A Time You Went...

Currently, Zooz has not responded to my texts about a final meeting, which is disappointing but I am still trying. This is an alternative post in case we cannot get together. ***UPDATE Zooz never contacted me back and I know he is going home this week so we will definitely not be able to meet again.

Topic: A time you went fishing, camping, hunting, flying, bungee-cord jumping . . .

When I was younger one of my favorite weeks of summer was always the week I went to camp. I did it every from second grade year until my sophomore year of high school, which is the age cut-off for all the camps. The camps are all focused on outdoor activities, like high-ropes courses, teamwork building challenges, kayaking, and white-water rafting. I always went with one of my three best friends, and the second to last year was the best because our other best friend could finally go with us as well.

The camps got more challenging the older the campers got, so the year after eighth grade we went on an incredibly exciting trip. We took vans out to West Virginia and pitched our own tents at a campsite, cooked our own meals, went white-water rafting and rock climbing. Rock climbing was one of the most memorable experiences of my life. Not many people can say they’ve done natural rock climbing. Now, it wasn’t a huge mountain or anything, it would probably be considered a cliff, but it was real, natural rock climbing.

Getting started was a little rough. There were rungs drilled into the rock to help out, but they weren’t everywhere. We had harnesses and rope to hook ourselves onto the rungs so we wouldn’t fall, but it’s still terrifying to climb like that. I was nervous, but with the encouragement of my friends and camp counselors I got climbing and started going at a good pace. Once we climbed up a small distance, most of the climbing was horizontal. The cliff was shaped like a wall that jutted out and had a gap missing in the middle. Our goal was to climb across, go around the edge of the gap, across a bit more and then up to the top. It was tall enough that it was impossible to see over it from the ground or even while climbing. I remember getting to the gap in the middle, peering past the edge and gasping. I could see far across the land, over all the trees and other cliffs and mountains. It was the kind of landscape a person would take a picture of to put on a post card. I will never forget how rounding that corner and looking up completely took my breath away.

Fifth Meeting with Zooz

As nice and as friendly Zooz is, today’s meeting was a bit awkward. We’ve been meeting so often recently we’ve begun to run out of new subjects to talk about. I’m pretty sure he asked “How are you?” like four times. We have a few things in common, but we can only talk about our mutual hatred of the cold so many times. I’m hoping with the extra time on our hands from the break we’ll have some new adventures to discuss next week.

Since it’s near the end of the semester and Zooz gets to go home soon, I asked him what he’s most looking forward to seeing again or what he misses the most. He said he misses his family, especially his parents and one of his nephews. His nephew is adorable, he is probably between seven and ten. He has long hair and Zooz always makes sure I know he is a boy and not a girl. Along with family, Zooz also misses his job and is excited to escape the cold weather.

I asked him if many people in Saudi Arabia know English, and he told me not really. He has two or three family members that do, but he has more than twenty siblings so that doesn’t make up much of his family at all. I thought it was really cool that he’d be one of the only people in his family to speak English. Learning a new language is difficult, and he doesn’t have much family here. It’s incredibly impressive, especially with how clearly he already speaks.

Finally, since it’s one of our favorite topics, we talked about soccer again. My team lost my intramural game so I’m done playing, but he has one more game next week. We also talked about his favorite professional team, who unfortunately lost last time they played. It was a close game, and he showed me the videos of all the goals. It was tied 1-1 with minutes left in the game, when the other team got a penalty shot and scored. Zooz was watching it on his iPad and said he was so upset that he threw it after the last goal. His friends have been teasing him about his team losing, and he showed me how they were even still texting him during our meeting. Don’t worry, he was smiling and taking it well. After that I had to go to class; even though the meeting started out a little slow, it picked up and went well. I’m excited to meet with him one last time after break.

