My mentor's name was Megan, a grad student who's also in my Russian lit class so we knew each other prior to our RWC session. She's is working toward her master's in literature and always participates with very insightful comments, so I was really looking forward to getting to learn from her. All in all I can say I did learn a lot from our first session.

Her first meeting should have been a one-hour session but ended up being a no-show. He was a regular Wednesday appointment but didn't email her ahead of time to opt out. Megan advised me that it's typical to wait fifteen to twenty minutes for hour-long appointments to show up, and about ten for thirty minute appointments. At that length of time it's acceptable to take walk-ins. After the twenty minute mark when we didn't receive any walk-ins, we discussed class, her experience as an English major and the kinds of students she's encountered in the RWC. She spoke kindly about the next appointment, who was a bilingual male.

He showed up exactly on time (at 5:00) with a positive attitude. He was Brazilian so Portuguese was his first language, apparent from his heavy accent. He also schedules regular appointments with Megan so this appointment was to work on pronunciation as they usually do. Megan had him read news articles of his choosing the entire time. He did so without any fuss and pronounced most words with ease but got stuck a few times and had to ask for help. He got stuck on one word repeatedly, which was "office." He kept pronouncing it like "offs" but Megan was persistent, and eventually she wrote out the phonetic spelling to give him a visual representation ("offess.") He had trouble deciphering the meaning of some words as well, like"bury."

While as an undergraduate student I don't think I'll be paired with as many English-as-a-second-language students I feel that now I'm more prepared. I've learned it takes diligence and encouragement.