Meeting Samra
Professor Lao: All right. Hello. Today I have a special guest. Her name is Sam. Sam. Sam. Samra. What’s your middle name, Samra?
Samra: Uh, it’s Danielle.
Professor Lao: Danielle. Samra Danielle, but we call her Samra. Do you have any nicknames, Sam?
Samra: Um, my friend calls me Era. I don’t like Sam. I’m not a Sam.
Professor Lao: She’s not Sam. Don’t call her Sam.
[laughter]
Nobody say Sam in the comments. Yeah. Or Sammy. I’m not Sammy. What does your friend call you?
Samra: Uh, she calls me Era.
Professor Lao: Era. Oh, that’s cute. Sam Era. Nice.
Samra is my family in a complicated way. Her mom used to be married to my dad many years ago, so she was like my stepmom, but now she’s not married to him anymore. She had a daughter, Samra, and I think of her like a half sister or something like that because her mom was kind of like my second mom.
She is 12 years old. Technically she’s not my sister, but that’s kind of the relation here.
Maine, Travel, and the Four Seasons
Professor Lao: She is a native English speaker from where? What is the state?
Samra: Maine.
Professor Lao: So you’re from the state of Maine, which is where I’m from also. Where is Maine in the United States?
Samra: It’s in the eastern part. It’s on the upper part of it. It’s northeast.
Professor Lao: Yeah, northeast. Definitely. It’s on the border of what country?
Samra: Canada.
Samra has traveled a little bit. She was in Puerto Rico, San Juan, and a few cruises. She’s been to Mexico on one cruise, but not this one.
Professor Lao: Would you like to travel somewhere else?
Samra: Um, I don’t know. I really like where I’ve been, but probably somewhere like Hawaii. I’d love to go to Hawaii. I haven’t been to Hawaii.
She likes tropical places. She does not want to travel somewhere cold.
What does she think about living in Maine? She really likes it because when you get sick of one season, the next one comes along. Winter is cold and snowy, and then spring and summer show up. She likes the four seasons.
Samra: I definitely prefer warmer seasons. I don’t like when it’s humid. I like warm, but I don’t like crazy hot.
Farm Life
Samra lives on a farm, so a typical day means taking care of animals.
Samra: I definitely really like it here. We have a lot of animals. A typical day is definitely taking care of them. I go out and I feed the farm animals with my mom. I feed the cats, and then I have to hold my parrot a lot because parrots need a lot of attention.
Her parrot is named Kiwi.
She also likes hanging out with the cats, and she is a gymnast, so she does gymnastics there too. She also really likes art, and she was about to get into a paint project.
Professor Lao: How many animals do you have here?
Samra: I think we have 46 or 47. I cannot believe how little we have. I cannot remember the last time that we weren’t in the 70s.
[laughter]
Most of the animals are chickens.
Samra: We have 29 chickens, but we are hatching chicks. We have five eggs, so fingers crossed some hatch. They should hatch in like 2 days, so I’m really excited.
The chickens all have names and personalities. Some are very friendly and chill. Some are total spazzes.
Professor Lao: What does spaz a total spaz mean for someone who doesn’t know English?
Samra: Um it means like they kind of like are skittish or like nervous a little bit like crazy like they like to kind of like run away from us and be like leave me alone. [laughter] They go crazy if you try to pick them up. Some some of them maybe.
She also has six goats and I have a pig and I love them so much. The pig is Pooky and then I have the six goats and I love all the goats so much. The pig’s name is Pooky, by the way, in case you didn’t understand that. You have a couple dogs and three cats. And yeah, I think that’s all the animals. And I have two leopard geckos in my room, Nick and Lisa.
Nick is lazy and a little on the chubby side. Lisa likes to walk around the tank more and explore.
Gymnastics, Squishies, and Art
Gymnastics is one of Samra’s big hobbies.
She watched Gymnastic Academy over and over again — probably eight times — and that show is the reason she got into gymnastics in the first place.
Samra: It got me super into gymnastics and I trained myself and learned a bunch about it.
Before she started classes, she taught herself a lot from videos and from the show. The classes helped her get correct posture and technique.
She is still in the beginner class, but she says she is one of the better ones in the class because of her training. She says there are definitely people who are better than her in the class.
She also likes squishies.
