how I clicked 'yes' for a tutor and ended up meeting a poet

[asakiyume]

I've been using Duolingo to learn/practice Spanish for more than three years now, and Portuguese for about a year, and while it's got its flaws, I basically enjoy and appreciate it a lot, so I decided to get a paid membership to help support its mission. Doing so got me some ancillary benefits that for the most part I was uninterested in, but one thing that came over the dash was an offer of a Duolingo tutor. "Would you like a tutor?" the app innocently asked. I pressed yes, thinking I'd get the chance to investigate a little before actually committing, but instead got a cheery message back: Your tutor will contact you shortly! Aaaahhhhh, I went into paroxysms of shyness. No no no! Undo undo undo! But that wasn't an option.

And then nothing happened for a couple of days, so I breathed a sigh of relief ... and then a message did come.

I don't know how other Duolingo tutee-tutor relationships went, but ours was a very pleasant, very minimal-but-not-disappointly-minimal interaction about every 27 hours or so, with each of us sending the other about three text's worth of communication. If I made an error, there was a special correction screen he could send me, so I could see the right way to say the thing.

We talked about this and that, and eventually got to what things his 12-year-old son likes watching and reading, which turned out to be Steven Universe and Harry Potter, which got me responding enthusiastically. When I mentioned that we'd read the last Harry Potter aloud in a readathon, cover-to-cover, he said he enjoyed reading out stuff ... and liked writing stuff even more, and I laughed inwardly, because in my experience, I cannot venture online in any form anywhere, ever, without encountering a writer--not that I'm complaining! I like being with writers and I am one too--it's just funny.

So I told him I liked to write too and asked him if any of his stuff was online and said I'd like to read it.

... And then Duolingo sent me a message saying that the tutor program wasn't working out and they were going to discontinue it on November 20! This was just about a month after I'd gotten the initial invitation.

So I sent my tutor my email address, and he sent me his. Six days after the tutor program was shuttered, he sent me his poems, plus a Soundcloud link where I could hear them--they were great! If we continue corresponding, and if he doesn't mind me linking, I'll share the links here (I can't imagine he'd mind, but I want to ask.)

Friends--you can make them anywhere!

Comments

[sonia]

How lovely to make an unexpected connection!

I wonder what happened at Duolingo around the tutor program. I imagine someone asking, "How are we actually going to make money with this?" and someone else saying, "Oh, wait..."

[asakiyume]

Yeah, I think something like that. I imagine it must be very hard also to manage very diverse expectations about what the program will be and do. I can imagine some tutees being very demanding, or there being personality clashes or whatever. I felt very lucky things went the way they did.

[sartorias]

That is really awesome! (And a crackup about writers)

[asakiyume]

The thing about writers is so true that at this point I assume it about strangers that I meet.

Me: you're a writer, right?

Stranger: me? what? no, I'm a housepainter

Me: but you write novels in your spare time.

Stranger: no I don't! In my spare time I go fishing


Me: Okay then screenplays. you write screen plays

Stranger: I just told you--

Me: Poetry?

Stranger: Look

Me: Memoir!

Stranger: Okay, I am writing a memoir, but that's different

Me: *VINDICATION*

Not an actual conversation... but it could be

[sartorias]

LOL!!!

[sovay]

Six days after the tutor program was shuttered, he sent me his poems, plus a Soundcloud link where I could hear them--they were great!

I think that's wonderful! I hope you do continue corresponding. And I love that poets are everywhere.

[asakiyume]

I hope so too! And me too, re: poets (and storytellers) everywhere.

[cmcmck]

And everywhere! :o)

[asakiyume]

Indeed!

[minoanmiss]

Hooray for your new penpal! He's even more fortunate than he knows. :)

[asakiyume]

I hope he wants/is able to keep it up!

[pameladean]

How entirely perfect. May you have a long and happy acquaintance. P.

[asakiyume]

Thank you! (I wish for this too)

[gwynnega]

That is lovely.

[asakiyume]

Yeah, it's a nice part of our current timeline--very precious and rare!

[threemeninaboat]

Ahh that is disappointing. I've been on Duolingo for about 2 months and was thinking of a someday paid membership.

[asakiyume]

It's possible they'll one day re-jigger things and relaunch? I did write and tell them how much I'd enjoyed my brief time doing it.

[teenybuffalo]

How delightful! You saw your chance and you took it in the best way.

Duolingo respect. I've been working on French for about a month. My user experience has gotten a lot more pleasant since my therapist clued me in about turning off the little "Hello! I miss you:( Aren't you going to practice?" guilt-inducing texts. I didn't know you could turn off reminders! Now Duolingo is fun instead of being an unhealthy codependent relationship with the cartoon owl.

[asakiyume]

Yay Duolingo French!

I didn't know you could turn those off! I have a hard heart, so I basically ignore them, but now I'm thinking I'd like to be able to turn off the leaderboard thing that they've got going now, because that I *do* have an unhealthy relationship with. Aaaahhhaaa! I'm going to slip back into the sapphire league. Oh no!

[amaebi]

There's glory for you.

[asakiyume]

I'm self-consciously worried he will not be as into this pen pal relationship as I am. I'm assuming that before he was being paid (at least, I sure hope he was--it's interesting just how very opaque the program was, in its brief existence), whereas now it would be for pure friendliness.

[amaebi]

Your awareness is appropriate, but as you know, one can make friends anywhere, from the little lame balloon man to the county nurse.

[asakiyume]

Yeah, and for however long it lasts, and even if it's over now, it will have been/has been a lot of fun.