Fourth Meeting with Zooz

I met up with Zooz today on a bench in Union Grounds. I really enjoyed our talk today, I think I am finally completely comfortable with him. I’m fairly shy so I have had feelings of uncertainty about it all, but I think we’ve actually connected. We’ve gotten to know each other and now have go-to conversation topics that we both enjoy.
One of these topics is soccer since we are both currently playing intramural. The final tournament begins today, so we’re both excited and nervous. We also always catch up on school work. Zooz told me about how after the Intensive English Program he hopes to stay for an undergraduate degree. His cousin, whom he currently lives with, attends Texas Wesleyan University and Zooz is strongly considering going there as well. HIs cousin is an accounting major, but Zooz wants to do mechanical engineering. However, he’s not sure if his English is satisfactory enough for that yet.
Right now, Zooz has to write a paper comparing two things. He chose American food and food from his home, Saudi Arabia. I took a guess and asked him if food was spicier back home, but he surprised me and said it was spicier here. He also said that the meals were structured a bit differently. For example, Americans have a lot more variety in their meals, while in Saudi Arabia typically always has rice. Based on his religion, he doesn’t eat beef, so he can’t have some classic American dishes like bacon and hamburgers. I told him he should try black bean veggie burgers; it’s not exactly the same but it’s still pretty good if he wants to try a burger. Although he can’t have beef, he has tried camel. He says it’s kind of tough to chew. They don’t eat any fancy camels though, just small ones that wouldn’t be entered into contests.
Zooz also talked about food at his vacation home. They grow their own pomegranates and grapes. We bonded over our love of pomegranates despite how difficult they are to eat. I told him how jealous I was they could grow those fruits, I would love to have that in my backyard. Another thing they grow is mint, which is neat as well.
Finally, when it was playing in the cafe, Zooz told me that he liked the song Roar by Katy Perry.

Third Meeting With Zooz

After having a little trouble scheduling, I finally got to meet with Abdulaziz again today! It’s been a few weeks, so we had plenty to catch up on. We started by talking about Monday night; when I had texted him that night about our scheduled meeting on Tuesday he asked if I could meet right then, but I couldn’t because I was in Dallas. I told him I was at a concert and would be back too late to meet, and he had assumed I was at the Rihanna concert. I showed him a picture on my Instagram and told him I wasn’t at Rihanna, I had actually seen a few lesser-known bands across the street from her performance. 

Since I had my Instagram open, I also showed him some pictures of my biological family and my sorority family. I had a few pictures of my little sister and brother, and he was quite surprised to hear I only had two siblings total. In his perspective, that is an extremely small family! I can hardly imagine having as many siblings as he does, and it seems like he feels the same way about my family.

I think I confused him a bit at first when I was talking about my sorority. I basically assumed he knew what they were like, but I was wrong. In sororities, we call each other sisters and everyone gets a “big sister”, someone to show them the ropes (and often times they become a close friend). I showed him a picture of my grandbig, who is my big’s big, and he thought I meant grandmother. The picture I showed him wasn’t a great picture, she was making a goofy face, but he thought she was much older than she actually is. I laughed as I explained to him she was only twenty-one, and a lady sitting near us heard what was happening and chuckled as well. I then explained to him how I wasn’t actually related to the girl in the picture and I think he understood how the whole process works.

As it turns out, Monday night Zooz was on campus for a soccer game. This was the first time we realized we both play intramural soccer here at TCU. I just play on one co-ed team but he plays on two teams, an all male team and a co-ed team. We talked a bit about how our teams had done, and he showed me more about the website that I had never looked into before. Apparently you can vote for an MVP of the game, and leave comments on a team page. Of course, it also has the team record and score listed as well. The regular season is over now, but we’re both waiting to hear about the post-season tournament, which I think will start next week. It would be really interesting if we played each other!

Good Friends, Good Laughs

With the semester coming close to it’s end, I’ve been thinking a lot about what makes me laugh the hardest. This may seem incredibly obvious, but I’ve found that I laugh the hardest with my closest friends. Their is a difference between just being comfortable and relaxed and being ready to fall into hysterics. Their is something about being with the people I’m most comfortable with that not only relaxes me, but puts me into ultimate play mode.

On Friday night I went to Ol’ South Pancake House with my roommate, Cami, and our friend from across the hall, Kendall. The three of us quickly became best friends at the beginning of the year and now hang out all the time. I became bubbly and found myself laughing at everything, even just small things. Their was really no reason for me to suddenly become all giggly, other than the fact that I was with them. We sat in the restaurant and picked our food, and while we waited we made faces at each other across the booth. I suddenly remembered Kendall was having trouble with her car battery earlier, and that she needed to have it jumped. Being the good friend that I am, I asked her if she had gotten her car fixed. I was cut off by all three of us laughing since Kendall had driven us there. Clearly, her car was fine.

