Overview with Sina

This post is kind of to replace a meeting that Sina and I were supposed to have. Unfortunately due to both of our busy schedules, Sina and I were unable to fully complete the amount of required meeting times set forth by Dr. Williams, but I feel that our conversation times that we had were more meaningful as a result. Each time we met, we were able to discuss events that had happened over the course of a longer time period, giving us more subjects to discuss and branch off of.

Sina was an excellent conversation partner, with a lot of insight and perspective to offer. Her German background gave her a unique view on American actions, humor, and life in general, a view that I would not have noticed since I have lived on the inside of that perception my whole life. She pointed out a lot of things that she felt Germany did better, and also noticed a lot of things Americans did better. Her sense of humor was perhaps not as easily triggered as mine, but we both shared a great many laughs throughout the course of our meetings.

Overall, I think we both profited greatly from these meetings. It is really a shame that we weren't able to spend more time with each other but both of us were very busy. We shared a lot about ourselves with each other in the short amount of time we had together, and made the most of every chance we had to talk to each other. We talked about everything from Spring Break to Billy Bob's to humor to education to American Pie. We talked deep, shallow, and everything in between. I am really honored to have had her as a conversation partner, and I thank Dr. Williams for the opportunity that he has given all of us to hear a view of our lives from the outside and to get an insider's viewpoint on another culture.

American Pie?

So in my last meeting with Sina, we discussed the stereotypes that people had about Germany and America. We met where we usually meet (Union Grounds) and chatted about the usual things first, almost like a ritual humans like to perform before we actually start talking: "How was your day?" "How are classes going?" "Any fun plans for the rest of the evening?"

Even though I felt like we were going through the motions with these questions I knew that we were probably just going to sit for an awkwardly long time if we didn't do them. I was pleased to find that Sina was having a good day, doing pretty well in her classes, and found out she was going out with some friends that evening. I also told her about my day, saying little because my mind was on some other matters that had absorbed my entire week that I wasn't allowed to talk about except with a small group of people. I noticed I was quickly making her do all the conversation and realized I needed to pick it up.

We started talking about her going back to Germany over the summer and what plans she had. The conversation quickly turned to general impressions of Germany. We recalled from our last conversation that I generally thought of Germans as more serious people than Americans and that I thought they were all pretty devoted to their work due to their different scholastic system and their cultural differences when compared to America. Sina corrected me on some of my assumptions, pointing out that while I was mostly right there were some areas that she wanted to clarify to me. She then turned to me and said, "Honestly, just from the movies, most Germans, well my friends and I, thought America was just like the movie American Pie."

Wait, what? I looked at her, she looked at me, and we both started laughing out loud right in the middle of Union Grounds. I'm sure we got some looks from other boring people trying to study there and kill our fun, but we didn't care. When we could finally breathe again she looked at me and said, "I'm serious! I got here with the impression that every house had a party going on all the time!" I asked her what gave her that impression and if she thought TCU lived up to that perception. She just said she got the impression from movies, and that it wasn't quite like American Pie, but in some respects it was.

We eventually moved away from that and finished out our conversation time. As we were getting ready to leave, she told me I had to put her quotes into the blog for the rest of the class to see and enjoy as well. I told her I definitely would, and that she didn't have a thing to worry about.

Discipline and Ducks

So in my search to find some more ways to distract myself, I came across this little gem:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CQXg-ng_osM

An excellent study of humor is ever I saw one. This video is a great example of an appeal to different senses of humor that various people may have. It shows 7 different versions of how the same incident could turn out (granted they are extreme versions).

Each version could appeal to a different sense of humor, and all of them rely on cognitive shift. The premise of the entire video is to catch the audience unawares. Whether it's the father acting like he's going to shoot the kid, being a spider-thing coming to eat him, or playing the nice guy just to turn around on his word, the big idea is that the audience isn't expecting a father to treat his son in such a way for what was obviously a harmless accident.

To me it seemed like the different shifts that were presented in each of the instances could appeal a semi-large audience. While this is certainly not the funniest video I've seen, it definitely had some points where I laughed to myself just because it was so ridiculous. I suspect that much of our class, if not the audience at large, would find at least one instance they would find humorous, and if I'm wrong then that just speaks to the vast variety of forms of humor there are. Some people will only like certain forms, and other people will appreciate other forms more. This doesn't mean anyone is right of wrong (humor-wise anyways, society-wise is a different matter entirely), it instead just means they have different preferences for things they find to be funny.

