After figuring out our conflicting schedules, my
conversation partner and I were able to meet again. It had been quite a while
since we last spoke, but it felt as if I had been continuously talking to her
since she was so easy to talk to. Any of the awkwardness that existed in the
first meeting had completely dissipated.
For our
second meeting, we decided to meet at the same location as before: Union
Grounds. This time, she had a Red Bull and I didn't. I made a joke about how
hyper I got last time I had Red Bull, and she laughed, even though Red Bull is a
staple in her day. Since the basic introduction was out of the way, we jumped
right in to talking about Spring Break. Although social media seems to consume
daily life, it came in handy because she and I are "friends" on
Snapchat. This allowed me to see what she was doing during break in addition to
having a more casual form of communication. She talked about how incredible her
trip to New York City was, which I had seen snapshots of from her Snapchat. I
have never been to New York before, so it was interesting to hear her
opinion of the city since I had heard American opinions all the time. She
listed off some of the places she went to, like the Statue of Liberty, Times
Square, and the Ripley's Believe it or Not Museum. I had been to a Ripley's
Museum in the past, so we talked about how unique the museum was for a short
while.
She then inquired about my Spring Break; although
not as exciting as hers, I told her all of the fun things I did, mainly working
and visiting Chicago. The things I did during Spring Break branched off into
two different conversation topics: holidays and differences in the workforce between Saudi
Arabia and the US. On my trip to Chicago, I ended up seeing the St.
Patrick's Day Parade and got to see the river dyed green. Since we got onto the
topic of holidays, I mentioned that Easter was coming up soon. We talked about
Lent during our first meeting, so it was an interesting progression. I was also
surprised that she knew so much about American holidays since Americans are
often unaware of holidays celebrated in Saudi Arabia. As I mentioned in my last
conversation partner post, I'm only aware of Ramadan because of the world
religion course I took.
The second conversation my Spring Break adventures
led to was related to the differences between working in Saudi Arabia and
working in America. I work at a retail store, so I briefly explained what the
work environment was like. Tilly's, the store I work at, is basically a family,
which is an extremely relaxing environment to work in. We started talking about
paychecks; she explained to me that in Saudi Arabia you get paid monthly, even
for weekends and vacation days. All of the jobs I have had run on a biweekly
pay schedule. I'm not completely sure how the company my father works for goes
about payment, but I know employees don't get paid for weekends or vacation days
after a certain point. It was interesting to see how even things like fiscal
structure in the workforce are different throughout the world.
The last thing we talked about was her new classes
and learning new languages. Since she is in the Intensive English Program, she
started new classes the day of our meeting. She is in a grammar class and a
writing class, openly expressing favoritism towards the writing class. I made a
joke that I wouldn't like being in a grammar class either. This made me think
about growing up learning English grammar and the specifics of sentence structure;
I asked if the structure of English sentences was different from the
structure she is accustomed to. Based on her response, the way English is
structured is much different from the structure in Saudi Arabia, but also, she
explained that there are many similarities between Spanish and Arabic.
I feel like I am
constantly learning from my conversation partner; Saudi Arabia is a country
that was rarely discussed in my past classes, apart from religion, so it is
really eye-opening to hear the things she has experienced first-hand. It is
also really exciting to see how happy the little things make her, like the trip
to NYC. She seems incredibly appreciative, which is a quality that can
sometimes be lost in current American culture.