The next day, I FaceTimed with my boyfriend, who attends the University of Cincinnati. Despite doing homework right before talking to him, I was in play mode as soon as I saw him. We’ve been dating about a year and a half so we’re extremely comfortable with each other and it shows. We spent basically the whole time laughing with (and at) each other; the only slightly serious conversation reserved for making Thanksgiving plans. We’re both really goofy, and once one of us starts acting that way the other joins in and it builds up until we’re both just acting ridiculous. If we tried to act that way around people who aren't close to us, they would probably think we're extremely odd.

I think in order to laugh hysterically you have to be in play mode, and in order to be in play mode you have to be around the people you’re most comfortable with. In this category I would include close friends, significant others, and family members. If I was out to dinner with people other than Cami and Kendall, I probably wouldn’t have activated play mode. If I hadn’t activated play mode, it still would have been a good dinner, but it wouldn’t have been nearly as humorous.  Being in play mode with my friends not only allows me to find things funny, I often find that it makes practically everything funny. Whenever I laugh hysterically, I know I’m in good company.

You're A Feminist

In class, we discussed Nora Ephron’s work and a bit about the women’s liberation movement and feminism. I distinctly remember saying that we discussed feminism in my political science class, and that for the most part, unless you are against equality, everyone in the room is a feminist. However, when Dr. Williams asked the boys who would consider themselves a feminist, nobody raised their hand. Only Dr. Williams openly admitted to being a feminist (Thank you, Dr. Williams). Clearly a miscommunication occurred and people didn’t understand what I said. I would like to clear it up. I believe it’s important that the word feminist no longer carry a poor reputation. Take note: you are all a feminist.

Before this year and my Introduction to Political Science class with Dr. Ralph Carter, I wouldn’t have even been able to tell anyone a real definition of feminism. I think that’s where the problem lies: nobody knows what feminism is. We just know it’s supposed to be bad. Perhaps the best guess would be “a bunch of women who think they’re better than everyone else”. This definition would only be somewhat correct with the most extreme of feminists. Yes, some people believe women are naturally better than men because of their differences. Like most ideologies, feminism has different branches with slightly differing beliefs. The important piece of information to know is this branch is not the majority. The majority, what the original feminist movement consisted of, are women who believe they are equal to men. All the typical feminist wants is freedom from discrimination and equal opportunities.

Next time the topic comes up, I urge you to claim that you are a feminist. We spend so much time in our history classes learning about liberation movements, but this topic is hardly ever clearly explained. Feminism is believing in women’s rights, not necessarily women’s superiority. Educate others on what it means to be feminist. Stop saying things like “I’m not a feminist, but women deserve equal pay”. Or “I’m not a feminist, but women definitely should have the right to attend college”. These sentences are oxymorons. If you believe women should be equal, you are a feminist. Take pride in it. You don’t have to be a girl to be a feminist; men can be feminists, and it shouldn’t be surprising or odd. Here is an article from October 8th of this year: http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/08/opinion/im-a-male-feminist/ written by a male journalist who identifies himself as a feminist. It includes a list of famous male feminists, including Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Warren Buffet, John Legend and the Dalai Lama. Can any guy really say you don’t want to be like these men?

I vehemently believe this new knowledge of feminism is the most important piece of information I have learned so far in my college career. I am a feminist. I am proud to be feminist. I hope anyone who reads this understands why I feel this way, and can take pride in being a feminist as well. What I really hope you get out of this is even if you don’t verbally claim the title, you are a feminist.

My Cousin Matthew

Recently I was browsing Facebook, and came across a post from my grandma. In typical grandmother fashion, she used the status box to brag about one of her grandchildren, Matthew (a grandchild on my side of the family, so he’s my cousin). Normally I just glance at what she writes and continue scrolling through the newsfeed, but this post caught my eye. This time, something incredibly special had been done that was actually worth bragging about.

Matthew is twelve years old and has just begun middle school. As everyone knows, middle school is awful. It’s part of everybody’s awkward stage and during that time you do a lot of soul searching to figure yourself out and make sure you’re friends with the right kind of people. I’m truly in awe of my cousin; what he did demonstrated to all that he knows what’s right and he’s going to stand by it, which is a brave act at any age. I learned from it, and I’m sure everyone can learn from it.

