Adrian Cordova

Community Life & Work ESL

Sept. 21st, 2020

My classmate: Frida

In the last session I had the opportunity to talk with a new classmate for me, because I hadn’t

taken classes with her before, in ESL Program. Her name is Frida Kolici.

She is from Albania, from a city called Shkoder, which is in the north of that country. She arrived

to USA three (03) years ago. Her country (Albania) is in Europe, in the Balkan Peninsula, and the

weather there is like all the Mediterranean region: 4 seasons in all the year. In summer, they

have around 37ºC at most, and 34 – 35ºC is common. In winter, they have snow, but it’s not so

cold like here in Salem. They reach temperatures around 5ºC, and it’s very, very weird to reach

0ºC. Also, she mentioned rain is common there. About Shkoder, Frida told me it has a castle

called Rozafa.

When she was in Albania, she started to study English at high school, and she continued to do it

at university. It is important to mention that some private schools are expensive there. And

continuing with academic topics, I discover she has a major in Biology and Chemistry, and a

master degree in Environmental Biology. For me that’s really awesome! Also, she wishes

teaching Biology in the future, and getting a job in Microbiology here in USA would be marvelous

for her.

She took one credit course here in SSU, in Biology. For that reason, she started to study English

here. She mentioned that Richard was her first teacher in ESL Program (in Reading & Writing),

and she consider it is good taking classes with him again.

In addition to English and Albanian (her mother tongue), Frida speaks Italian. She speaks a lot of

Italian with her sister-in-law. And since we are talking about her family, it is important to

mention that she has a brother, who is older than her and he has two children. Her family live

in Albania, and only her brother lives in Italy. Frida’s mom is a nurse, and her father is math

teacher at elementary school.

In her leisure time she enjoys to learn more about skin care. She is very keen on learning how to

protect it (from sun, or from age effects). Also, she is reading a lot about babies, because she

has a small baby. She is trying to be a good mom for her daughter, and she is learning more

about baby therapy, and how many hours babies have to sleep. Also, in the past she tried to

sing, but she gave up. However, in her free time (which it is a little time now, by her small

daughter) she goes to the gym. And also, about her daily routine, it’s quite similar day by day:

waking up, taking care for her baby, cooking the breakfast, clean, and the rest of activities of a

normal person, until her baby wakes up. At the end of the day, if she has a little bit of time, she

likes walking.