Now for a video that I think is universally hilarious:

http://screen.yahoo.com/baby-duck-tries-stay-awake-115302107.html

Hope every one has some great finals and manages to stay awake for their finals!

Inspiration from Failure

Ok, so maybe failure is a bit harsh. Maybe I should instead say "Inspiration from doing not quite as well as I wanted to, but still better than just completely failing."

It just doesn't have the same ring to it though...

Anyways, this entry is mostly about my struggle through the first two days of finals. I've had two finals so far, and in all honestly they were both extremely hard. The comfort comes in knowing that even though I didn't do as well as I would have liked to, the rest of the class in both situations seemed to have struggled as well so hopefully there will be some sort of curve.

All of this is to point to what I really want to write about: how I got myself back up after doing poorly on my first two finals. The cure I found? Laughter! Taking some time to stop worrying and start enjoying life seemed to be all I needed to get the mindset that the next few days are possible to complete with my sanity intact. Here are some statistics and sayings that I found to help make myself feel better and hopefully any of you who are struggling as well.

-Getting a hit in baseball 3 out of 10 times consistently not only makes you a great baseball player, but it can also get you into the hall of fame. (That's 30% for those who are mathematically lazy)

-Meat Loaf once sang this line: "But baby don't be sad, 'cause two out of three ain't bad." (Helps me because I have 5 finals, so if I do well on the last three I get 3/5 which is .6 and since 2/3 is .667, I almost the same thing right?)

-70% of statistics are completely made up, meaning you're really only as bad as you make yourself out to be, not how bad the red numbers on your exam say and how society has taught you to think. (This statistic was also made up.)

-C's get degrees baby.

-My future wife is probably going to care less about how many zeros I got on assignments in school and more about how many zeros are at the end of the number on my paycheck.

The key idea behind these sayings is that no matter what happens, laughter can always make things better. It is the ultimate cure, for man has no greater strength of himself than the will to succeed, and the ability to have fun while doing it.

Hope you have enough time in the day to find something (or someone) to laugh at!

Procrastination...

"I wait longer to do things because I will be older, therefore wiser."

This is one of those quotes that I hear all the time but never really seems to work out for me. All throughout dead days and even into finals week I have found myself procrastinating on getting things done (one of the reasons for the delay of this posting!) The really interesting thing I found about this quote is that it shows how we try to laugh off our tendency to not do what we know we are supposed to do. I constantly find myself using humor to try and shrug off criticisms from other people, and that's usually all well and good. In this case however, it seems that I'm using humor to shrug off my brain trying to tell me that if I don't study I'm going to get bad grades.

Whatever brain. What do you know anyways?

(My brain's response to this would probably be along the lines of "Nothing, because you haven't been studying at all.")

Reading other people's blogs, I was glad to see I'm not alone in the procrastination department. For some reason, it comforts me slightly to know that others are wasting their hours occupied with the same task that has been occupying my time: that task is nothing. In the words of C.S. Lewis "Nothing is very strong: strong enough to steal away a man's best years.. in a dreary flickering of the mind over it knows not what and knows not why." He seems to have diagnosed the very problem I seem to be having: my addiction to Nothing. (Also, note that C.S. Lewis used the word "very," not me. Just keeping myself clear).

The fortunate thing about this addiction to Nothing is that it has lead me to some funny clips that I would like to share with you.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PVA047JAQsk

Well I know I said clips, but after reviewing them I realized that if I posted more than one, things were going to get out of control, and I'm sure all of us are already out of control because of finals and whatnot.

Anyways, here's to hoping that even with all of the craziness that has gone on in our lives within this past week that we all find enough time in the day to make a memory and have a laugh!

Mark Twain's Wisdom

I want to start off this post by saying that I think I want to look like Mark Twain when I get older. The mustache thing he has going on is great.

That being said, picking a favorite quote from Mr. Clemens is difficult at best. At worst... well, we will just leave you to fill in the rest there. One that really struck with me was one about lightning (on page 140 in my book). It goes something like this:

"The trouble isn't that there are too many fools, but that the lightning isn't distributed right."

