Interlude Part 3 (Interesting People)

I’ve made a few friends in class, three of them not from the UK. They’re all really great and it was pretty impressive to see them at work. I can’t imagine the difficulty trying to adjust to a new place where English isn’t the first language. That’s why I give Matt so much credit for how he’s rocking Germany.

I met this group, two guys and a girl, as part of a presentation we were assigned to complete for a class. The presentation wasn’t too bad, but we all wanted to take a slightly different approach to the material included in the powerpoint. Some of that is cultural and I’ll get to that later.

I’ll be using initials only, along with the sex and nationality of individuals. Sorry if you were looking for more, this forum is just too public. One on one, we can talk in more detail.

AH, male, German is an environmental geology major. This means that he focuses on resources and land reclamation. Both very relevant in nations like the UK and Germany that have limited greenfield land to develop. A, unlike his compatriots in Freiburg , is social and very outgoing. He does need to be drawn out a bit at first though. He is very focused on details, which is great, but it ends up hurting the overall picture and progress. He likes to have extremely clear plans before action, rather than just getting started on things. He’s extremely intelligent and his English is good. He’s very nice, open, and wanted to make friends. A clear leader, but he tends to talk a lot and then apologize for it all.

GA, male, Spanish was a bit hard to get to know due to a more limited grasp of English; however, what was clear was that this was a sharp guy. He and A were close I think because they would smoke together. We have these moments, flashes of understanding where I manage to phrase things, and vice versa, such that we understand each other. It usually results in laughing and smiles.

GAM, female, Spanish. Much like her male counterpart English could be a bit of a problem though in her case it was due to her very strong accent. Pronunciation suffered even though she was using the right words. We bonded because unlike the guys she’s from a rural area. We could take about farming, wind power, and the politics that go with rural communities. We also joked about the guys’ smoking habits and how it made them late for class once or twice.