Sunday, September 15, 2013

You've got questions. We've got answers.

  Humans are naturally curious. We wonder about this, that, and the other. There are questions we ask, and questions we don't.

About a decade ago, I spent a summer working as a tour guide at a WWI battlefield in northern France. It was a great experience, and I learned a lot about Newfoundland, Canadian military history, and finding entertainment in small-town Picardie. However, I (and the other guides) quickly learned that we had been hired to answer the same few questions, over and over again, the answers to which:

A: Yes, we're all students.
B: Philosophy.
C: Yes, from Canada.
D: No, not from Newfoundland, although some of our coworkers are, and have dubbed us honourary Newfoundlanders.
E: Yes, it really does make you think.

A few years later, I spent a year teaching English in South Korea. When I spoke to friends and acquaintances from home, I again got many of the same questions repeatedly, the answers to which:
A: Yes, I liked it a lot.
B: The students spoke some English already, but most didn't speak it fluently.
C: Yes, I already knew how to use chopsticks.
D: Yes, I learned some Korean.

And so forth.

And what are your answers when you tell someone you're expecting twins?

  A: I know! Two!
  B: We don't know the gender(s), nor do we intend to find out before they are born.
  C: Yup. Twins!
  D: Do they run in the family? They do now.
  E: Nope, not identical.
  F: They each have their own placenta, whereas identical twins typically share one.
  G: She'll continue working until she can't or they're born, whichever comes first.
  H: That's right. Twins!
  I: The grandparents are thrilled.
  J: Yes. Twins. Really.

Every so often, of course, are the questions less frequently posed, those that require more than a single rote sentence to answer. In Korea, I actually set up a portion of my blog to answer these. And, I thought, why not do the same thing here?

Ask a Father-to-be-of-Twins (FtboT)! Send your questions to twinfestation (at) gmail dot com, where they will be answered with haste and good cheer.

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