ELC Los Angeles student Abdullah Mohammed Ali is social media famous in Saudi Arabia! He’s travelled all over the world, and is now living in downtown Los Angeles and studying English. Abdullah enjoys singing and playing guitar. On any given day, you can hear him singing in the hallways of the school.
I’m from Dammam, Saudi Arabia. I am 20 years old.
Yes, I used to live in Boston and the weather was so cold, and I heard a lot about Los Angeles. I wanted to move to Los Angeles to see Hollywood, the stars, and how the famous people live. I wanted to also see Santa Monica, the beach…lots of things.
Venice Beach because everyone there is happy and there are lots of different people there. Most of them are very unique.
My friend moved to Santa Barbara, California and highly recommended ELC. I am very happy about my decision to study here. The speaking class at the school is very good.
I started on Keeks two years ago… It’s an app where you take a video up to 30 seconds long and upload it on your page. I posted two videos of me singing in Interlaken, Switzerland. I was walking around and showing the view of the mountains. A few days after posting, I deleted the application, but kept the videos (my phone memory was full). Two weeks after, I received an email that I had 1.5 million views on one of my videos!!
A lot of people were calling me, friends and family. I was surprised. After that, I started to upload new videos, and people were asking me when I would post new videos and asking me to post more.
After a few months, I closed my account and started an Instagram account. After three weeks I had 150 thousand followers. After one month, 250 thousand. I kept singing and putting up videos on youtube. I get recognized in the mall and when I’m out in Saudi Arabia, and also here sometimes by Saudi students.
I sing covers. I like Hussain Al Jassmi. I like the sad songs, about love.
I like the office. That’s why I come here everyday!
My favorite moment was the costume contest. I dressed up as Dracula. I was about to go home, on my way to my car, but realized that I had forget my jacket, so I came back to get it. I saw a crowd of students standing and cheering, and teachers Brian and Carmen told me to go to the middle of the room. There was a contest going on! So I started dancing.
I was in New York, my second day in the US. I only knew how to say “yes, no, A-B-C-D…” I went to Target and didn’t speak any English. I was asking the employee about pillows. I was making a motion to show I wanted a pillow, and the employee thought I was asking him if I could sleep there! So he asked me to leave, but I took my phone out and translated from Arabic to English. Once he realized what I meant, we were all laughing very hard.
California people are so friendly. I like the freedom here. The teachers at ELC are great, too.
