6/22 Hosting Minutes By Jane Cheng
Topic: ‘Words with friends’ becomes something more – ‘online dating’
We moved to Mos burger on Ho-Nan Road due to the renovation in the initial one. I was sorry that it was smaller and hardly found a bigger space for us to sit together. However, though we were a bit worrying that the turn-out wouldn’t be good because of the new venue, it wasn’t so bad. We had Jasmine, Harris, Coach, John, Steven, Nathan, Kevin, Bill and three new comers –Travis, Britney and Charming. The total numbers are 12.
A young blond girl from America, Britney surprised us with her friendly, sweet and shy character. She and Travis met online and they decided to come and share their story to us. What amazing couple they are!
We also did a new arrangement on the free talking section. When our numbers increased to 6, we were divided into 2 tables. It’s good for the attendants to have more chance to practice speaking and get to know each other in a small group. Everybody was positive about this new change but it still can be improved. I wish the following hosts can do better arrangements based on the previous experiences until an optimal method is found.
In my group, John told us he played ‘Candy Crash’ online game from time to time and only invited his friends on face book. Steven play line games on the mobile with his friends. They haven’t picked a random opponent on the internet.
However, Harris has made a friend by face book and this friend became one of his clients so he was for making friends online. John also successfully made a business via the internet although they have never met. These were all good stories for us to get to know how to utilize internet to find potential clients.
Although now making friends via the internet becomes more popular and acceptable, we need to be very cautious whom we are dealing with, especially for the kids and teens. Parents should discuss with their children about the danger of meeting strangers online early. They had better use anonymity and not reveal personal information to them. If there’re anything related to money or going out, kids have to let the parents know. There’re too many traps and cons on the internet so most of us were quite conservative about making friends online.
John made his wife by matching dates. They decided to get married because of their age. Steve remembered his ex’s smile that impressed him indeed. And congratulations to Kevin! He’s going to get married with his ex-girl friend who he has been together with for 12 years although there’re 3 years break in the middle. Finally, the lovers have their happy ending. When asked why it’s her, he replied because she’s the exact style he liked and wanted. Now Kevin becomes the happiest man in the world! We are so happy for him.
Britney shared us her precious experience and give us suggestion of online dating. She’s interesting in learning language so she registered an international language learning website. Travis, her boy friend, was also the member on the website and he posted his English diaries onto the blog. Britney read these diaries and responded. Later they found out they lived not far away. Britney was teaching English in a Kindergarten in Chung-Hua County. So they began dating. What a lucky guy Travis is! Now he can practice English with his American girl friend every day!
Britney suggested that it’s good to meet new friends on the website where you have the same interests or hobbies to share with but disapprove of the purpose just for finding a date via online dating sites. I quite agreed with her, a smart girl.
After our routine meeting, we went to a nearby Italian restaurant to celebrate Lisa’s speech contest champion. We enjoyed the meal very much and thank for Britney and Travis’s joining, we also kept practicing our English. We sincerely wish they can come often. A good teacher with patience and nice smile, Britney was really helpful.
Jane Cheng
