#7 Meeting with Bandar

I met with Bandar for the 7th time this Friday. The last few times I had talked to him he was sick but he was feeling better this time.  Last time he told me one of the first things he was going to do once he was better was shave, which he did. He laughingly told me it was a long process and that he was happy to be well again.  We talked about how when you are sick all you want to do is sleep all day and all your other priorities become insignificant.  I asked Bandar if his sickness affected his studies.  He told me that he had missed many classes but that he wasn't missing anything except more practice with the language.

We both talked about how classes had been going and he told me about a writing final they had earlier in the week.  The prompt was to write about an influential person from their country.  He wrote about their king.  The essay had to be written in 30 minutes and Bandar was mad that he only was able to write the first sentence of his concluding paragraph.  I was surprised by the time restraints and specific organization they had to follow for their essay.  Bandar said the teachers told them not to worry to much since they would take the time pressures into consideration, but I was still amazed by this. I remember not being able to write an essay in an hour my Sophomore year of high school so these demands were higher than I expected.

I asked what else he had coming up and he told me about a speaking exam he would have this coming week.  I empathized because just that morning I had to do an oral exam in Spanish class. He told me that the exam was divided into parts that involved repetition, comprehension, and grammar.  Then we had a good laugh when he told me about his favorite portion.  Apparently the test is on a computer and this section in particular asks very basic questions.  He told me how silly they were, something along the lines of you go to school to? ... fight? study? or dance?  Apparently he has failed this section before because he has laughed through the time given to answer the question.  When his teachers confronted him about it saying the section is easy and asking why he was laughing he asked them if they had been listening to the questions.  When they said no, he told them to listen to the questions so then they could understand why he was laughing.  I was cracking up for the whole story imagining this scene.  I thought it was great that his laughter showed his comprehension but also caused him to fail.  This will probably be one of my favorite stories from this whole experience.