Grateful

Well, the semester is winding down... finally. People are stressing, people are busy, and people don't like it when you forget to put your phone on silent while studying in the library basement (but that's a whole other story). Though we all may be running around like chickens with our heads cut off, it is a good idea to still make time for others. Luckily, Jeff and I were able to meet at the end of last week for our final get-together.

As it turns out, Jeff is going to be able to go home to Taiwan this summer, and he is incredibly excited. He hasn't been home for an entire year. As a Texas resident, it's hard for me to imagine that long of a time away from my family. Fort Worth is forty minutes away from my hometown, and I see my parents almost every other weekend to catch up, have dinner, and laugh about our lives. I love living close to where I grew up; it's comforting. 

Jeff doesn't seem to have a problem with living so far away from home. He likes Texas, and he likes the adventure of living in America. When I asked him what the hardest part was, however, he told me that it was difficult being away from his family for so long. Jeff acts mature about his situation, though, by focusing on the positives of living here and of the excitement he will feel to step back into his home country.

Learning about Jeff's situation has made me wonder how or if I would be different had I attended a college in a different state. I was incredibly close to committing to Vanderbilt for NCAA swimming in the SEC, but I instead chose to be born again as a horned frog on the TCU NCAA swim team. How would my life be different in Nashville? Would I be a more mature and responsible version of myself? It's interesting to think about. Not only are ESL students sent across the world to attend school, but they are immersed into a country which speaks a language unknown to them. My hypothesis is that ESL students are forced to become more mature, responsible, and adaptable than if they had stayed at home to receive university education. Even Jeff agreed that he thinks he has grown a lot as a person over the two year period he has spent in America.

I've learned quite a bit about Taiwan, Jeff, and cultural differences over the course of the semester by merely talking with Jeff seven times. This assignment was a great way to make a new friend and learn something new about a differing culture or country. Jeff loves to talk about his home country, and it was fun to listen to and learn from him. Though we may never see each other again, I'm grateful to have met such a confident and good-humored person as Jeff.

I wish I could grow a mustache half as impressive as Twain, alternatively called This post accidentally became really deep so I needed a funny title

Here he is - Mark Twain, the great American author who looks scaringly similar to Albert Einstein. I quite enjoyed the little book of Twain's quotes. He is a clever and sarcastic man, which is the kind of humor I enjoy. His wit reminds me a little of the wit Jane Austen's protagonists possess.

One of the quotes I liked goes like this: "There are no people who are quite so vulgar as the over-refined one." This quote is super interesting, and it immediately reminded me of the novel (and movie) American Psycho by Bret Easton Ellis. It's the story of a wealthy, young businessman/serial killer. The book centers around the elite society of New York, and all of the "high-class" and "over-refined" characters are some of the most vulgar ever envisioned. I do think this is also true in some regards in reality, however.

I also liked Twain's quotes about family: "Familiarity breeds contempt - and children." This one just made me laugh, because sooner or later most of us will face that point in our lives with children involved. Some people are eager for this time to come - others just go along its inevitability. "As long as you're in your right mind don't you ever pray for twins. Twins amount to a permanent riot. And there ain't any real difference between triplets and an insurrection." This quote also made me chuckle. The idea of twins or triplets is pretty exciting, but the reality is that you'll probably never sleep again in your life until they all leave for college.

I'll finish off by saying that two quotes also seemed pretty relevant to the recent tragedies in Boston and West, Texas. "Be good and you will be lonesome." Unfortunately, this seems to be true most of the time. There is much deception and manipulation in this world. However, these tragedies, though we all wish they never happen, do help remind us of the kindness we all have inside. People joined hands together to help heal and comfort, and it is good to see that love will always exist. "Yes, always avoid violence. In this age of charity and kindliness, the time has gone by for such things. Leave dynamite to the low and unrefined." Tragedies like these make one think about why good things happen to bad people. Does it serve purely as a reminder? Why does God allow this to happen? No one can know the answer for sure. Satan is a tricky beast, and he thrives off of the evil he puts on this earth. He inflicts pain and anger and hate. The good news? God and goodness and love always win in the end, and the response of humans everywhere on this planet have shown this to be true. 

Finally, here's a quote with which we can end on a good note: "There's a good spot tucked away somewhere in everybody. You'll be a long time finding it sometimes." I believe that we all have a purpose greater than ourselves in this world. When we find this purpose, whatever it may be, big or small, we have a new drive for living, and it shines through for all to see.

Take risks (but wear bug spray)

"We should be careful to get out of an experience only the wisdom that is in it - and stop there; lest we be like the cat that sits down on a hot stove-lid. She will never sit down on a hot stove-lid again - and that is well; but also she will never sit down on a cold one anymore." - Mark Twain, Following the Equator

Mark Twain has many great quotes, but this was my favorite from the book. It is not one of his more humorous quotes, but it encompasses one of the themes by which I live my own life. It boils down to essentially this: one must take risks to fully enjoy life.

