Another Great Meeting

Conversation 6

When I walked in to the TCU bookstore for our usual meeting, Alya was reading George Orwell’s 1984. I have never read this book but know that it is a famous novel, so I was curious what she thought of it. It was interesting that her class was teaching this novel as a way of teaching English. She is only a few chapters in by she said the plot is interesting and not too difficult to follow. But she did say that there was a lot of vocabulary that was difficult for her, so to help her with pronunciation she got the audio version of the book to follow along with. I thought this was a really smart idea for how to read along with a novel when she is having trouble. That is way better than giving up or not even trying! We talked about the book and how she felt about it for a bit, and she said that the liked how the book was talking about a future that is now the past.

Instantly that reminded me of the film series Back to the Future. She had never heard of this before so I explained them to her. I think I got a little to excited about it because I really like the movies, but she seemed intrigued. I remember from the movies that the one where the go to the future they go to the year 2015. That is not too far away from where we are now. I told her about the flying hoverboards in the movie that are kind of like skateboards but they fly. It was really funny talking about the future, which in just a few short years will be our present. Unfortunately, I don’t think that we are going to have hoverboards any time soon. But then again technology is advancing rapidly. I am still going to hold out hope! Alya seemed interested as I was telling her about these movies and she even wrote down the title so she could remember it for later. One of her favorite movie genres is science fiction; so I think it will be a good fit for her.

We also talked about potential summer plans and when I mentioned that I was trying to get an internship she appeared confused. She admitted that she did not know this word or know what it meant. After I explained, or attempted to explain (I really never know if I am explaining something correctly or enough; it makes sense in my mind, but I don’t know if it comes across as I am intending), Alya said that she understood but that there are no internships in Saudi Arabia. I was shocked! I cannot imagine a place where there are no internships. She said that this concept makes logical sense to her because so many institutions and establishments in Saudi ask for a degree with high grade or a degree with two years experience, only no one will give the experience without previous experience. She has no idea how people get experience when everyone wants them to have held a job in their respective field before they can apply for the job. Alya was impressed with the westernized aspect of internships and noted that she hopes Saudi gets something like that soon. I really hope that she is able to take advantage of the internships and other opportunities that America has to offer while she is here.

Near the end of our talk, we turned to the subject of the conflict in Syria. Alya had just done a presentation about this is class and was thus interested in the topic. I admitted that I was not up to date on the subject but knew that the civil war was distressing and incredibly sad. Luckily, Alya does not have any friends or family who are in the country so they are all out of harms way. But she was still moved by the topic and was interested to know what Americans thought of the situation. This reminded me of the most recent episode of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ in which two Syrian doctors come to Seattle to learn how to perform surgeries with limited supplies. While the show is a fictionalization about the events occurring in Syria, I thought it was clever of the writers to bring a global conflict into the show. Many Americans probably have no idea what is going on in the show or do not care. This episode raised awareness about the war as well as humanized the people in the country instead of just presenting the facts of who has died and who is winning. Alya enjoys this show as well and we were both happy to see that the writers of the show were able to raise awareness to the issue.