I, Philanthropist

Lately I've been feeling a vague yearning for more responsibility in my life, so I went down to the library and signed up to be an adult illiteracy tutor. The program requires you to attend an all day seminar to learn how to be a tutor, then commit to meeting with your student for an hour and a half, twice a week, for six months. Kind of a big commitment, but hey, that's what I was looking for, right? Plus, I wanted to be able to say to girls on dates, "In my free time, I teach illiterate adults how to read."

So I attended the excruciatingly boring seminar, forfeiting an entire Saturday, at the end of which I was assigned my student: Kyung Jin Yon, a 23-year-old Korean girl. Right off the bat this struck me as a bit odd. A young foreign woman didn't fit the demographic of what I was expecting of an illiterate adult.

So I called Kyung Jin, who spoke in broken English, and managed to arrange a time for us to meet - on a Sunday afternoon, because she said she was working full time. This was contradictory to the information I had been given about her, which said she was available from 2PM-7PM on Mondays and Wednesdays. I didn't really want this to become a weekend thing.

The night before our meeting, Kyung Jin cancelled, sending me the following text message: "Teacher, really thank u for understanding* finally, I went to the hospital by emergency on last sat. i have been taking some of medicion plus i feel better (i am still sick a little bit) But I could see you this sun at noon, i will promiss! how about you? the main thing is the work! and no time for studying but i need. i know it is late taking msg..i just remember u now/think..good night..sorry, i don't speak english well. Loveable Angel :)"

Obviously, this was a red flag. Sure, there are some grammatical shortcomings and spelling mistakes, but really, not much worse than the text messages I get from most literate American adults I know. It's also one of the longest texts I've ever received.

Clearly, this girl was not illiterate in English. And even if she was, it's her second language! She's just trying to brush up on being bilingual! As I would learn, "Loveable Angel" was how she signed all her texts. She's got a full time job and is sending me text messages in fluent English, signing them with a signature nickname?! Illiterate people don't have signature nicknames on text messages!

I was being robbed of my philanthropic experience.

After she cancelled our meeting a second time - this one scheduled for 7PM on a Thursday, because she was working overtime - I texted her asking if she was going to have time to meet twice a week. She never responded.

Then I emailed the program director at the library, explaining the problems I was having getting Kyung Jin to meet me, and my reticence to tutor her based on my strong suspicion that she wasn't a legitimate adult illiteracy candidate. She never got back to me, either.

This is what I get for trying to improve my own life by giving back to society. I should just go work on my tan.