Twain is telling us that we should learn from our experiences. For most people this is inevitable and comes as second nature. We learn and move on as to not let history repeat itself, although sometimes we do take a few times to truly learn the lesson at hand, like learning to always wear bug spray in the warm Texas mosquito-filled nights. When we go shopping and spend all our money and realize we are broke, we learn to budget money. When we fall in love and experience heartbreak, we learn to be guarded. The list goes on and on.

We gain wisdom throughout our lives, and we learn from our mistakes. Twain goes on to advise us, however, that we cannot stop truly living because we become overly cautious due to our experiences. It is OK to be careful, for that is the nature of learning. Yet there is a fine line between being careful and being over-careful, and we must not cross this line. 

If we try something new and fail or get hurt, we as humans have a tendency to retract our actions and ignore the past as if it never happened. We refuse to accept what happened or move on. We hide behind our fear and stay far away from that something which led to our failure. We become blind to the idea of taking that risk again, because we are afraid of failing for a second time. 

I agree with Twain that this is not the way to live a full and happy life. We need to take risks, fall in love, and try new foods in order to keep learning and gaining invaluable wisdom. We all are inherently curious creatures, and this curiosity needs to be fed with novel adventures. We cannot live as Twain's cat, too afraid to take the risk. We must step out of our comfort zones to experience life!

Unexpectedly finding humor in pain

This past weekend has been so busy and unfortunately pretty stressful. I've been in training for my new job, a scribing position at Cook Children's hospital. Though the training is intense, there have been brief moments of humor that did not involve purely me laughing at random things happening.

Background: I tend to laugh at everything. It is both a blessing and a curse. It is a blessing, because it lets me see the bright side of life and death and everything in between. It is a curse, because sometimes a situation presents itself in which it is hard for me to act completely serious. That is the nature of who I am, though, and I must live with the consequences of seeing the world in rose-colored, perpetually stylish Ray-Bans.

And we are back to this weekend: Essentially, we are watching video after video of scenarios in the emergency department that we will inevitably encounter and have to document. Obviously, professionalism is one of the qualities a scribe must possess, and we are to show this professionalism during our training. I know how to be professional while wearing my rose-colored Ray-Bans, but I was not sure how far I could stretch it this weekend. How intense was this training going to be? Would our trainer have a sense of humor? Would they fail me because I like to laugh? Would I even enjoy this job due to the traumatic nature of the ER and the subsequent lack of humor and infusion of sorrow?

Well, as it turns out, humor is rampant even in medical situations when trauma and death is an occurrence seen in higher proportion than your typical day. Though our trainers were pretty serious, the videos we watched were infused with unexpected humor. For example, the "doctors" in the videos had names like Dr. Timberlake and Dr. McConaughey, which made us chuckle whilst documenting the doctor-patient interactions. There was also one scenario of chronic pain back, in which it is pertinent to ask the patient whether he or she has, sorry for the bathroom humor, "pooped or peed on themselves." We actually phrase this as "bowel/urinary incontinence" to make it sound better. Anyway, both the "patient" and "doctor" in the video laughed at this! This just goes to show that we never truly grow out of that type of humor. We might not find it roll-on-the-ground funny, but we giggle, especially in this particular context.

It surprised me that I would see humor in these intense medical situations. I doubt that actually being in the hospital will prompt as many smiles as the videos did. Regardless, it is nice to see that a sense of humor is not a rare thing in this world. Though these medical scenarios are taken seriously by all parties involved, said parties still seem to find reasons to laugh and be cheerful. This is a perfect example of how humans find humor in sorrow and pain. It is a coping mechanism. And it must work, because we still do it, and I doubt we will stop any time soon. Cheers to humor for saving us, sometimes in just the same way as medicine.

Sunshine and cheese, or I could not think of a clever title, but I will try harder next time

Last week was my second to last meeting with Jeff, my cool conversation partner. Neither of us can believe that the semester has flown by so quickly. It seems like spring break was just last week, and these cold mornings we are still experiencing are not suggestive of the fact that summer is just out of reach. 

Jeff and I were talking about this strange weather pattern, and we decided that it would be wonderful if Texas would decide on one season to stick with, preferably summer. I don't mind the heat, especially since I have lived here my whole life. Jeff only likes it to an extent but would rather have the heat than these mornings of frost and coats, only to have to discard the coats after 10 am when the sun appears and makes us sweat. 

The topic of our conversation this week consisted of plans for summer. Jeff is hoping to go home to Taiwan, although he is not sure yet when he will be able to. Since his parents were not able to visit him in Texas this spring, he is pretty excited at the prospect of seeing his family soon. He is also looking forward to the authentic food he will eat at home. From our conversations throughout the semester, that's one of things that I have picked up on as being important to Jeff - food of his heritage. We have talked about food a lot, and I think Jeff really misses the authentic taste. Though he cooks here, he doesn't have the ingredients to make "real" tasting food from Taiwan. 

