ISALC, Lewis and Clark College

Saeed Al-Mehairbi: An Introduction

  My name is Saeed Al-Mehairbi and I come from the United Arab Emirates, which is located on the Arabian Gulf in the Middle East. I was born on the 12th of September 1980, and I grew up in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the country. In June 1998, I graduated from high school.

I am planning to study civil engineering. I am going to study it for about four years at the University of Portland. As soon as I get my Bachelor's degree, I will study two more years to get a Masters degree. After that I am going to establish my own engineering company.

I have many hobbies, but the my favorite hobby is soccer. Also, I have one strange kind of hobby, which is collecting antiques, such as old stones, currencies and stamps. In addition, writing poetry is one of my interesting hobbies and interpersonal or romantic poetry, in particular, is my best kind of poetry.

I chose to come to Lewis and Clark college because it is a very competitive school that provides a high level of education in all programs of study. Moreover, this is one of the most famous small liberal arts schools in the Northwest. In this college, good services are provided for all students, and international student in particular. The ISALC program of learning English as a second language is considered one of the most useful programs for international students. Actually, some people who work in a high level in my country graduated from Lewis and College. For example, the president of the United Arab Emirates University graduated from this college.

Saeed Al-Mehairbi: The Writer

I think it is difficult to tell you about my writing because most people think that he or she writes in the right way. As you know, English is my second language, so I usually face some problems with my writing. Almost always, all the international students have the same problem. According to my teacher's notes about my writing, I usually have some grammar and spelling mistakes and it is sometimes hard for me to organize my writing as well.

I compare my writing in English with a turtle. The similarities between my writing and a turtle is that a turtle moves slowly, the same as my writing. My ideas need to be more focused and not moving around from one idea to another like a turtle moving from the sea to the land. Although I have all these weak points, I can sometimes write clearly limiting myself to focus on the main idea, the same as a turtle when she protect her body with a shell and isolates herself.

Actually, I don't have these problems when writing in my native language because I feel freer to express my ideas in the best way without spelling and grammar mistakes. I think my writing in my native language is clearer and stronger than in English.

The turtle in my culture stands for the cautious and careful person, but sometimes it stands for the person who is always late. Therefore, while writing I try carefully to focus on the main idea. But still I spend much time in my writing, so sometimes it wastes my time.

I joined this writing class to improve my writing skills. In this course, we already have learned about writing techniques and activities, such as freewriting, brainstorming and clustering, in order to facilitate our writing. By taking this class, I hope my writing will progress more smoothly, deeply and quickly.

Please EMail me!

Click here to see the writing assignment.

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Created by: krauss@lclark.edu
Updated: 9/16/99