Chatting with Jinn

It was 3:50 as I left my dorm, heading to the bookstore where I was supposed to meet my conversation partner Jinn. I checked my email to see if she had responded to my last message only to discover that she had arrived 15 minutes early. Woops. My bad. Frantically, I sped up, not wanting to be late and give her a bad first impression. I was a little nervous going into the meeting; I had no idea what to expect. I was hoping our conversation wouldn’t be awkward and that we wouldn’t run out of things to talk about. A few minutes later I walked into the bookstore and spotted her almost immediately, and went up and introduced myself.  I apologized for being a little late when she was so early, and she kindly told me it wasn’t a big deal. She said she had just been browsing through some of the books, and found one about how to train your cat. We both laughed out loud. This was off to a good start.

            Jinn is 25 years old, and she’s from Mainland, China. I learned she has been here for almost a year (it’s exactly a year next month), and she said she was enjoying being here for the most part, although she really does not like the food. She is studying business, and so far has enjoyed her classes, except they are challenging. She says she has to work really hard at her English, which surprised me, as I didn’t have hardly any trouble understanding her. The gestures she uses and her way of speaking are very similar to the way American teenagers talk. I can already tell we are going to have some things in common.

            She went on to tell me about her boyfriend, an Italian man she met in China who is currently working in Texas, which is why she is here right now. She is studying business and trying to improve her English before her and her boyfriend move to Paris when he is relocated in a year or two. She was very open about herself; she told me a lot about her family and her life back in China in the short time we talked. I told her a bit about myself too, about my family and hometown, and she was very curious about how I ended up in Texas. I told her why I chose TCU, and then we talked about some of the great things about California (she’s visited once before) and our love for Malibu.

We also had a few good laughs. I’m talking real laughs, not just polite, courtesy laughs. Jinn told me when she first saw my profile picture on Facebook, she thought my dad was my boyfriend and then realized from the caption he was actually my father. We both chuckled for a while at that one. As we were wrapping up the conversation, she told me how glad she was that we had talked and I told her I was looking forward to meeting with her again.

            About 20 minutes after our meeting, I checked my email and found a very sweet message from Jinn, inviting me to go out with her and her classmates tomorrow night if I didn’t have any plans. Needless to say, it brought a huge smile to my face. I’m glad she enjoyed our time as much as I did. I can honestly say I’m looking forward to getting to know her better and I can’t wait for this friendship to develop.