I didn’t know when I got to college….no it started before college. Travel back with me to the end of my senior year of high school ( Wizard of Oz Tornado scene) The senioritis was strong and everybody was trying to get a roommate.
I had been unsuccessful in finding a roommate and I didn’t really want someone I knew from back home to live with. So I did the thing that everyone me to do...I just picked one… I had verbally committed to rooming with this girl from Chicago but then literally two days before the roommate thing closed I got an email and I knew that she and I had to be roommates so after telling the girl from Chicago that I couldn’t be her roommate I settled it and chose my roommate and she was definitely not someone from back home or Nebraska, or the United States, or the Northern Hemisphere!!
The person I agreed to live with was from Brazil! And boy it has been an experience ever since. Things I didn’t know before having an international roommate.
You become a food educator That's right. It’s your job to teach her all of the generic American things like what is Thanksgiving. (Try explaining to someone what Thanksgiving it’s harder than you think) or a Launchable!!
She didn’t know what a Lunchable was! Runza, Dorothy Lynch, and many more. I got to be the one to teach her all the weird American/Nebraskan slangs we use because we would be talking and I would say something and she would be just staring at me confused.
I’m not saying her English is bad it's just we are a lazy culture and have slang for just about everything because in full disclosure her English is better than mine and this is my only language.
I didn’t know before I got an international roommate that I would become a personal tour guide. Not only for learning our way around Lincoln together but also showing her about Nebraska. I get to be the person to show her all of the things that I find wonderful and beautiful about my home. I didn’t know how much I would learn, about not only myself, her culture, and I’m continuing to learn.
I didn’t know that when I got an international roommate that I would find someone who makes me laugh when I feel like crying, who drinks coffee at strange times like 10 p.m. I found a friend who will nerd out about Harry Potter and watch movies when neither one of us want to do anything.
I found a friend who loves books just as much as I do and when we first started talking all of those months ago we had a very long conversation about book titles from English to Portuguese.
She says the funniest things and then lets me tweet about them. I found a friend that I know will always be there for me. I found my own personal Brazilian to be my Bestie and maybe someday the reason that I go travel the world with her. So when picking a College roommate, just pick someone they might just become your best friend.
