ESL Conversation: Spring Break and Giraffes

I was able to catch up with my conversation partner Tiffany again at the end of last week. We spent most of the time comparing what each of us had done for spring break and what we had been up to lately. Once again in this conversation I was able to see how well Tiffany has adapted to life in Texas and also how there are still a few small gaps in her vocabulary but she is able to work around them easily.

Tiffany was excited to tell me about a recent trip she had made with her friends to a wildlife park where you could feed the animals.  She didn’t know the names for some of the animals but it was easy to figure out what she was talking about.  A zebra, camel, and giraffe are all pretty distinct animals. This reminded me of when I had to learn the names of many animals in my high school Spanish class. We only scratched the surface and I can honestly say I would be lucky to remember half of them.  I know if I moved to China learning the names of every animal would not be very high on my list of priorities. I couldn’t help but feel like my life was a little boring when the most exciting thing I had done recently was eating BBQ with some friends.

My life didn’t seem quite as boring when we started discussing what we had done for spring break. Neither of us made the typical pilgrimage to a warm beach but had found something to do. I went back home to Muenster, Texas and spent half the week camping with my little brothers.  Tiffany had flown to Seattle with several of her friends and toured around the area, seeing the Space Needle and Pacific Ocean. Tiffany had also told me she flew to Chile to visit relatives over the Christmas break so I asked her how she felt about flying so much. I was surprised to learn that she actually doesn’t like flying at all. She wasn’t deathly afraid of flying, but after the extremely long flights she has made back and forth from China she is sick of it. I could count the number of times I’ve flown on one hand so it’s still an out of the ordinary experience for me.

My conversations with Tiffany have changed my perspective on foreign students in general. I had always thought they didn’t get out as much as normal students because I knew I wouldn’t be that outgoing if I was going to college overseas.  But obviously if these students are adventurous enough to go to college in another country, they will find more exciting things to do once they get there.