I can definitely sympathize with Jeff in this area. Living in Texas, Mexican food is a huge deal to me and my family and friends. Whenever I go to an area without  "real" Mexican food, I become sad and disappointed with the world (NOT a hyperbole...). Chips and queso make up their own food group in my life. I don't feel at home in a place lacking good chips and queso. 

OK, so maybe I AM exaggerating a bit. But, seriously, I do understand why Jeff misses the food of his home country. It cannot be substituted here, similar to how queso cannot be substituted for anything that Northerners think is just "melted cheese." How did we get on this subject again?

So, summer plans... Jeff hopes to go home, and I plan to remain in Fort Worth, working and researching and enjoying the sun. It has been a wonderful (albeit busy) semester, but it's time now for the Texas sun to emerge and start frying and fading everything it touches. Bring on the sun!

Cowboys and horses and cows, oh my!

Last week, Jeff and I got together for the first time in two weeks. We both were incredibly busy the week before but made time on Friday to catch up. Jeff told me that he was going to the Stockyards for the first time later that day, and I became awkwardly animated when he told me this. I love the Stockyards! I'm assuming it is because I am Texas born and bred. Anything Texas-related makes me smile and feel insanely proud of my heritage, and it's awesome when visitors and students not native to Texas get to experience that feeling, too. 

The Fort Worth Stockyards are great for many reasons. There is the Tarantula train, which goes from Grapevine (my hometown) right to the heart of the Stockyards, the giant wooden maze, the rodeo, museums, cowboys and horses galore, and, of course, Billy Bob's. I told Jeff that I have only been to Billy Bob's once but that it was so much fun learning how to two-step. I plan to attend plenty of dances and concerts there this fall. Jeff seemed skeptical about the two-stepping, but I assured him it was worth trying! He would at least have a good story to take back home to Taiwan!

Just out of curiosity, I asked Jeff if he had ever been to Dallas, and he said he had not. Fort Worth is a lot different from Dallas. The Fort has that Cowboy culture with the cows and the ten-gallon hats and the old time candy shops; Dallas is an urban city with confusing roads that have the same names but lead in different directions and make you lost even if you've been there fifteen times before (do I sound bitter?). Dallas has it's own type of fun, though. It just seems to be a lot more expensive than Fort Worth!

The great thing about Texas is that all the residents here share the same love of the Lone Star State. Jeff agreed with me when I told him that, and he definitely likes Texas better than California (fun place to visit, though). Texas is so great in so many ways! I could go on and on, but here's the gist of the Texan attitude: we are uniquely and primarily Texan and then also American... but still mostly Texan.

I hope Jeff gets a good taste of that Cowboy spirit of the Old West today and that he enjoys every second of it. Yeehaw!!!

Tales of not-so-humorous-Juha

The more stories I read about Juha, the more I get to know his character. Though he is a many-faced man with a myriad of different stories, some of his characteristics persist. From my perspective, I believe Juha to be selfish, cynical, and disrespectful. 

This might be purely a culture difference. Many of the stories which make him seem selfish and disrespectful center around women, the role of the wife, and marriage. In these "jokes," the woman, usually Juha's wife, is seen usually as ugly or unintelligent. For example: "Some people told Juha his wife had lost her brains. He thought for a few moments. 'She doesn't have any brains,' he said finally. 'Let me think now, what might she have lost?'" (page 45) There are a lot of stories like this one that are demeaning and disrespectful towards women. Again, this might just be attributed to the culture differences between the Eastern and Western worlds. Women in the Middle East barely exist in the eyes of men. Though women in the West are mocked by men to a certain degree, this humor is often harmless, and even girls laugh at "women should be in the kitchen" or "women are bad drivers" jokes. I laugh at them, because I know they are harmless. In contrast, women in the Middle East lack rights and are forced into submission, so the jokes in this context seem malicious. 

Juha also seems incredibly cynical. "Juha recounted: 'A friend ask me once: 'Why not marry, Juha?' 'I'd divorce my own self,' I told him, 'if only I could.''" (page 47) He is always assuming the worst of the world and the people in it. "'How long,' someone asked him, 'will people go on being born and dying?' 'Until hell's full,' Juha replied." (page 52) Juha holds a negative view of the universe. At first, I thought Juha to be more of a scholar and giver of wisdom, but these stories show him in a darker light. Juha has many stories which relate to different kinds of people, and these cynical views relate more to pessimists. 
 
Another characteristic that stands out to me is Juha's desire to always one-up everyone else. In these stories, he reminds me of Kristen Wiig's one-upper character named Penelope on SNL. Penelope always has to be better, smarter, dumber, faster, slower, richer, poorer... whatever one person says, she amplifies it. This is what Juha does in his stories. He is always trying to out-do people. 

Finally, most of Juha's stories make jokes or bring around humor at the expense of others. This is a common type of humor, but it isn't an innocent one. Many scholars have remarked that it is the only type of humor - and one would certainly think so after reading these tales. Even when Juha isn't mocking someone else, he is mocking himself. That being said, I don't find these tales funny or even relatable, in part due to the cultural differences and in part due to the type of humor portrayed.