Conversation 2: Lifestyle and Academic progress!

Conversation 2: Lifestyle and Academic progress!

After many times re-scheduling for a meet-up, I finally had the chance to see Palmira for the second time on Sunday, November 1. It has been hard for us to meet up nowadays because Palmira no longer lives with her friend in Fort Worth. She has moved to Arlington to live her aunt. I appreciate her effort and her cousin driving 30 minute from Arlington to TCU so that we could meet. This time, I asked Kaylee – one of my closest friends who is from Arizona – to join our conversation, because I think it would be nice for Palmira to have more opportunity talk in English with a native speaker.

Palmira appeared, as pretty as usual. We had dinner in the BLUU by the window, watching the beautiful sunset. That day, both Palmira and I were having salads for dinner, but our reason for having salad is different. I was eating salad because there was no good meat available in the BLUU (surprised!); Palmira, on the other hand, was enjoying her salad because she liked it. This was when we delved more into the topic of lifestyle. I asked Palmira about her new life since living with her aunt. Palmira rolled her eyes and said that her life was good but her aunt was very strict. She is not allowed to go out after a certain curfew, and not able to join some other outdoor activities. However, she was still able to have some parties at her aunt’s house. This is when I learned something new about Palmira. Not only being a friendly person, she is also very active, free-spirit, and fun-loving. Thinking that I could learn something from her lifestyle since I am more of an introverted, in-door kind of person, I started to ask her about her exercise routine and eating habit. I learned that she loves salad, and used to work out almost every day when living in Angola, but now in the States, she doesn’t have as much opportunity to go to the gym, so she works out in the park twice a week. This conversation was like a reminder for me to exercise more, since I have been immersing in the workload lately that I forget that health is the most important thing.

After a month not seeing Palmira, I recognized a noticeable progress in her speaking English. I commented that her speaking had improved a lot. To my expectation, Palmira confirmed that she is now at advanced level and she has only a few months to go before she can graduate from the IEP. (A month ago, she was in the intermediate level). Now she is able to express herself better and show much more personalities. In my blog about our first meeting, I wrote that I couldn’t wait until the day she can expressed herself better so that other people can see her beautiful soul; now my wish for her has come true. I commended her for her hard-work and strong-will to achieve such a progress in a short period of time. I started studying English since I was eight, which is why I feel comfortable using English nowadays and even find it much easier to express my ideas in English than in Vietnamese (there are some abstract topics that would sound fake and unnatural if I talked in Vietnamese such as religion, God, vulnerability, love, etc.). It has been more than a decade of learning in order for me to feel comfortable using a foreign language in an academic setting. On the other hand, Palmira has only studied English intensively for a few months, and now she is able to conduct a lively conversation with both me and Kaylee. I admire her determination and encouraged her to keep up the great work.

We gradually shifted our conversation to academic. Palmira talked about her wish to go to college here and asked me again about the scholarships availability. I answered her questions like last time, and reminded her to meet with her advisor to check the application process to college. I wish I could help her more on this but we are on different tracks: she can apply to TCU without the SAT score and may experience different policies regardless of the paperwork since she is in the IEP, while I had to apply just like any other American students a year ago.  I knew that Palmira is not confident about herself and her ability, so I encouraged her to keep working hard because I knew that she is smart and she just need a bit more of language efficiency to finish the college application.

After a while, we all looked out into the pink-ish sunset outside, embracing the warmth of our friendship. We were all going through different obstacles in life, and I’m glad we were able to be together, share a bit about our difficulties, talk about our plans, and give out words of encouragement to one another. It was such a lovely evening!