Friendship

Friendships today aren’t necessarily genuine. Either one meets you via Twitter or Facebook, gets attracted by the lifestyle you live and “thinks” they actually know who you are. Take a second and think about when you were younger and you really had no idea of what school may be like, or whether people would like you or not. Remember the first day of class when you had the opportunity to make some real life friends solely based off who you were…it all seemed so strange, it all seemed so foreign.
If you’re having a hard time doing so, maybe this story will help.
Similar to every Monday & Wednesday for the past few weeks of my life, I have been practicing the same schedule. Waking up, eating, studying, exercising, studying, and ending my nights in LSAT Prep Class at the Kaplan Institute. I often complain about my work filled days, wishing for some sort of excitement, but I would have never guessed that the one place I dread going to, would bring so much joy.
I walk in the same classroom, sit in the same desk, but I notice another computer in the back of the room. I paid it no mind and continued to proceed with my normal routine. The very minute I felt as if i couldn't make one more deduction, someone walked thru the door. “Hello, what is your name?” is what he asked me, I replied and said, “Mark”. He tells me his name and just goes on a long speech, but I hardly understand anything he is saying. Seconds later he tells me that he is from Russia and that he is taking classes to learn how to speak the English language. I ask, "What is you're name?" and he says Zein. Then he reaches his hand out and offers to shake my hand, so I proceed to do so. After our exchange of greetings, he left the room.
Still a little thrown off by the whole situation, I begin studying again. Minutes later he walks back in the door, inquiring about my Macbook. He is confused as to why it costs so much money, but I showed him the site and explained everything to him. Now remember he doesn’t know English to well, so I have to break everything down to its simplest forms, but as conversation grew, so did his vocabulary. He began to say things I said, such as “bro, and tight” and he even used the word “dagger”.

After what seemed like a whole day's worth of conversation, I wrote out some stores he could go visit to look for laptops as well as how he can go about getting discounts and things of that nature. I looked down at the piece of paper and noticed that we had discussed everything from phones, to computers, to music, even how he could get a girlfriend!

His class was about to leave so I told him to go catch them and I’ll make sure I leave my email with his teacher, he says “Ok…talk to you later bro…”

But as he got to the door, he turned, looked at me, and said,
“Hey Mark…you’re my best friend…”

...and walked away.

And for the first time in a long time, I felt that I made a real life friend.
Thank you Zein.