This quote strikes me as a funny and slightly sardonic phrase that I think is true. Let's face it, we all have that person (truthfully more like persons) that at times have that we wish could get a nice little shock from the heavens, if only for an instant. Clemens, being a humorist, catches on to the frustration that humans have with each other and creates a nice little quote that catches everyone slightly off guard. Is it nice to say? Not really. Is it politically correct? Probably not. But Clemens rarely seems to care if others take offense to his sayings, something that we might all be able to take a brief lesson on (I say brief because were we all to speak so candidly without any filter, conflicts would be a commonality between mankind as much as breathing is, something we probably don't need).
 
Twain's quotes are memorable and pleasing for the most part and humorous to the last. This book was an excellent choice for any class on humor, and I intend to reread it later to pick up some of the golden bits I surely left behind on my first pass through.

The Last of Juha

As we finish out Tales of Juha, I realized I am quite disappointed: not with the book, but rather with the fact that we will get no more Juha wisdom or humor from here on out!

Tales of Juha was a wonderful book. The small tales in it were humorous when I understood them, confusing when I didn't, and overall a good shift from the books we had read previously in the semester. The light and comical anecdotes proved to contain nuggets of wisdom and insight into the Arabian culture of the time as well as a good look on the perspective of our own culture. Although the time setting seems different and the modes of transportation are not alike in the least (lots of mentions of donkeys in this book), it was intriguing to see the similarities of our American culture with the Arabic culture. For example, many of the last anecdotes that we read focused on corruption in the government and needless court cases, something that I have seen the American public frustrated about many times before. It seems that Juha's tales are not only meant to be comical, but also to be some sort of political and social commentary about the world around them.

It was also nice to have an easy read that kept me awake while I was finishing it. Tales of Juha was a short, simple read that contained a lot of humor and wisdom inside its lines. The one thing that may have not been so enjoyable was the presence of condescension towards women in many of the jokes; however, when reading a tale about another culture it is important to realize that back then (and perhaps even now) there were different social standards. Arabic culture is heavily male dominated, meaning that many writings, jokes, and traditions that come out of that culture are likely to reflect that idea.

Overall, Tales of Juha was a well compiled book, reminding me a lot of a deeper, Arabic version of Anguished English.

Creeping

First of all, I apologize for the tardiness of this post. I could make a plethora of excuses for why it was not posted in time, but in the end what really matters is Go Frogs, right? Right. Glad we got that settled.

As part of an assignment to observe what makes people laugh in situations, I spent part of Easter weekend creeping on people's conversations and observing what made them laugh. For the most part, I was only able to observe the normal things: cognitive shift and what have you. However, at one point after Easter service I noticed an extreme irony that the entire group found hilarious.

For Easter I went to a good friend's house about an hour outside of Fort Worth. His mom was gracious enough to prepare Easter baskets for the whole group of us that went, and even made distinctly different boy and girl baskets. Something that was present in every boy basket was a small pack of cards like Pokémon cards (a suggestion of Ryan, the friend whose house we were staying at). Strangely enough, as all the baskets get handed around, Ryan receives a larger Easter basket than the rest of us (fitting, considering it was his mom and his house). However, Ryan did not receive any cards. The irony of the situation is this: he was probably the only one who really desired the cards! He sat there and asked his mom if she had maybe forgotten him, but all she said was "Oh, I thought you just meant for all the other boys sweetie!" At this, the entire group started laughing, including Ryan. The irony of the situation was such that everyone found the predicament funny, even Ryan who was on the wrong side of the joke. Ryan then stated (in good fun) that he was going to Target later that night to find himself a large deck of cards so that he could easily beat all of us who were laughing with him.

After being in a class studying humor for the better part of the semester, it was nice to see such a sweet irony unfold right in front of me where I was only an observer and not a participant. It was also good to see everyone laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation as well, rather than at any one person. This was at the expense of no one (except maybe a slightly disappointed Ryan), and everyone (including Ryan and his mom) found the situation comical.

A Meaningful Life?

After reading Slaughterhouse 5, we received an assignment reminiscent of that which Billy Pilgrim's mom tries: we are to attempt to find a meaning of life from items found in a souvenir store.

After looking all over the Stockyards, here are the items I found.



