The 3 Most Common Questions People Ask Me
When people find out where I'm really from, they usually ask me a variation of these questions:
1. But you don't have an accent/ How do you speak English so well?
English is my first language, Arabic is my second. My parents put me through a private school with an American system my whole life. I learned everything in English and only spoke arabic to my family, other Arab friends, or strangers at stores that didn't understand English. I communicated with my friends and teachers in English my whole life. Although I can fluently speak Arabic, my biggest regret is never learning how to write or read it.
2. Why did you choose the University of Tampa?
The whole reason my parents put me and my brothers through an American school is to give us the opportunity to get a better education. Getting a degree in a school in America, Canada, or somewhere in Europe opens up more opportunities for me than if I were to stay in Oman and get my degree there. It is because of this, and the fact that I have an American passport that I decided to go college in America. I chose UT because I was only looking at schools in Florida (because florida's weather is the closest to Oman and I hate the cold), and had a friend who went here and told me good things about it. It was the first school to accept me so I decided to just go for it.
3. What is it like over there?
1. But you don't have an accent/ How do you speak English so well?
English is my first language, Arabic is my second. My parents put me through a private school with an American system my whole life. I learned everything in English and only spoke arabic to my family, other Arab friends, or strangers at stores that didn't understand English. I communicated with my friends and teachers in English my whole life. Although I can fluently speak Arabic, my biggest regret is never learning how to write or read it.
2. Why did you choose the University of Tampa?
The whole reason my parents put me and my brothers through an American school is to give us the opportunity to get a better education. Getting a degree in a school in America, Canada, or somewhere in Europe opens up more opportunities for me than if I were to stay in Oman and get my degree there. It is because of this, and the fact that I have an American passport that I decided to go college in America. I chose UT because I was only looking at schools in Florida (because florida's weather is the closest to Oman and I hate the cold), and had a friend who went here and told me good things about it. It was the first school to accept me so I decided to just go for it.
3. What is it like over there?
This question usually comes in a variety of forms. Usually, people are just trying to get a better understanding of what it's like where I grew up compared to here. So they'll ask me questions like what type of music we listen to over there, is it safe, or what we do for fun. The answers to these questions are: Believe it or not we listen to the same type of music over there as people do here in America, except there's a delay in the popularity of songs there. This is the top 100 hit songs in Oman right now. Yes, it's safe there. In fact, I feel safer there than I ever have anywhere else. As a high schooler, I went to parties with my friends, went to bars, hung out at shisha cafes, and spent time at friends' houses (mostly the same kind of stuff people do for fun here). No, camels are not a form of transportation. We live normal lives, use cars, dress normally, go shopping at malls, live in houses, have paved streets and buildings made out of brick.
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