7th Meeting with Khalifa

On Thursday, I met with Khalifa for the seventh time. After lots of unnecessary work, phones calls, and trips, he has finally been given permission to move to California. He will move to California on December 7^th so he only has a little over a week to pack. He was hoping that I had been to California before so that I could give him some advice but sadly I haven’t. His brother went to school in California 6 years ago and loved it. I assured him that nobody I have met from California has had anything but nice things to say about the state. He’s also excited to get back to the beach. In Saudi Arabia he can look out his back door and see the ocean so being stuck in the middle of Texas left him quite beach deprived.

He had a writing test today and thought he did pretty well. He wrote over 250 words so he was pretty confident that he would get a good grade. The writing test was the last test that he will ever have to take in Texas. He asked in detail about my presentations and finals since he’s going to be going through the same situations a year from now. He’s really looking forward to beginning college but is scared of the work load. As an ESL student, his homework is basically just to communicate with Americans and learn the language and culture. He can’t imagine having to spend more than a few hours in the library doing homework. But, he knows that he needs to get good grades, get his degree, and get back home and there is tons of family pressuring him to do so as fast as possible.

We went back to talking a little bit about our Thanksgiving breaks and I was talking about being at home for the week. Khalifa asked how often I went home, and I told him at least once every month. Since I live an hour away from campus, I can really go home whenever I want. Khalifa, hasn’t been home in a year. He arrived in Texas last December and hasn’t been home since. I can only imagine how homesick I would be if I was in his situation but it doesn’t seem to bother him too much. He admits that he misses his family but said he is here getting his education and having fun and that he doesn’t really have a desire to go home yet. Once he moves to California next week, Khalifa and his sister will get settled and then head back to Saudi Arabia for the break. He hasn’t even told his mom that he’s coming home yet because he wants to surprise her. He’s much more anxious for California than he is for his trip back to Saudi Arabia. Either way, he will get to look out his back door and see something that I have never been able to; the beach.