In a few months I’ll leave Illinois State with a master’s degree in sport management, but the university should probably throw in an international studies or social studies certificate. In my time riding the bus to and from work every day, I’ve been exposed to a broad spectrum of social and economic classes and have made friends with people from all over the world.
It’s crazy to think how much I’ve learned and grown from my experiences in the 20-25 minutes I spend on the bus each way. I’ve honed my Spanish skills with Cesar, a chemistry exchange student from Colombia, spoken Swahili with Ayalbert and Catherine from the Congo, and heard more Soul and R&B than I ever thought I would while riding with Dallas, the former driver of the Red-B. Today I made first contact with a group of French exchange students, adding France to my tour of the world on the Bloomington-Normal Public Transit System.
I have a strange habit of assigning a nickname to identify people on the bus – sort of a way I can connect on a surface level. Before I knew her name was Kathy, I called a frequent rider “The Library Lady” because she always got off at the Normal Public Library and Matt was Leo Mazzone because of a rocking motion he does. Currently, there’s Turner Hall Lady, Money Bags and Hassel Me About Locking My Door Lady (though she’s turning into Works At Preschool Lady after this mornings conversation). Anyhow, I’ve dubbed the group of foreign exchange students the French Foreign Legion because of the way they just showed up and invaded the bus on Monday.
Since I’ve made this short story long, I’ll cut to the chase…I spoke with one of the students today and am looking forward to getting to know the group. They’re a funny bunch and very loud on the bus. When they hop off, there are three of them that instantly reach for their cigarettes – perhaps as a way to keep warm or flaunt their French-ness I suppose.
The guy I spoke with today was wearing a St. Louis Cardinals baseball cap and didn’t seem to understand when I asked if there were a lot of French Cardinal fans. Pretty impressive if so. I think the only French athlete I can think of is soccer player Thierry Henry and the head butt guy, Zidane, I think. Of course the kid had a hard name, and a quick search of About.com French boys names unfortunately revealed it’s not one of the top-100 options. I guess that’s a good starting point for tomorrow.
Until next time, see you in Uptown Normal at 55 or 35 after the hour.
1 comments:
That is pretty cool that you've had such an opportunity to get to know people on the bus. You've always done such a good job of making people feel comfortable and at ease and befriending them. I admire that. I might have to adopt your process of remembering people through naming them. I'm the worst at keeping people straight while visiting churches.
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