of relief in their eyes is rewarding - and familiar. Having been on both sides of that look, I can tell you that it is a significant moment of human interaction.

 

[Unkotare]

Last night at night school a number of students showed up for a particular state-mandated standardized test (yeah, I know). More than a few of these students were none too proficient in English and had, for various reasons, been away from school for too long. The volume of students had stretched the admin staff thin and a number of students were milling about with no idea what to do or where to go (or had technical problems with their laptops). It doesn't happen too often, but several times it turned out that I was the only staff around who could speak the L1 of several of these students. We did not have long involved discussions about global politics, but just a few familiar words made a visible impact on some of these people who had been feeling pretty lost. Having been on the other side of such situations, I knew how they felt.