While in school, Matthew saw two boys teasing an Autistic boy. He went up to the boys and told them what they were doing was bullying and they needed to stop. One of the boys pushed Matthew into a wall, which aggravated a concussion he was recovering from. Matthew isn’t able to play football for the rest of the season, but at least the bullies got suspended. When Matthew told the boy he defended how bad he felt about the other boys bullying him, the boy replied, “It’s ok, Matthew. I’m used to it.”

The boy can say it’s ok as much as he wants, but it will never be ok. Even at the age of twelve, Matthew recognizes this. Why can’t everyone recognize this? Often times I read the news and am absolutely disgusted by horrible cases of bullying. People need to learn that everyone deserves to be treated with dignity. Regardless of circumstances, a person has thoughts and feelings. I have even heard about hateful actions within my dorm, Milton Daniel, which is a residence hall for honors students (Can we try to be better leaders, please?). It’s about time people started treating EVERYONE with respect, regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic standing, or any other reason that may make someone slightly different. After all, humans share 99.9% of our DNA; that means we are only about 0.01% different from any other person, at most. Luke 6:31 says “Do to others as you would have them do to you.” It doesn’t add any exceptions.

Second Meeting with Zooz

I made an awkward assumption at this meeting. I purposely didn’t eat lunch so I could eat with Zooz (he came to meet me right after class), but he told me he already ate. He told me it was ok if I got food and ate, and I felt guilty leaving him at the table and eating while he didn’t, but it was my only chance to eat until after 5. He didn’t seem to mind, though, occupying himself with videos on his iPad. I quickly got some food, and then we began talking.

While we were in the cafeteria, we saw a girl being escorted out by a group of cops/security personnel. She looked visibly shaken, possibly sick or a victim of something. It was uncomfortable as we both sympathized and watched her leave, wondering what had happened. As unfortunate as the situation looked, neither of us knew her and knew nothing of the situation, so we just had to move on with our conversation.

  Zooz told me about his weekend, he spent most of Saturday in Dallas. He had to take a test in the morning, and after he went on a quest for a gold iPhone (he also looked for one on Sunday, but no luck). His current phone has a shattered back, so it’s not really usable. I’ve gotten glass/plastic splinters from phones before, it’s annoying.

He also showed me some of his pictures on Instagram of himself, wearing a traditional outfit. This included a thobe, which is a white ankle-length garment and kind of looks like a robe. He also wore a ghuttrah and agal, which are a cloth headdress and a black cord that goes around it, respectively. He also showed me some pictures of his cousin, who is a little boy with long hair. He told me about how his cousin cried when he had to get his hair cut and he saw the scissors.

I then showed Zooz my Instagram and a picture of my pride and joy from fall break: cat jack o’lanterns. He hadn’t carved a pumpkin yet, but I think I may have convinced him. He also asked me if people eat pumpkins, so I told him about pumpkin pie and how my mom always roasts the pumpkin seeds. While he hadn’t made a jack o’lantern, he did say he still loves Halloween. Over the weekend he bought a monkey mask and gloves for a costume.

While we were in the cafeteria, we saw a girl being escorted out by a group of cops/security people. She looked visibly shaken, either sick or a victim of something. It was uncomfortable as we both sympathized and watched her leave, wondering what had happened.

Healing through Laughter

After just one chapter, I can confidently say The Comic Toolbox is so much better than Comic Relief. No offense, Dr. Williams, I understand why we read Comic Relief, but man that was a rough read. The Comic Toolbox is light and fun, and I might say it’s even more informative than Comic Relief. By creating formulas about how to make people laugh, John Vorhaus is basically creating his own theories on humor (and I like his theories better).

The first chapter introduces his idea that comedy is truth and pain. This reminds me somewhat of the Superiority Theory from Comic Relief. When I learned about the Superiority Theory, I thought, “Wow, this seems accurate, even though it makes humans seem like an incredibly cruel species”. As much as I felt like it wasn’t completely correct, I couldn’t come up with a better explanation until now. I think the idea of comedy being truth and pain is much more accurate. Yes, we may be laughing at people in the moment, but in a way we are also laughing with them. We see someone trip and fall and we sympathize; we see the truth (everyone trips) and the pain (falling hurts) and we laugh because we know what that person is going through. We know that someday that person will be us, and when it does happen to us we’ll probably want to laugh it off, and it’s easier when someone else is laughing with us. If we didn’t laugh, we’d focus on the pain, so it’s good to have people laugh at/with us. They’re not trying to demonstrate superiority, they’re showing us the humor in the situation so we can laugh and ease our suffering.

