Priscilla Caraveo

Before start writing about someone, you should have a contact or an experience with him/her to be able to deliver at least a clear view for readers about him/her, and also to make readers believe in your words in addition to your credibility. I don’t think there is any profession or job in the world has a deep contact with teachers more than students (a non paid job ^^), so according to this notion, I wrote previous posts about my teachers, and now, I am writing about another teacher and a wonderful human being, Priscilla Caraveo.

One of greatness signs of a person is keep obtaining the same personality no matter how many obstacles he/she faces, and this is what I noticed in Priscilla. She was my Grammar teacher in Spring semester 2010 and my Oral Skills in Fall semester. She was pregnant when she gave us Grammar lessons, and before Fall semester, she gave birth to her first wonderful boy. Her personality has never changed, and I bet if I meet her after 20 years, she is going to be the same person from 2010. Her unique personality, which is full of fun, is likeable, and it pushes you to show what all you have; beside, she always advises students about how to do their works. “Use this word instead of this.”, “I think if you switch between these two points, your speech will be reasonable.”, and “Your supporting points needs to strong evidences and examples to convince others.” These are examples of her advice, and they are really numerous.

In addition to the stability of personality, the other sign of greatness is memorizing his/her words after passing a long time. I memorized Priscilla’s instructions in the Grammar class after taking subsequent Grammar classes in Summer and Fall semester, and that helped me a lot to receive information faster than other students, and I am sure that a few teachers have this ability. It means that her style of teaching is insightful and remarkable. Moreover, her honesty with students about their progress drives them to block flaws in their performance. She directed me to how to deal with my weaknesses, empower my points, and improve my performance, and the result was really superb. I really proud of my work under her supervision, and without her, I don’t think I’d make an A.

Finally, people come and go, but memories don’t. Memories stick with us until we day. After 20 years, I’ll remember those hours that I spent with my beloved and precious people, and Priscilla is definitely one of them. “Who doesn’t give a credit to who deserves is ignorant” this is what I believe in. I’ll still remember her words in the last Oral Skills class. After doing our speeches, she told us about our next challenge and how to deal with it. She encouraged us and insisted that we can do great even greater than native speakers, and being international students doesn’t mean that we can't surpass natives. These golden words relieved us and made us believe in ourselves more than before. However, I was sad when she was speaking because it was my last time to be in her class ~_~!. I wish her a wonderful and healthy life. 

Cleveland ... It isn't better than what I thought

I arrived in Cleveland on January 9th, 2011 at 10:45 p.m. One of my friend, who studies in Cleveland, met in the airport and he was my guide for the first two days over there. Frankly, I didn't like the city from the first moment. I don't want to be pessimistic, but I can judge on things from the first look (I don't flatter myself ^^). After leaving the airport, we went to a place called Tower City. It is like a square that consists of some buildings and a huge mall, but what was depressing is two things: all stores close after 6 p.m. and no people in streets. I don't like to compare between Cleveland and Los Angeles because I'll look stupid when I do it, but my brain does it every day, every minute, and every second.

Although that I love to live alone or, to be specific, I love to be independant and devote myself to achieve my dreams through hard work and avoiding parties and everything would make me out of the picture, I like to live in an enjoyable and delightful place because I want to go to fun sites when I finish my study and that is almost impossible in Cleveland.

I hope that my teacher Sonja would not retribute me for this post ^_~! but you know that it is hard to control your emotions when you found a huge gap between reality and your expectations.

Lindsey Pilgreen

If someone asked me about one of my characterstics, I'll say that I am not easy to be convinced, but that characterstic wasn't an obstacle when it comes to Lindsey Pilgreen. She doesn't have special powers to convince or persuade people ^^, but she has faith in her words. When she speaks and gives opinions, she doesn't lie or pretend, and in my opinion, this part of her personality, faith, is super effective. However, that isn't what Lindsey has been known for. She is well known for her great skills, talents, and efforts which made her classes so popular.

Lindsey Pilgreen was my teacher in Spring and Summer semesters in TOEFL (Listening & Speaking) and Idioms classes. Getting in her classes was like a dream for several reasons. First, her classes are unique and contain a lot of knowledge that come from the environment we live in. Second, Lindsey's class = fun, and no one can refute this formula. Also, pushing students to do their best and compete to know who is the best in the class is Lindsey's way to improve us. Well, there are no specific reasons that lead students to consider Lindsey's classes among their favorites, but what I mentioned before are noticable.

Learning from a great, make you a great. If there is something went wrong, it is your responsibility not your master ^^. Masters don't pass just knowledge to their disciplines, but also values and morals. In other words, they pass the torch to next generations, and that is exactly what Lindsey does. Through her merciful, helpful, and wonderful personality, her words and advice easily penetrate into my heart, and my mind aknowledged them directly. I read that when we believe in something, we believe in it by our hearts first not minds. Furthermore, even though Lindsey is still young, she is so wise, and her wisdom surpass many people who have more experience in life than her.

Lindsey once said to us in TOEFL class, "Don't be shy or afraid of contacting me when you have questions. Wherever you go or wherever you are in any part of the world I'll still consider you as my students." That kind of commitments is not easy to find or to be committed, but Lindsey gave it to us without hesitation. Besides, she treates us equally and respectfully, and I admit that she treated me kindly and advised me with a good behavior.

