Handling unexpected small talk

7:55

here or how's

7:55

your day going some kind of typical

7:57

small talk

7:58

and I just stood there and I stuttered

8:02

and I didn't really know what to say and

8:04

then he repeated the question and I said

8:06

something probably something silly and

8:08

when I walked away from that

8:10

conversation I just laughed and thought

8:12

what happened this is my native language

8:15

why can't I respond to him and then I

8:17

realized oh I haven't practiced small

8:20

talk with strangers in English in three

8:23

years I'm gonna need a little bit of

8:25

practice to get used to speaking like

8:27

that again then a few weeks later I was

8:29

at Trader Joe's the grocery store that I

8:31

mentioned to you and I was getting a

8:33

sample of food from one of the workers

8:35

and she asked me some typical question I

8:38

don't even remember what it was but it

8:40

was some kind of small talk question in

8:42

my brain just wet hair and shut down

8:46

completely and I recognized this feeling

8:49

because it had happened a couple weeks

8:51

earlier at the driver's license place so

8:53

I thought I should just tell her why I'm

8:57

reacting like this so I said I'm sorry I

8:59

just moved back from Korea and I haven't

9:01

had small talk in English for a long

9:04

time so I'm sorry about my awkwardness

9:07

and you know what she had lived in Korea

9:10

too it was a really unusual circumstance

9:13

but we bonded