When a small child learns to walk, they fall quite often. If you rush over and search them for bruises, they begin to cry because they think they should be hurt and focus on their pain. However, if you give them a smile and a giggle, unless it’s a truly awful fall they’ll usually smile right back and stand up happily. Therefore, it’s beneficial for everyone involved if we laugh at our pain, and the pain of others. Of course, there is a limit to when a situation is funny and when a person should stop and help.

When we originally discussed the Superiority Theory in class and referenced racist/sexist and other derogatory and inappropriate humor, I felt conflicted. On one hand, yes, I often thought the jokes were funny. On the other hand, I began to feel guilty about finding them funny and really had to evaluate my sense of humor. If comedy truly is truth and pain, is it so bad to laugh at these jokes?  A thought I’ve tinkered with before is: is laughing at these “inappropriate” jokes a way to heal? If someone said “Wanna hear a joke? Women’s rights,” and they meant it in a joking manner and were not seriously sexist, I would most likely laugh. It wouldn’t be because it’s funny to me that women have been and continue to be oppressed, but if I don’t laugh then I dwell on some horrible situations in the world. Laughing is way of getting over it and moving past painful and tragic situations. Obviously there is an extremely fine line still between jokes being offensive and maybe being something we can now laugh at as we distance ourselves from old situations, but I think laughing at some of these jokes may not be as bad as it seems. I sincerely hope that doesn’t offend anyone, it’s just an idea I've been contemplating.

My New Friend Zooz

I met with Abdulaziz for the first time today! Meeting with a conversation partner was something I was incredibly nervous about. I don’t think I’m great at keeping up a conversation with someone I’ve never met, plus I’m awful at trying to understand accents. I was so afraid that I would spend much of the conversation smiling and nodding. Thankfully, Zooz (Abdulaziz’s favorite nickname) has been here a bit more than a year and speaks quite clearly. He said when he arrived, he didn’t even know what “yes” and “no” are; it’s amazing how quickly he has picked up the language!

Our conversation mostly focused on Abdulaziz’s background, and I learned a lot. Apparently camels are extremely valuable in Saudi Arabia, where he is from. The jaw-dropping example he used was that camels can be more expensive than a Lamborghini! That whole concept blew my mind. They even have camel beauty contests, and owning a winning camel is exceptionally prestigious. Then he showed me a video of his family’s camels walking through the desert in a line, and told me his father gave him a camel and that camel had a baby.

Abdulaziz has a tremendously large family, partially because Saudi Arabia has different marriage rules than the United States. Men can have a maximum of four wives, which his father does. His mother is the first wife, and he is the youngest of her children. Between all the wives, there are twenty-four kids: fourteen girls and ten boys. Not all thirty of his family members live in the same house together, many are married and live on their own now. This is a fairly typical situation. I asked if he ever has family reunions where everyone in his extended family gets together as well, and he chuckled and said no. 

Those were our main topics of conversation, and we discussed a few other items briefly. Of course, theres always the soccer/futbal/football discussion to have with anyone who isn’t American, and we talked a little about how Texas is different from where we’re from (hotter for me, cooler for him). I found out he turned twenty one in August, and he went to Las Vegas and had a ton of fun. He also told me that when he saw my name he thought I would be a boy, and I had to reluctantly admit that Madison is traditionally a boy’s name so his guess was logical. Overall, we had a great time and I’m excited to continue meeting with my new friend Zooz!

Here are some pictures of camels that competed in a beauty contest!

Roomie Love

I love my roommate. Cami Fannin is my spirit animal. I do not think we have had a day where we did not make each other laugh. I feel incredibly lucky to have a roommate I get along with so well, especially because we were not friends before coming to TCU. One of the main reasons we get along so well is our open goofiness with each other, and she makes a lot of silly mistakes that make us and our friends laugh.

