Meeting with Mohammed #5

            Earlier this week I met with Mohammed for my fifth conversation partner meeting. We met at the usual spot outside of Union Grounds, and we got right into conversation when he arrived. I asked him if he was nervous for his finals (which were this week) and he seemed to be pretty confident. I could tell he had been studying hard because he had a few grammar textbooks with him that looked like they were pretty well loved.

            I asked him how his thanksgiving break was, which was a dumb question because he had finals this week, and as expected he said he spent most of the break studying. I told him that I was about to start studying for finals and how I’m not really looking forward to it. I explained that I don’t mind taking the tests; in fact I actually sort of enjoy taking the exams. He told me I was crazy and asked me why I was not looking forward to them. I clarified that I’m not looking forward to the studying part. Tests I can handle but the long, tedious eight-plus hour days in the library tend to drive me insane. I told him that it was worth it to me to put in that much effort. When I sit down to take a final and I know all (or at least most) of the material, I get the biggest sense of joy after I finish. I told him nothing quite compares to coming out of test knowing that you did really well.

            When he asked about my break we got on to the topic of food. Realizing that I haven’t ever asked him about American food, I asked him what his favorite American food was. He surprised me when he said steak. I don’t really think of steak as an American food but I can’t really argue with the fact that steak is awesome. Mohammed added that his favorite food back home is kabab and kabsa. So I think its safe to say that he likes meat.

            After a rather lengthy discussion about different foods and how it is hard to define American food due to the large number of cultures that live here, Mohammed asked me what I’m going to be doing over break. I told him that one of the first days back (December 16^th) is my twenty-first birthday.  I told him that I would be working the first and last weeks of break in the bike parts factory that I worked in over the summer. The weekend before Christmas my parents are taking my twin brother and I to stay at the Four Seasons hotel in Denver and go to the Capitol Grill to celebrate or birthday. Other than that I told him that I’ll probably just be relaxing, snowboarding and shooting guns.

            Mohammed told me that he was jealous. I then asked him what he was doing and quickly found the source of his jealousy. He said that he would be studying even more English for the IELTS. This is the test that foreign students have to pass in order to attend and American university. He said that it insures that he is competent reading, writing and understanding lectures in order to be successful in school. This is when I remembered that I would also be studying a little over break for the LSAT. I told him this in an attempt to sympathize with him.

            The meeting had to abruptly end because he had to go study for a final he had the next day. We set up the time for our last meeting and went on our separate ways.