The weather has finally started to cool off here in Fort Worth. No more wearing shorts and a T-shirt to class. It is finally time to bundle up, but at least we won't be drenched in sweat by the time we get to class. Sari and I decided to switch it up and meet at Starbucks. He said it reminded him of the coffeehouses back in Saudi Arabia.
Both Sari and I had prior engagements that we had to take care of today, so we were not able to meet for a long time. After briefly catching up on what we had been up to this week, we slowly started talking about family. I realized this might be a sensitive subject with him being isolated from most of his family, but he seemed fine to talk about it.
Sari is here at TCU with his younger sister. They are both enrolled in the IEP program at TCU. Before they are able to move forward with their CFA/CPA certifications, they must be certified in English. Sari did not seem too worried about passing the English exam, but he definitely was apprehensive about the CFA certification. From my understanding, it is a very rigorous exam for native English speakers. I can not even imagine the difficulty to a non-native speaker. As we had discussed earlier, his sister has had some initial difficulties with harassment. Sari actually went home and spoke with her about what we had discussed previously with the harassment. He said that it still happens rarely, but she handles it much better. I told him that he should bring her to one of our meetings. I would love to show her that the prejudices against foreigners are not wide spread. She made huge sacrifices to come to America and further her education. It would be terrible for her view to be tainted by a few jerks.
We also discussed Sari's previous marriage. He informed me that he had been married before, and he even had a boy who was ten. Unfortunately, the marriage was not working out when they got to the United States. They divorced, and she now lives in West Virginia with some family. I did not want to delve too deeply into that sensitive topic. Sari still gets to see his son occasionally, but you could definitely tell that he misses him. I can't imagine how hard it is to be that far away from your kid. As for the rest of his family, Sari's father died when he was young. He doesn't have very many memories of him. His mom is still alive, but she lives in Saudi Arabia. Communication is very difficult.
I told Sari about my younger sister. She is a sophomore at UNT in Denton, TX. She hopes to do commercial real estate, and Sari joked that he could help finance the purchases. Sari seems like a good guy to have on your investing team with all of his experience. I also described the city of Denton to him. With very limited travel inside Texas, Sari had no idea how different cities could be. I told him how different cities like Austin, Houston, and Fort Worth were. Each were known for different things and had completely different cultures.
I also talked to him about my parents. I described my home back in Houston. Both of my parents are from Michigan, so I have spent a lot of time in the north. He understand that culture a little due to his ex-wife and son. Sari was glad that he did not have to deal with all the snow down here. I wholeheartedly agreed. I let Sari know that this would be our second to last meeting. Both of our semesters were coming to a close, but we had both clearly taken away a lot from these meetings.
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