The first event that made us laugh was when we had a friend in our room that noticed our semi-lofted beds. They are at an awkward height, so she asked how we climb into them. Cami immediately hops up and says “Let me show you how it’s done!” and proceeds to hop on her ottoman chair and fall right back off. It was hilarious watching her act all cocky and then stumble (she was not hurt and laughed as well).

My favorite funny thing that Cami does is make English errors. She is a communications major, so she should probably have mastered the English language pretty well by now. She is an incredibly intelligent girl, she just has a lot of “blonde moments”. When we were still setting up our room, we had a calendar and Cami wrote “Fieild Trip” on one day. At first I did not notice, but upon closer inspection I realized she had put two i’s into the word “field”. I started laughing and pointed it out to her, and she said she could not remember which side the i was supposed to go on so she just put it on both.

For my birthday, I got a balloon. I set it out of the way in the corner of the room, and at night it hovered above the blue glow of the Keurig. Before falling asleep, I looked over at it and remarked to Cami about how creepy it was, a dark shadow floating around above the blue light. When I was asleep, Cami moved the balloon right next to my bed and stuck a post-it on that said “Am I a creppy ballon now?!?”. She meant “creepy balloon”. Instead of scaring me, I got to tease her about her errors.

Since Cami is in Alpha Delta Pi, one of their on-campus projects was putting up post it notes with kind and encouraging messages. They wrote them all at one of their meetings, and when Cami came home that night she brought one with her. It had the simple message of “You are beauitiful”. She put one too many vowels into “beautiful”. I have both of the incorrect post it notes pinned to the wall above my desk.

Not only does Cami make written errors, but if I am lucky enough she makes spoken errors as well. One night at Chick-fil-A, I was eating french fries and Cami was eating chicken nuggets. We were with friends and all discussing how I have been dabbling in vegetarianism. Trying to convince me to eat meat, Cami says “They’re good, meat is.” All she meant was meat is good. She just felt the need to awkwardly clarify what was good. Needless to say, the whole table started laughing, and we still enjoy referencing the moment.

Other funny things Cami has done include hammering something with a magnet stuck to the hammer and getting in the way, taking numerous selfies on anybody's phone whenever she can, and jamming our friends car trunk with her purse.

Adjusting to College - Yay!

Literature and Civilizations II is my first college-level English course, and one of our continuous class assignments is to blog. Basically, I get to fine-tune my writing skills with the whole class (and any strangers who find this) viewing and commenting on my posts. As a freshman, this is a little bit intimidating. I expected the class to have mostly freshmen, I am not sure why but I did, and there are actually not many freshmen and a bunch of upperclassmen. So not only must I learn to write at a college level and have my attempts graded, I will pretty much be evaluated by everyone. However, I am thankful that blogs are casual.

Over the past few weeks of class, I learned that this situation was no big deal whatsoever. We are all in the same boat. Maybe a few people know each other, but many of us are strangers. I am a fairly shy person, but I have still found people to talk to and I am getting comfortable. Sometimes slowly and sometimes quickly, I can see everyone else doing the same thing and settling in. 

So now I am excited. We have some pretty funny people in the class, and everyone is intelligent. Conversations that were already good before are going to get much better now that everyone is opening up and ready to express themselves freely. In my opinion and past experiences, the knowledge you absorb from a class and the experience you get out of it over all is greatly based off of the environment the teacher and the students create. If the teacher is laid-back enough to let students take the reigns but still help guide us, then we learn not only about whatever subject we are discussing, but also develop critical thinking and discussion skills. If there is an atmosphere of relaxed but serious students willing to participate, then the class will delve deeper into topics and have fun with it at the same time.  Which is all wonderful, it is like the ultimate dream class for teachers and students (well, students who actually want to learn). I feel like this is exactly the type of class environment we are beginning to create.

I learned all my worries were pointless. Any worries I did have were most likely shared and are dissolving as everyone starts to relax and get into the swing of things. I learned and am still learning that college education is flexible and open to interpretation and creativity, as evident in the wide variety of the “What is humor?” video projects. I love the new freedom of being able to take liberties with assignments and getting a general schedule from syllabi and planning for myself from that, and not simply being told what to do. This is probably a lot of old news to any one reading this that is not a freshman, but I am a freshman so it is all new to me and it has me extremely excited for the next four years.