Roommate 15

Just a month and a half after my roommate returned to the states and I have already filled my extra bedroom with a new person. While yes it was true that I was enjoying the quite and solitude, it is fun to have someone around. My current roommate Patty is a Uyghur girl ( this really isn't allowed, which is why I have never lived with a local before) who is just staying with me three or four nights a week. I actually first meet her via Roommate 13. She is a fun out going girl- as you can likely tell from the picture with the tea cozy on her head, who teachers English at a near by training center. Her language ability is amazing, but she tends to get tired of speaking it after teaching nine hours of class each day, and so when she get in at night she prattles away at full speed in Uyghur. She was originally living with her parents on the other side of town. It took her an hour and a half on the bus just to get into work each morning, now it is only a 20min walk from my place. We share the same hobby of cross stitching, so at night we sit around like a couple of old women with our embroidery in hand chatting about whatever.

I threw her a welcome party the other night so that she could meet all of my friends at once. These parties are always fun and they are a mix of three or four ethnic people groups all speaking together using a combination of three languages. It was funny to witness how peoples personalities changed depending on what language they were talking. When speaking Uyghur people tend to be more boisterous and out going, which is a hallmark of their culture, when speaking the national language they seemed a lot more reserved and so forth. My new roommate is one of the few people I know that can be her same outgoing self no matter what language she is speaking. She really did impress all of my friends with her stories and quick sense of humor. I think it is going to be a good roommate experience.