Here is the skull of a warthog (or pig of some type anyway). As his vast, vacant eye sockets stare off into nothing, I cannot help but wonder: does he see the future? Perhaps his past? How did his violent ending occur? In the end, all we can see from this sad remnant of a once proud pig is how short life is and how we should make the best of it... by watching the Lion King and laughing at our good warthog friend Pumba (I wonder if they were related?)



Here is a carving of a Native American man, dressed in a feather headdress, yet looking immaculately well for his depiction. As I looked upon him, I couldn't help but think this man was either Spanish or held a Spanish influence in his life (I'm thinking conquistadors or Spanish monks here). Was this man captured by the conquistadors, forced to shave, then presented before the king and queen? Or perhaps he was a conquistador runaway, fleeing from a life of being an oppressor and joining a simpler tribal life closer to nature. Whatever the case, this carving reminded me of the oppression and fallibility of humans, how we can do cruel things and live with them, or how we can easily make excuses for things that are inexcusable.
















Finally, we have the small box. It looks like a jewelry box from the outside: what treasures does it hold on the inside? Alas, we may never know for the faithful Western guardian stands watch over its contents, practically challenging, daring even, someone to come forth and test his skill. Whatever the contents of the box, they were obviously worth guarding. So too should we guard ourselves and our hearts from what others would like to do with them.

A Scatterbrained Message

Since today is going to be the last day we discuss Vonnegut's Slaughterhouse Five, I suppose now would be the time to discuss how I felt about it.

Frankly, I wasn't a fan. Maybe it's just the way I think (go engineering), or maybe it was just the fact that our main character was a spineless, insane optometrist (nothing against the profession, just kind of felt like throwing that in there). Billy Pilgrim is a man that could be described many ways: scatterbrained, crazy, incapable of supporting himself mentally, schizophrenic, a door mat for others to walk on, a man who cares little about himself (not in the selfless heroic way). Take your pick, I have more. My point is that I really find it hard to enjoy main characters that are on the bad side of not being normal. Normal protagonist? Love it. Heroic protagonist that really isn't normal whatsoever? Can't get enough of it. Billy Pilgrim? Please let me finish this book and go read something else.

So maybe the main character was what did it in for me.

Or maybe it was the way the story was written. You know, in the fourth dimension and whatnot. I can do math problems and some physics in three dimensions (how long does it take to get from A to Z?), but when we go from A to D to B to Q to P to Y to A again, then back to... Well, you get the drift. It's difficult for me to grasp a book that jumps around quickly, doesn't match the full development of the story. I feel like it is one of those "choose your path books" where at the end of every page it says "turn to page 67 to stay at home; or turn to page 53 to go on an adventure" except in this novel we only get the choice "turn to the next page to be schizophrenic and confused; or put the book down if you're fed up by now." (While the second option was very tempting, I actually did finish the book.)

The message of the book did actually turn out decently with the little bird sound at the end symbolizing how there truly was nothing intelligent to say about a slaughter. Had the book been written at least semi-chronologically I might have actually enjoyed this book.

Overall the book gets a 5/10. While it may not have been the worst book I have ever read, it definitely doesn't pass my re-readable test. Perhaps I will take the Tralfalmadorian approach just this one time and focus on other things that will better occupy my time rather than focus on how much I disliked Slaughterhouse Five.

A Day in the Life...

Meeting with Sina my conversation partner has lead me to a lot of great insight about different perspectives on things. We have only met twice due to scheduling conflicts (we're both pretty busy), but each time has been really neat. I've learned somewhat of what Germany is like and what the humor is like. We talked about the presentation on German humor that Hans and Nick gave, and she confirmed a lot of what they said about different types of German humor (way to go guys if you're reading this). She literally laughed out loud when I told her about what was said in the presentation about the Polish always being thieves, and said that those were the only jokes German people ever really told about the Polish. She also confirmed the idea that Germans are very serious people, and that some of their humor is different from humor you would find in America.

After talking with Sina, I realized she isn't too different from any of us (which wasn't my initial assumption anyways, just something that stuck out). She had Spring Break plans just like any other student here did, and she actually went to Florida with some of her friends just as any of us would have. It makes me wonder if she has become acclimated to our culture, or rather if the German college culture truly is that different from ours.

I've also noticed that Sina has been to quite a few places here in Fort Worth that I haven't been to, which was strange to me considering I am the American, and she is the foreigner. She has experienced more of Fort Worth than I think I will in my four year college career. I've noticed that Sina is a lot more outgoing than I am and more willing to try new and different things than I am, which kind of makes me wonder if I would function as well overseas in an entirely different surrounding as she did.

