Journal #4

I enjoyed being able to spend time and interview the international students at the CESL. I liked being able to learn about their culture and what it is like to live there and not just reading about it in books. The first person I interviewed was a girl from China. She was very friendly and liked to talk about what her life was like in China. She like many things about America,  such as being able to dress however she liked and getting to know more people that weren't Chinese. The second person I talked with was a girl from Saudi Arabia. She was very shy and even told me she did not like to talk about herself and her culture. Things were very different there. Males and females were separate at all times and it was very weird to her to be mixed and in classes with males. I realized not only how different their culture was but how different there lives were on a day to day basis.

I definitely found out that the two girls I was able to talk with were somewhat similar to the author of the text Letter to Mexico. Although I am not for sure about their exact feelings it seemed to me as if either they didn't feel like they belonged in their country or wanted to get away from their daily lives. They wanted something different and wanted to be able to see what it was like so far from home. One thing that I found very interesting was the fact that they weren't studying classes for their intended major. They were learning English and would eventually be able to apply to the University.

All of these people were very brave. It couldn't be easy to leave your family to travel to another continent in a language that they barely knew. The only barrier to our communication was the fact that their English was very raw. They knew English and could speak it, but there were some words they were unfamiliar with. It made me realize that even though our cultures are different the only obstacle we had was not speaking the language.

Journal #2

The text I chose for my persona essay is the essay I used for admission into the U of A. My essay was about an incident that happened to me and one of my best friends during our freshman year in high school. This experience changed who I was as a person and a friend and helped shape the person that I am today. I rarely share this story with anyone as it is something a close friend confided in me and asked me not to tell anyone. Also looking back at it I feel like there were certain things I should have done to help out my friend.

I would compare my text to Hampl's text because of the fact that I changed certain things about the story and left certain parts out. Also similar to Hampl's text there are certain parts of our friendship that stick out the most to me, mostly being how our friendship ended. I wish I could remember our good memories together a little better but the way our friendship ended will definitely be something I'll never forget. At least at the current time I am able to say that we have recently become friends again but that certain occurrence will always be something that hindered our friendship.