For having lovely spirit, Lindsey Pilgreen is a great person to talk to who is able to solve problems or at least provide solutions to keep you on the right track. I am so sad for not being able to generate any further words about her because that makes me feel I am not qualified enough to write about her, but I wish what I wrote won't be deleted from the world wide web. Thanks Lindsey I will be in your debt forever.

Katie FitzSimons

She simply represents the perfection. No words can describe her magnificent performance in classes, and also I don't remember that there is anyone I have met can compete with her professionalism. Katie FitzSimons is my level 5 Oral Skills teacher in Summer semester (session A & B), and before taking her oral skills class, I attended her writing skills class many times, one of Language Labs classes, in Spring semester. In other words, oral skills wasn't my first experience to her teaching.

Before start writing about my experience in Katie's class, I would like first to write about her qualities. Katie usually control and lead the class perfectly. She has the ability to give any student the chance to participate as many times as he/she wants without consuming more times than others. In addition, you don't have to ask her a question twice or ask her to have more details because you will get all the information you need from the first time. Moreover, some students used to dominant classes or be funny in a disturbing way; however, these students don't have any chance in Katie's present. Furthermore, when a student crosses red lines or participate inappropriately, she interrupts him politely and shows him his mistakes without insulting him or hurting his feelings.

Resulting in learning how to prepare myself for upcoming tasks is one of aspects that improved my academic study and made me think of reasons behind making moves or actions. In the past, sometimes I made decisions and put steps for future plans because I liked these steps and decisions without analysing them and see whether they would work or not; however, Katie taught me that lesson. "Why is Bayonetta the best action videogame?" and "Why does God of War have the best story in videogame world?" are types of questions that I found on my matrix sheet which made me to rethink over what I have done so far. Her comments on my matrix sheet shed some light on a part of my mind that didn't give attention to simple questions that can ruin my work. From that assignment, I realized that not everything you hand in to your teacher, even if it is correct, would keep you away from questions or providing answers for what you have done.

Writing about Katie is no doubt not an easy thing to do for fearing of not giving her what she really deserves, and I really hope that what I wrote visualizes her superb character. Enjoying being her student is not the main purpose behind my writing, but also her style of teaching and her support and passion to improve students are enough reasons to make anyone witness her greatness to write about her. I still remember a friend who asked me about Katie, "Is she really good?" and I answered, "If I have to pay to get in her class, I will do." Thanks Katie.

Meeting my colleagues

Yesterday, I met two of my colleagues (Abdullah & Waleed) after long time no see. Abdullah was studying at San Diego State University with other friends of mine in California, so I can consider him as my neighbor at that time (he is going to be with me at CSU)^^ while Waleed enrolled in Saint Mary's University, Halifax, Canada, and now he has a master degree in Finance. On recent days, we made many phonecalls to arrange this meeting and we could finally make it.

We talked about various things: sport, education, life, work, and our problems. Many people in our ages usually don't give any attention to education in their talk, but we did ^^. I don't know the reason behind that, but maybe because we studied abroad and we passionate to improve ourselves on the academic level. Spending a long time with them was my demand for missing them and knowing that I am not be able to see them for months, so I insisted on making our meeting more informal and friendly.

I don't have anything more to say about that meeting, but I wrote down what I wrote because I like to express my emotions about my precious people. I'm sure that I'm going to miss them a lot over there in Cleveland, but I'll be happy to know that there are people support me in Riyadh beside my family.

Sonja Lovelace

Learning a different language, especially English, is no doubt necessary for international students in their academic studies, and the hardest part is to learn how to write. Since the first day I entered the elementary school, I took English classes four times per week until the high school, but even with these classes, they didn't teach us the noun, adjective, and adverb clauses, or how to write organized paragraphs. They didn't teach us how to write academic essays or how to prepare ideas and do brainstorming before writing. Actually, I have done less writing for 13 years. Can you imagine that?. No wonder that Saudi students face difficulties when they study abroad because they don't have required skills to compete with their classmates, and I can say that I wasn't an exception ^^.

Taking TOEFL track was my first step to write paragraphs and essays although my assignments were about films, but these essays still contain academic essay structures. However, the true beginning were in level 5 Reading & Writing class in Summer A session which was taught by Sonja Lovelace. I have to admit that in the first days I found the class requires skills more than what I had which led me to think that I am not going to pass or pass it with unsatisfying score, so I realized that I have to work hard to prove myself to the instructor. After days, we were asked to do free writing to prepare ourselves for writing an essay, and I couldn't write more than a half page. What was depressing was looking to your friends doing better than you, however, that feeling scattered away when Sonja said to me, "Aziz, write more and more. Keep writing and don't stop." After following her instructions, my writing improved tremendously, and my friends noticed that and the key was simply Sonja.

After having many classes with her, I gained confidence in my writing and I can say that I am ready for any type of writng I am asked to do. Believing in yourself is the first step toward success and Sonja put me on that step. No matter how much I express my appreciation, I won't be able to pay her back. She is a very skilled and knowledgeable teacher who has the ability to extract the best of her students even if their skills are poor. Beside her skills, her great personality and tolerant nature impressed me and led me to respect her greatly.

Thanks Sonja for your time that you spent in teaching me how to write advanced essays. Thank you for your contribution in classes that helped us to understand you and inhale your knowledge, and thank you for your gift ^^!