Funny Advising Story

Mood: annoyed

Book I'm currently reading: Dolly (it's in German; cute story about a girl at a boarding school...love it!!!)



Since I wrote that I'm annoyed, I should probably explain. I just sat through a 2-hour advising workshop that was completely pointless. There was no new information that was presented. I mean, it was new for advisers who just started working here this year; but as a third-year returner, I had heard all this before...last year and the year before that. The room was also FREEZING, so I was just uncomfortable and miserable the entire time. It probably didn't help either that I haven't gotten enough sleep lately, so I'm always tired and grumpy.

But let's talk about something fun...after all the title of this entry is "funny advising story." This may definitely turn into one of this "you had to be there" type stories...you may read it and think this makes absolutely no sense, or it's simply not funny. But I've spent quite some time giggling about it to myself, so I figured I should just tell you....

It was a sunny afternoon and I was holding advising appointments - one after the other, after the other. They usually start with a brief conversation about the students' transition to college, how they like or dislike living in the residence hall, our living learning community theme and how students want to get involved on campus. Then it turns to academics: how they are doing in classes, what their major is and why, the general education requirements, major requirements and what classes they want to take. At the end, I explain the registration process and that's basically it.
But on this sunny afternoon, a student walked in bursting with questions. He was a Math Education major and had tons of questions about the education department, what it means to be in a cohort, what classes he should take for his general education requirements and and and. I figured, if he's got that many questions, we'll just skip right to the academic part of the meeting and then get to the other questions later.
We've made it through most of the academic topics and we're now talking about his major and why he is interested in math education. We talked about how grading in math is so much easier because there's always a right or a wrong answer - very unlike Humanities and Social Sciences. I shared that my mother is a math teacher, so I had grown up around math education.
Suddenly, the student looked really excited and said, "So, is your mother here or back...?"
"Oh no, she's back in Austria," I said to finish his sentence.
"Oh, so that's where you're from!" the student exclaimed. "We've all been wondering where you're from and I decided I was just going to ask you. But now you said it, so I didn't even have to ask."
I laughed. It's not like it has ever been a secret that I'm from Austria. I'm pretty sure I even said it at the first All-Hall Meeting - and it was definitely on the Bulletin Board. And really, the students could have asked any RA and they would have told them...or just ask me.

And this is where the appointment changed from being about the student to being all about me. I'm not really sure how it happened, but suddenly I found myself answering questions about why I had come to the US, what I liked about it, where I had gone to undergrad and grad school, and and and. I didn't really mind since we'd covered most of the advising stuff already and I realize this may be the first time for some of this students to meet someone who hasn't been born in the US. [Quick side note: I went through this phase where I was really annoyed about all the questions I got about Austria - especially since they are always the same and are generally pretty boring to answer. I also went through this phase where I just wanted to be "like everyone else" and didn't want to be the freaky international student. But I've started to embrace my heritage a little more over the past few years and I don't mind answering questions that much....I feel like this is a longer topic I should go into for another blog entry.]

And then it happened. There was a little pause and I thought, maybe the student had run out of questions and I may actually get a chance to move us back to his experience and his transition to college, but oh no...
"So...this is kind of personal, but...do you want to have a family one day?"

Wow.

Definitely not a question I had anticipated.

The student was looking down, which made it even more awkward.

I tried to look away and my eyes fell on this picture of one of my guy friend that I - well, this blog's supposed to be honest, right? - that I kind of have a crush on. And before I could help it, I started blushing.


Yeah...AWKWARD!!!...our advising appointment ended shortly after that.


I still can't believe he really asked me that. That's definitely the most random question I've ever gotten during an advising appointment. And I'll have to learn to control this awkward blushing-thing...that's NEVER happened to me before.