My new found friends

Yesterday I met Ilker, from Turkey, at breakfast. He told me he worked in the military. Much later I realized he worked there as an engineer. It all shows. He was superbly organized, and a ‘’natural leader’’ (in the army you either give commands or you follow orders, I suppose).

He moved around with a little pouch, which I found out was his personal documents like passport. During breakfast, he took his drinks, disposable plates, serviettes, bread, Nutella, cheese, etc from his locker in a most methodical manner. I was the one gulping down my bread and forgetting my serviettes and trying to wipe my mouth as discretely as I could with the back of my hand. ‘’You want a piece of serviette?’’ he asked gallantly. I accepted gladly. Would you like some of my food too, he asked again, looking at my spartan few slices of white bread.

Then somehow he managed to organize us informally and led us to the Uni management office to get our paper work done. He suggested a 25 minute walk instead of taking a bus. We went along with two Lebanese girls, one Egyptian and two Chinese.

One of the Lebanese girls, Diana, was so glad I could speak French that she started babbling away rapidly at me. Back home she teaches French. She was so glad she could finally speak her language with someone. I just looked at her, dumb. Very strange, whenever I am stumped for words in Italian, French words would creep in automatically. I guess it’s because French was my first foreign language and I studied it for so many years. But the minute I started to speak French to Diana, I lost all words and started replacing them with Italian instead.

I was placed in Level B2. There are four levels – A, B1, B2 and C (A being the most junior level and C obviously the highest) Diana is typically French (even tho she is Lebanese): indecisive, grumpy, complaining, and aggressive. She was ‘’borderline’’ and the teacher told her she could choose to do A or B1. She would be top of class at the end if she chose A and probably find it a challenge if she took B1. She could not decide. I gave her the same comment. Then she asked if I am in Level B and I said yes. (though initially I was not sure if I was B1 or B2) She started comparing her proficiency with mine and then asked if I knew conditional, subjunctive, conjuntive, remote past and all kinds of tenses. I told her yes and then she said she did too; so she should also be in B.

The next day, she somehow was put in B1 and she was not happy because she ‘’did not want to work so hard’’. Yet she asked to change to B2 (my class). At the end of the first session of my class she told the teacher she wanted to change back to B1 as she found my class too advanced for her. And her pride just would not allow her to take ‘’A’’ even though she finds that she is here not to work so hard but to have a vacation – 9am – 2 pm daily is ‘’too much work’’ for her. She asked if I liked the class I have been placed; I told her yes, there is no perfect class!

There are so many nationalities in my class that I am sure it beats my school's touted ‘’75 nationalities’’. We have Chinese, Japanese, Serbians, Bosnians, Zimbabweans, Ugandans, Germans, Swiss, Indonesian, Cambodian, Estonians, Romanians, Lithuanians, Russians, Polish, Greeks, Koreans, Americans, Maltese, Portuguese, British, Belgians, Hungarians, Argentineans, Spanish, Lebanese, Egyptians, and a few others I have forgotten.

The Japanese and Chinese typically cling to one another in their clique, and especially the women, dress like they were going for a fashion parade. This morning, a Japanese wore a long cheongsam; I could not imagine how she managed to sashay her way through the 15 minutes walk along the paved walkway of this medieval city! The Latin American girls, South and Eastern Europeans look gorgeous, and look and act bitchy. According to Diana, the Europeans typically have their noses in the air and do not bother to talk or make friends with non-whites. (It’s quite true, according to my experience)

Somehow my Chinese got more fluent – it must have been all the chatting with the Chinese students. I feel lucky that I don’t have to clique with them, yet feel comfortable talking to them, at the same time able to get along with the ‘’Westerners’’ and the ‘’in-betweens’’ like Turks and Middle Easterners. What a bonus, to be able to practice French and Chinese while studying Italian here! In fact, I am like a confusion to both all sides – am I Chinese, how come I can speak Chinese, how come I look like them but speak such good English, etc etc? I get asked endlessly.

Strange, we are supposed to be so diverse and therefore respect diversity. But it’s very natural to see all the ‘’stereotypical traits’’ that start kicking in, no matter how you try not to generalize.

As we were looking at a text and analyzing the grammar, our teacher asked, ‘’what do you observe about using percentages in your sentence’’ and without hesitation, Stefan, my German classmate next to me said, ‘’the article – you have to use the article when you use percentages’’. ‘’Exactly, that’s the rule’’ said my teacher, beaming. I could not help smiling – Germans are so good at strict rules and categorization, aren’t they? He is so organized too, unlike me. For example, on our first day, we were supposed to pair up and ask each other questions and then later introduce each other to the class. The way he interviewed me and wrote his notes: What is your first name? Surname? Age? (when it came to age, I hesitated…) Work? From which country? Today, we were given a text to read and then take our own notes and then later ask each other questions/ compare notes, and boy! The way he took and wrote his notes ever so conscientiously and neatly in full sentences frightens me; all I did was scribble my notes in bullet points!

Class started promptly at 9 am this morning, and I barely made it there at 9.03am. Blame the infrequent bus? Or the crowded buses? Or the indecision among us – could we take number 17? Or 33? Or 37? Or 10? Each of us seems to have taken all of these and each has his or her own experience of taking them and arriving (at different stations and walking different routes) without problem, it was all confusion.

From 9 – 11 we covered some texts, discussions, grammar and then a 10 minutes break before the next teacher took over. Some students wolfed down sandwiches and drinks during this break, while I checked my emails and made a phone call back to office.

From 11.10 am – 1 pm it was torture. We had listening comprehension and the topic was something of no interest to me – mountaineering. Worse, we had to listen to a phone interview of an old hermit/ sculptor/ mountaineer/ writer who lives in the mountains. This writer needs some media training indeed. He rambles on and on in circles and never gives his answers directly. It was near impossible to do the exercise at first listen. We had to ‘’listen in between the lines’’, and listened in total 3 times before we could complete the text. By then I was ready to murder the writer and vow never to read his book. Then we had to read another text on mountaineering again and compare notes with a partner (my German classmate). My head was screaming in pain and even my stomach protested.

By then the frustration somehow made me hungry. When class ended, all we could think of was ‘’dov’e la mensa’’? (where is the canteen). ‘’Non lo so, ma So sa, So sa la mensa, ‘’ said Stefan, laughing.

Trust a hungry German to be able to word play and joke. ‘’So’’ is the name of our Cambodian classmate, and he knows (‘’sa’’) where the mensa is. Mensa is canteen, not the association for the genius (‘’MENSA’’)

I am reminded to be grateful for the campus food back home. The canteen food is no where near its standard, and the service no where near as smiling. ‘’You don’t want any meat?’’ the server, and my classmates asked. No, only the pasta, I said. And they made such a fuss about showing the student pass. The Portuguese guy did not bring his and he was given a proper telling off, after having his name and particulars taken down. After collecting my pasta and Coke, I was told to go get a plate of salad and yoghurt, because it’s ‘’part of the cost’’/ set I paid.

And would you believe Janet Loh actually finished up the entire plate of pasta, small dish of salad, a small bread roll and a can of Coke! The stress and full concentration in class must have produced lots of acid and given me a huge appetite!