One Last Time

I met with my conversation partner for the last time today. It was a bittersweet moment for me. The sweet part of it is the fact that the school year is basically over and I will get to go experience some things outside of Fort Worth. The bitter part is that this will probably be the last time that I get to see Isabela. She will be returning to Brazil at the end of the summer to continue her education at home. We somewhat reminisced today and just talked about what this has meant to each of us. I am honestly very grateful to have Isabela as my conversation partner. As I had expressed in a previous post, I was unsure of these pairings after being with Jun. I had nothing against him but it wasn’t a connection that was working. However, once Isabela and I were paired I felt that this was a good program to be a part of. I have definitely gained a friendship from this experience. We have been able to have a variety of conversations, from the really light shallow ones that a person has with most people, to the deeper underlying topics of this world. I’ve also enjoyed, like today, being able to talk to her about her home country. I think the best thing outside of actually visiting is talking to a native about it. She has told me a lot about this large country, from the poverty and wealth, to agriculture that I can relate to. Plus I have been given the opportunity to give her insight about Texas and the United States as a whole. It’s been nice to help her understand more about the place that she is living in.  When it comes to English itself, I’m not sure that it’s a good thing or a bad thing that I have unintentionally taught her some Texas slang. I naturally used ain’t and y’all and pretty much every other word in the Texas version of English. She even asked me what those words meant. I would definitely like to meet up with Isabela in the future but know that that is unlikely. She will definitely succeed both in the States as well as abroad though with her ambition. I definitely learned how to take from that about her.