Samra: Squishies are a toy, and it’s really fun to squish. They have really nice textures, like slime. They might have slime in them or different fun textures. They have glitter or beads in them.
She has six squishy dumplings, which are viral right now, and six other squishies that come in different shapes — squares, cubes, butter, cheese.
Samra: I love my cheese.
[laughter]
School and the Future
Samra has been homeschooled, but she’s going to start school in seventh grade.
Samra: I’m kind of nervous about it, but I’m also really excited.
She is going to a very small private school with about 120 to 160 students. There are about 10 to 15 students in each class. Her best friend Autumn goes there, and so does her little sister, so that helps.
Samra: I want to try going to school and see if I like it, and I’d love to have a bigger friend group.
Her dad will drive her sometimes, and her mom will drive her other times. The school is about 20 to 25 minutes from her dad and about 30 to 35 minutes from her mom.
She might stay there through high school if it works out, but she’s going to try seventh grade first.
Family and Bonus Dad
Samra’s parents are separated. Her mom is remarried to Daniel.
Samra: I love him so much. He is the best bonus dad ever.
Daniel has been in her life since she was about three or four.
He is also the one who gives her squishies.
Professor Lao: Daniel likes to spoil everyone.
Samra: Definitely.
Her dad’s partner is Kelly. She says her parents, Daniel, Kelly, and Simone Biles have all influenced her.
Friends
Autumn is Samra’s main best friend. They live close, hang out a lot, and do creative things together.
Professor Lao: What quality do you most value in a friend?
Samra: Probably kindness. I definitely love funny friends, but funny in a kind way. I like creative friends too.
She describes Autumn as funny, kind, creative, strong, and smart.
She also has another best friend, Anakah, who moved away, but they still see each other every once in a while.
Lying, Reading, and Books
One funny part of the interview was talking about lying.
Samra: I was definitely a fiber and now I like can’t even lie. But like yeah I like to sneak around a lot. I used to do like harmless little lies, but I thought it was like so clever back then. Now now I really can’t lie. Makes me feel sick.
She told the peanut butter cup story:
Samra: I remember one time there was a peanut butter cup that’s really yummy candy on the island and I was like oh if I eat it someone’s going to notice. So I took a bite out of it and then left it which was like way more noticeable and I was so sneaky. I thought I was like so awesome and it was like that was pretty obvious. [laughter]
[laughter]
She also talked about reading.
When she was younger, she struggled with reading because she didn’t want to do it unless she really wanted to. Then she found books she loved and everything changed.
She likes Wings of Fire, Keep It Together, Ko Carter, and Just Be Cool, Jenna, Kai.
Now she reads way above grade level.
Samra: I love writing so much. My dream job is to be an author 100%.
She is working on two books now. One, somebody said, “Hey, I want you to try to make a story out of this. It’s called Gnome’s Adventure.” And then the other, I am like 70 pages in. I’m writing it by hand, and I just came up with this. It’s about a girl called Paisley, like managing middle school kind of, and I just I love writing. I don’t know what it is about it, but I love it so much.
- BFFs and the first one’s going to be like starting middle school and then the second one’s going to be managing middle school and then the last one’s going to be pro at middle school
Challenges and Growth
One challenge Samra is proud to have overcome is being okay when she’s left alone.
She also struggled with reading, but she found books that pulled her in.
Samra: I found a book that I loved and it took off.
She says she now reads a lot and writes a lot, and she hopes to become an author.
Accent and English
At the end of the video, Professor Lao asks viewers to judge how easy her English is to understand.
He says Samra has a standard American English accent, not the older Maine accent that older generations might have.
Professor Lao: A lot of the young people we what we have is the the I call it the standard American English accent. You know, it’s the accent you hear when you turn on the TV and it’s you know what what most people have like younger people and um what they have on the news.
Samra: I don’t think of myself having an accent because this is how everyone talks, but if someone speaks another language, I probably sound like I have an accent. My grandma has a very minor accent.
Closing
Professor Lao: Thank you for inviting me so much. It was such an honor.
Samra: Thank you for inviting me.
[laughter]
He says he hopes one day he can announce on this channel that she has a book available to read and people can practice English with it.
The conversation ends with the feeling that Samra is still very young, but already has strong opinions, a clear voice, and a lot of personality.