Defying American Stereotypes

A few weeks ago (yes, I am just writing about this now…), I met up with Meshari for our usual powwow at Union Grounds, and was informed that he had encountered some recent stresses. He was told that he has to find a school for him to attend for further education within the month or he will get kicked out of the program. I remember looking at colleges over a two year period in high school, trying to decide that TCU was the school for me (or more like prove to my parents that all other schools were inferior), so I can’t imagine having to search and make that crucial choice within a month. Then again, it takes me twenty minutes to decide what granola bars I want at Target, so making decisions isn’t my strong suit… Luckily at this point he had already zeroed in on Tarrant County College to begin his studies. He wanted to stay in Ft. Worth, and I’ve heard great things about TCC, so it sounded like a solid choice for him! He said that he was meeting with advisors there to get some more information, such as their policy with his scholarship from Saudi Arabia, along with other basic information we all probably asked when researching schools. He asked if he could call me if he had any questions or needed more help, which I gladly allowed. I definitely wanted to help as much as possible, and felt pretty honored that he wanted to use me as a resource to come to for assistance. It was really cool that he trusted me with that!

I was really curious about why it appeared that he had to find a school on such short notice, so I asked Meshari about it to try to understand a little more in depth about how the program works. He said that his scholarship was good for a year and a half in the Intensive English Program and five years at a university to earn a degree. He had to go home to Saudi Arabia last summer due to some problems he had to tend to there, so he was told he would receive an extra three months for this search, but that is apparently no longer the case. He praised the Saudi Arabia government for the great things they are doing, but said he was pretty frustrated with his advisor for being pretty apathetic with all of this, and not providing his students the attention they need. Because it is an international program, he was assigned an advisor in Washington D.C. which I can imagine makes things even more difficult. In his frustration, Meshari said that it would have been easier if this advisor was from Saudi Arabia. This made sense to me, because then they would most likely be very familiar with this process, as there is such a large amount of students who go through this program. Assuming the advisor was American, I asked if he had faced other problems or had other frustrations with Americans over the course of time he has been here so far, or if we were generally okay. I just know that there are negative stereotypes about Americans in other countries, so I was really curious to hear a personal account of this from another perspective, and see if the stereotypes were proved to be true or not. I am very proud of this country and our people, and I wanted to make sure that we aren’t as bad as some people make us out to be. He said that his advisor was actually from Egypt, and that he wished they were American. That was actually a pretty nice relief for me. Being my ignorant American self, I took it more as a good comment towards the US than a negative one towards the advisor’s home country, also just because I didn’t think he was making the comment intentionally pointed at them, but at the situation. I also reminded myself to think of it more about how it was just the advisor’s lack of effort towards these students, regardless of where he was from. Meshari then went on to say that he loves studying here because he really likes Ft. Worth and America, and that he enjoys our people as well. We talked about how he has encountered a few people who haven’t been the nicest towards him because he is from Saudi Arabia and Muslim, but he said that those people could be found anywhere in the world, and not just in the US. It doesn’t bother him much because he is very proud of his home and religion, regardless of what others may think. I thought that was a mature and respectable outlook to have, and told him that it was awesome that he has that positive attitude. He then said the sweetest thing anyone has ever told me, which was that he hopes one day all the people in the world would be as nice as I was. I was so incredibly touched by that. He has said the absolute nicest things to me during our meetings!

He also said that he would love to show me around if I ever visited Saudi Arabia. I think it is great that he is so proud of his country while also allowing himself to love other countries as well. Too often we come across people that express pride in their country by bashing others, which is not how it should be at all. I wish more people around the world, including Americans, were as open-minded as Meshari is. It was definitely nice to hear that we weren’t as bad as some stereotypes make us out to be, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement! World peace y'all!

I'm a Big Kid Now?

Approaching the end of the first semester of my sophomore year, I am realizing something that should seem quite obvious but is just now hitting me more so than it has up to this point: I am growing up. Who knew, right? I am becoming less of a pseudo-adult full of blissful ignorance, and more of a real one thanks to a few nice, solid slaps of reality.

