Conversation 6

           I was able to meet with my ESL partner Tiffany again yesterday afternoon at Union Grounds during a short break between classes. Our conversation began again with a few brief remarks on the ridiculous weather which seems to be a different extreme every time we meet. This particular day it was ridiculously cold and had caught us off guard. After that our conversation shifted to our hectic schedules for the end of the year and the impending doom that is finals week.

Tiffany is only taking two classes but has finals for her ESL classes as well. The finals for these classes are a lot longer and have writing, speaking, and listening sections on them, which did not sound like a good time to me.  My finals week is nothing out of the ordinary, five finals in four days each worth twenty or thirty percent of my grade. Tiffany asked me if I had any test or projects during the last of week of classes. I thought for a moment and said “Yep, one in every single class,” as I was just realizing this fact myself.  Most of them were more on the enjoyable side so I wasn’t really complaining. Tiffany had a project due that week for her Survey of Music class but it was just a report on her favorite music so she was looking forward to it. She wanted to know what sorts of projects I had to do for engineering so I explained that right now we are building bridges out of magnetic sticks to see whose can hold the most weight. After that the conversation shifted to the different majors at TCU and Tiffany’s plan for the next year.

Tiffany isn’t completely sure yet but thinks she wants to be a business major. She explained that she still has quite a bit of time to decide because she has a lot of core classes she still needs to take and next semester she will still be taking several ESL classes. She was already nervous for the possible interview she would have to do to get into the business school down the road. A brief discussion about possible electives for the fall turned the conversation to the subject of religion. Tiffany was particularly nervous about this elective because she didn’t belong to a particular religion and imagined a class about religion in America would be quite different from what she had been exposed to in China because most people there she knew were Buddhists. I assured her you didn’t have to be an overly religious person to do well in a religion elective and that world religions might be a good choice for her. She had several questions about Christianity and wanted to know how often I had to go to church which I was glad to answer. She had gone to church with several of her American friends one week and said her favorite part of the experience was all the music even though she wasn’t sure what was going on the rest of the time.  My brother plays piano in Church so as terrible as it sounds I have been sick of “Church music” from an early age because he was constantly practicing in our house. Our conversation on religion helped me to realize how important TCU’s core requirements can be in exposing every student to a diverse set of subjects that they otherwise might not have taken. I glanced at the clock and it was already time for my next class so we both left and agreed to try and meet at least once more before the summer.