Meeting up with Ali for a third time! I must say this guy is hard to get a hold of or rather pinned down. I would ask to meet almost every day and he would say today doesn’t work well, let’s do Wednesday. Then on Wednesday I would email and ask "see you today?" or something along those lines. Normally I get the response: oh sorry I can’t today with some excuse. We tried to meet up on Monday but he had some sort of reason not too, it was rather unclear as to why. I hope Ali enjoys our conversations because he seems to never be able to make them. Maybe I am a bit annoyed at him for no reason. Americans have a particular importance on time and setting meetings. We are annoyed when people are a late or cancel or reschedule. In other countries this isn’t always so. In my Chancellor's Leadership Program meeting we were talking about mission trips. One of my fellows talked mentioned one of the hardest things was getting used to a different cultures sense of time. For them it was more important to finish a conversation or to be with family than to make sure to be somewhere perfectly on time, they lived more in the moment. I think this might be how Ali is!
I was happy to hear from him! We got to talking about our weekends of course! He had another big weekend. His grandparents came into town from Saudi Arabia! They were flying here to stay in Fort Worth for a few days then headed to Austin for quite some time, two months perhaps. Ali was very excited about seeing his grandparents. Like I said in my earlier blog posts, he came to America without a "safety net" of friends and family so I am sure having family come visit meant a lot to him. We got to talking about what they did while they were here. I was shocked to hear they did normal things like I do when my parents come. I shouldn’t have been shocked, by now I see how similar we are versus how different we are! They went walking, shopping and watch TV. They also baked! When I asked what they baked he said cookies and cake. I think my stomach rumbled when he mentioned it, I was a bit hungry! All of these things are just what any TCU student would have done. Ali just seemed so happy that is family was in town! When they left he said he was sad to see them go but they aren’t to far away. They will be staying in Austin for two months or so with his cousin's sister. I think he miss said it by accident because isn’t your cousin's sister still your cousin too? Perhaps not but these are moments when I reminded myself wait English isn’t even Ali's first language!
It's crazy to think he can speak almost fluently in English now. I am impressed at how much he has learned. I don’t think I would be quite as advanced in my language as he is with the amount of time he has had. I struggle learning intro Spanish classes and he is keeping conversations about more than just your typical intro class I presume. It always seemed funny to me that in beginning Spanish classes we learned a lot of vocab that we wouldn't use in ever day talking. When learning a language shouldn't you learn how to converse in it? Personally I want to be able to hold a conversation in a different language over knowing how to say stapler. I haven’t asked Ali yet but the next time we meet I think I will ask him how they learned English!
Ali and I wrapped up on conversation by talking about the rest of the week. He is headed to play billiards with friends and watch the Barcelona game and then has BBQ tomorrow! Ali is a pretty busy guy! While told him I was headed off to write this and to start writing a term paper. I wish I was having as much fun as Ali was in the next few days!
Great blog post, Darby! I really enjoyed reading about your experience with your conversation partner! I’ve encountered similar things with my conversation partner, Hussain, as you seem to have with Ali. Firstly, I was caught off guard by Hussain’s much looser sense of time, as well. For our first meeting, we agreed to meet at 1 p.m., but it was more like 1:15 p.m. that we actually connected and got talking. At first, I thought of a looser sense of time almost as an irresponsible view of situations. However, I think I’m biased to value promptness because it’s so ingrained in our society. While I recognized other cultures had different views of time than ours, I never stopped to consider why those different views might have some benefits. After reading your post, it makes a lot of sense that other cultures are okay operating around a more lax view of time because they value living in the moment more, which is a neat perspective. I’ve found my meetings with Hussain a great way to gain different perspectives, but it’s so cool I can gain even more perspectives by hearing about my classmates’ meetings with their conversation partners.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I compared my experience learning Spanish to Hussain’s experience learning English, as well. I am also continually impressed by how much progress Hussain makes with English, especially compared to how relatively little progress I feel I make with Spanish. However, I suppose that the only thing Hussain is studying right now is the English language, five days a week, whereas I have a full course load and co-curricular activities (as many TCU students do) in addition to studying a language, meeting for class only a few times a week. I’m curious about how Hussain picked it up so quickly, as well. Anyway, this just reinforces how much we have to learn from our conversation partners!
Thanks for posting. I am glad you and Ali were finally able to meet up.
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