Let me explain....
One of my former students loves to knit. She also loves to send me items such as shawls and scarves that she's knitted. I recently got another of her sweet gifts in the mail. I thought I'd take a picture and show her how nice it looked on me.
So I texted her, as the picture attests to and received an interesting reply.
For an English as a Second Language student, her English sure looks pretty good to me.
I didn't even read it correctly at first. I honestly thought her thumbs shifted on her keyboard and she accidentally typed a swear word unknowingly. That happens alot with my students. They don't spell very well and it's not uncommon to see swear words written out because they phonetically sound like something else they were meaning to say. But then I really read it. And realized, this wasn't my student (a 60 something Cambodian matriarch) at all. This was a complete stranger and they knew exactly what they were typing. (Side note: asf had to be explained to me...I was completely clueless).
The whole problem began because I had two numbers listed in my phone for this student...so I texted both of them. Apparently, one of them is no longer her number.
Ooops...my bad.
Now some young kid (could be girl, could be boy, could be suburban, could be hood, could be any ethnicity) thinks I walk around wearing shawls. I really felt the need to explain myself to this random person that I accidentally texted. But I don't speak that language. I don't know the "hip" way to respond to Mr. Wrong Number (for lack of a better name). I just want to say, "I thought you were an immigrant. Sorry." But that still doesn't explain why I'm wearing a shawl.
Now a picture of a white, middle-aged woman wearing a knitted shawl is floating around on the internet and with my luck it will probably go viral. And all I meant to do was thank my student for knitting me something.
We're 15 days into this new year and I'm off to a good start.
