Husna Ayoubi
English 101
Interview with a Mesa student
I closed my eyes, trying to remember my earliest memory of hers. There she was, a three-year-
old, plump, lively girl with big beautiful, dark almond eyes running after me. I slipped and fell.
Soon, she started to laugh and the sparkles of her eyes shined brighter. However, I was in too
much pain to laugh, because I had broken my collarbone. Nonetheless, I had yet to learn that.
The night passed and early in the morning my father took me to the hospital where they took an
X-ray and bandaged my shoulder and arm along with my collarbone. When I returned home, she
was standing before me with her watery eyes saying: “ I’m sorry, it was my bad”. I smiled and
whispered that we were just playing. Asiya is my younger sister.
Asiya is 18 years old; she was born and raised in Afghanistan. In October 2021, she settled in
California after an exhausting journey of migration. She has completed her secondary education
in Afghanistan, and she has started her higher education journey at San Diego Mesa College. I
see her as a brave, ambitious, and talented young lady. Throughout the years, she transformed
from a stubborn, self-centered and overreacting little girl into a mature, deep-thinking, generous
and sensitive adult. I chose her as my interviewee to learn more about her perspectives, her
struggles and her ambitions so I can provide her with the support that I can.
Our first interview took place on a Tuesday morning since we both did not have classes that day.
We were sitting on two sofas placed in front of each other in our living room. She was wearing
her comfy clothes, and I found her calm and chilling. I, on the other hand, was frustrated since I
had multiple assignments due. She sat before me, and started laughing just like the time when I
had fallen and she laughed. I reached for a piece of paper that my brother had left on the table
and grabbed a pen. Looking into her eyes, I wrote down the questions that I wanted to ask.
In relevance to the previous question, I was curious to know what scared her about college the
most before she officially became a college student. As her sister, my guess was accurate this
time. She stated :” I was scared of not being able to communicate with professors and my fellow
students. I was afraid of looking at the board and not being able to understand anything from the
lecture. I was afraid that my English wasn’t good enough for college and terrified that I would
fail my first semester.” Luckily, she was wrong about her English level and she was just
underestimating herself. She is doing great in all her classes, and now she is aiming for a 4.0
GPA.
Later on, she was sitting on my bed while I was charging my phone and preparing to record her
answers for the interview. Her sarcastic smile said:” You see, big sister, I’m helping you out”. I
returned her smile indicating:” Yes honey, for the first time in a blue moon. “. We restarted the
interview. Since I struggled with choosing my own major, I wanted to know what my sister was
up to. She shared that initially she was into fashion and design. However, as she became more
interested in human behavior and the thought process, she preferred to study psychology. After
talking to some psychologists, she wanted to change her major. She got interested in becoming a
midwife but the demand for the job could not keep her interest. One of her counselors
recommended to look up being a practitioner nurse, and after doing some research, it became her
favorite.
Last but not least, I asked her about the struggles that she is facing right now. The first concept
that she brought up was mental health. She mentioned that:” Although I am not physically in
Afghanistan, I do feel all the pain that our people are going through. Lately, I have not been able
to distract myself from thinking about the explosion that happened in Kaaj learning center which
resulted in more than 45 deaths.” My heart ached when I heard that, for I have been going
through the same thing.
The other issue that she talked about was financial struggles. Because we are new to San Diego,
it is not easy to find a job quickly. Having a huge family makes it even stressful.
After the interview, I found out that apart from physical resemblance, we share several
personality traits. We have the same struggles, and we care about the same community of people.
I also learned that I am not the only one going back and forth with majors, but my sister has also
been through it. As an outcome of the interview, I learned that my little sister is a critical-thinker
adult, she knows what she is doing, and she has a huge potential to serve the community.