Tonight after my tutoring session, I met up with the rest of the class at Aladdin's and had a long conversation with Jung's partner, Adel. We started talking because he was seated next to me; he seemed really shy at first, and I'm not sure whether it is because I'm a girl or because he was unsure of his English. He told me that he might go to Pennsylvania or stay in Florida to do a Masters in Hospitality and Business Administration. When I asked what he studied for undergrad, he didn't quite understand and told me that he was here studying English; when he asked me if we needed to take the GMAT to go to undergrad, I explained that that is taken to do a Masters in Business and we talked about the SAT. I tried to explain what I want to study when I graduate, but the concept of "lawyer" wasn't getting across; but thankfully Jordan was sitting across from us, and he taught me how to say "laywer" in Arabic, which helped a lot.
He finally seemed to warm up to talking to me and was translating for one of his friends, who was recounting his move into a new apartment today. We contemplated the tea he was drinking, which he ordered without knowing that there were several different flavors available... I have wanted to learn Arabic for a while, so I asked him to teach me a few words. He gladly agreed, so I learned how to greet someone, "How are you?" "I'm fine" and "Good night." According to Adel, I pronounced the words well, but I think he was just being nice. I definitely had a new appreciation for all of the students learning English, with so many sounds that are completely unfamiliar to them because words that should be relatively simple in Arabic were very difficult to understand and pronounce, simply because they were so foreign to my existing language schema. Overall, the sheesha night was a huge success, and all of the CIES and TEFL students had a wonderful time, and although about half the people there speak Arabic, most of the conversation was still in English.
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