Ice Cream? Yes Please

            Today Jinn and I went and got some ice cream at Menchie’s. We had some slight troubles figuring out where to meet up, but after that the rest of our meeting went smoothly. She picked me up outside of my dorm and even paid for my ice cream. What a gem, right? We talked about classes, and discovered that she is currently taking a class that I took last semester, Survey of Musical Theater. We both even had the same teacher! We talked about how much we enjoyed both the class and the professor. We then went on to discuss our bad teacher experiences, and how frustrating those situations are for Jinn as a foreign exchange student. We are actually taking a few similar classes, so it was nice to be able to swap stories and hear what she thinks of them.

            Jinn told me that she got a job in Milan this summer, so she will be leaving Texas in August and begins working in October. She said she is excited to go, but that it is a lot sooner than she had expected. I asked her if she thought she would end up back in China, and she said she didn’t think so. She enjoys being away, although she does miss her parents but they are coming out to Milan to visit during the summer. She said they are one of the only things she misses about China.

            We then talked a little bit about her schooling back home and she explained some of the differences between college in China and college here in the United States. She mentioned that in china, there is a difference between a college and university, typically a university means it is a 4 year school, where a college is typically only a few (2 or 3). It is also much harder to get into a university or college straight out of high school, and their admission is largely based on their tests result (like the SAT/ACT), whereas in the U.S. it is much more of a combination of a few different factors (GPA, extracurriculars, etc.). She told me about how much more rigorous their schooling is; she said she would wake up early and stay up all night studying.

            This is only my second meeting with Jinn, but every time we talk I am shocked by how well adjusted she is. She acts and talks almost identical to any young adult on this campus and she hasn’t even been here that long. She has already picked up on some of the slang terms, and she is very up to date on social media. She even told me she had seen some of my pictures on Facebook from this weekend, and had found my Instagram account. Needless to say, I was impressed. It’s nice to be able to talk to someone from so far away and yet still have so much to talk about.

            Overall, what I most enjoyed about my second meeting with Jinn was the ease at which we could hangout. It felt exactly like I was going out to ice cream with a friend I had known for years.