International Mix-up

Last night our Spanish and French Clubs hosted an International Mixer. We invited all the exchange students from the area and bribed our kids to come with extra credit. There was quite the showing - 30 or so exchange students and maybe 80 of our students.

Aside from the obvious complaint of a 14-hour workday punctuated by watching children dirty dancing (and scolding them, of course. eeew. grinding.), it is a lot of fun. The kids have a great time. They meet people and tell me, "Wow, you weren't joking when you said there'd be cute foreign people here."

My personal highlight, though, occurred near the end. I was congratulating one of my Bangladeshi students on actually dancing at the dance (which he had previously said he would not do), when one of his international buddies from Pakistan walked up.

Boy: Are you a teacher?
Me: Yes.
Boy: Will you dance with me?
Me: No.
Boy: What??
Me: No.
Boy: Why not?
Me: Because I'm married and I don't dance with students.
Boy: It's just a dance!
Me: No.
Boy: Come on!
Me: No.
Boy: You break my heart.
Me: I will not dance with you. Why don't you ask one of those girls?
Boy: But I want to dance with you.
Me: But I said no.

Realizing this conversation could go on indefinitely, with my part of the script starting to be redundant, I walked away. My Bangladeshi student was laughing hysterically, of course. He claims he had nothing to do with it.

The next day, one of my other exchange students told me, "That boy was confused. We tried to tell him a teacher wouldn't dance with him, but he isn't used to girls telling him no."

A little dose of rejection is healthy for some people.