Like I said, this should be an obvious transformation, especially once coming to college and experiencing life without the secure hand of my mother to cling to. Though in my case, I feel like this progression into adulthood began at a relatively earlier time in my life than for some others. I’ve always been pretty independent when it came to taking care of myself, so coming to college wasn’t a huge transition for me in those regards. I began my first job at a chocolate and coffee shop when I was fifteen, where I was soon trusted with a key to the store and most of my shifts consisted of me running the shop by myself. I continued to work through high school, sometimes even up to three jobs at once. Even with a minimum income, I paid for what I could, such as gas and car insurance, along with usual small purchases. My parents still helped with money, don’t get me wrong, but this was my way of helping out. Also that year, my mom, whose sole occupation for the previous twelve years was to keep me and my younger brother and sister breathing and out of juvy, began a full-time job, handing the family care-taking reins over to the oh-so-responsible first born, yours truly. And so began my life as part-time student/part-time athlete/part-time employee/part-time mom, making it pretty safe to say that I often felt too much like an adult at times. This was the balance of responsibilities all the way through high school. And until recently, the only big milestone that really gave me that feeling of maturity upon coming to college was the delightful adoption of student loans. Something about signing a contract saying that I’ll do something in years’ time just seems awfully adult to me, let alone one that involves me owing more money than I was worth. Other than that, along with the literal amount of time, I didn’t feel much closer to “adulthood” than I did in high school.

Within the past month or so, that view has drastically changed. I was hired on as an ambassador for an MCAT preparatory company that I applied for, initially thinking it was just something sponsored by TCU for students to do. I learned pretty quickly that my initial judgment was a tad off base. Apparently this is a small, up and coming company, based in Michigan, that is making its first attempts to spread their products to schools across the country, via their six ambassadors. My job is to talk to representatives of pre-med programs and create partnerships with them, along with getting the word out about this company to anyone who may find it of interest. I am technically an independent contractor, meaning I can operate however I think is best to have the greatest productivity, including the ability to hire other people if I feel the need to. I had to sign a contract and fax it over to their headquarters. Again, signing my life over seems pretty adult. I went from a pre-med student to a marketing representative for a company. What?

Then came the monumental task of figuring out a housing situation for next year… If there was one thing that has caused more stress than anything else in college so far, it was this. Add that to an even more than usual stressful time with classes, and you get a few sleepless weeks of near insanity. At first I was super excited about having the opportunity to house hunt. Just the thought of this made me feel more grown up, which I had apparently been missing. I enjoyed the responsibility of finding a place that could realistically fit the criteria we set out for: relatively cheap, within walking distance of campus, three bedrooms. Challenge accepted. How hard could it be, right? Uhh wrong. It started out being thrilling and intriguing for me, but soon became extremely frustrating on all levels. Between issues with who was living with us, our disability to agree on what we wanted, and every house that we actually agreed on instantly being leased, I was about to rip my hair out. I reached the verge of seriously calling it quits and just living in my hammock next year to spare any remaining sanity I had left. I had done so much research that I literally exhausted all internet sources, and could easily tell you the address, rent (divided by three), and walking time to campus of every available house within a five-mile radius of TCU. I emailed and talked on the phone to more strangers than I have in the complete previous 19 years and 7 months of my existence. There were so many things to take into account that I never had to think about before. Like the only thing I had known about utility costs up to this point were either from Monopoly (pay owner 4 times amount shown on dice/10 times if they own both), or from them being the reason my house always felt like a sauna in the summer and a giant walk-in freezer in the winter compared to everyone else’s houses. Lawn care? No, that’s my brother’s job. There is a lot more that goes into having to manage a house than I ever really considered. Now I not only have to acknowledge that these aspects exist, but I have to choose a house based on them. It became quite evident that I was not nearly as knowledgeable in the subject of Real Life as I thought I was. I never really worried about this kind of stuff because I had it all neatly filed away in the “Grown- Up Senna Problems” compartment in my head. This made me realize that it was time to unlock that drawer, which meant that I was indeed growing up, and in a much larger way this time. None of the other dotted-line signatures felt nearly as mature and sophisticated as did the one on the housing lease we miraculously decided on. Not only did we legally agree to a commitment that would span a year, but a commitment that doesn’t even begin until next June. I’d say that legally binding oneself via a paper and pen is definitely one of the staple aspects of adulthood, and I seemed to have done that just left and right this past month. It was a sweet relief that the horrendous process was over, along with a grand satisfaction that we were capable of making some very critical adult decisions.

Maybe this whole adult thing is harder than it seems, but at the same time, maybe I am more capable of making it in the real world than I thought. I'll apparently be finding out sooner than later. Who knew that it would take getting a big kid job and a big kid house to actually start feeling like a big kid?