I'm meeting with her again today, and as before I'm excited to see what she has to say about different things (especially considering it was just Spring Break!)

That's all for now. Hope whoever reads this finds themselves in a good mood and always finds enough time in the day to enjoy the simple things!

Men, Vowels, and Ties

Sometimes I read these stories and think they're pure gold: whoever wrote them must be literally rolling in the money because everyone is paying him or her for just a line of their work to add spice and pizazz to something that would otherwise lose the reader's attention in the span of a few seconds. I wrote last week that John Hughes' work had that effect on me. This week however I found myself more than a little disappointed with one of the pieces we read. I'll get to that one after I rant about the genius of Barry and The Onion.

Barry's work on the male and female relationship is a definitely overexaggerated form of what I consider to be the major truth amongst all relationships: guys just really have no idea what is going on. Barry's ability to work this exaggeration into his short piece, and then his almost (not quite sure if it actually is) satiric response to women as for how to how to have a successful relationship with human males flowed together so well that I was once again laughing to myself at the innate truths of his work. Barry really exaggerates common stereotypical traits of men (such as distraction along a train of thought and lack of understanding of a relationship) and women (such as overworrying themselves into a disaster) in a way that hit the nail right on the head and allowed him to toy with our imaginations and do whatever cognitive shifts he liked.

The Onion seemed almost like a parody of America's willingness to help others and other nations jumping in. America the big policeman is here to give these people something they desperately needed, but were unable to obtain until America intervened and called for the intervention of others into the affair as well. In this case, Bosnia was missing some vowels (whether they were being hoarded by the government, or there was an economic crisis and shortage I don't remember). The last line about previous letters ending up in the hands of warlords really brought this into a satiric parody of America's current relief efforts. I truly thought that this piece was fairly funny as well.

The piece written by Sedaris however did not amuse me much. Perhaps my sense of humor is just not construed towards this type of writing, but the idea of dressing fancy and the ties and whatnot really just missed the mark with me. I found my self struggling to read all the way through it, whereas with the others before it I had been quite amused. I couldn't quite nail what it was this piece was missing, but I'll reread it later and find out if maybe I was just tired of reading at that point or what.

That's all I got for this one folks, hope that you can all find enough time in the day to have a good laugh or two!

Vacation '58

Or should I say the story of every vacation of my life? This short story by John Hughes is possibly the greatest literary comical work of art I have seen in years. I laughed out loud on the third floor of Tucker as I was reading this today (and probably scared more than a couple engineers and math majors walking around). I'm actually planning on reading this story again soon just to make sure I didn't miss a single priceless phrase penned by Hughes.

I'm not sure if Hughes just appeals to my sense of humor, or if I laughed so hard because I watch National Lampoon Christmas Vacation every year with my family and we all find it hilarious, but this type of comedy is definitely my favorite: the ridiculous followed by more ridiculousness with just a touch of the slight sense that this could all really happen on any vacation (and I'm fairly certain most of these have happened on people's vacations, including a couple on my own!) Hughes' writing in this piece slowly got more and more unbelievable over time. Starting from the car refusing to start, to having to take a relative across the country with them, (even leaving the dog chained to the bumper is fairly reasonable, even if I didn't find that event particularly humorous) each event just becomes slightly more unrealistic, but Hughes does it at such a subtle pace that the reader is drawn into believing everything more! By the time I got to the car chase, I was totally immersed in the idea that it was still reasonable considering they had already stolen cash from a motel and been swindled by the auto repair man and the sherriff! (At some point I did draw the line, however I must say that point didn't come until Walt Disney was actually shot by Clark Griswold.)

I really enjoyed this short story (in case you couldn't tell). I know that there is a movie based off of this as well (National Lampoon Vacation) and after some research I found out that Hughes actually was the screen writer for the vacation series of movies as well, a fact that helped keep the humor of his tales intact on the screen when translated from the book. Like I said earlier, I will probably read this again tonight just for fun, and I'm definitely recommending it to my dad considering we share the same sense of humor. Although he won't be picking out the cognitive shifts or pointing out superiority theory as he reads it, I'm sure that he will get just as big of a kick out of it as I did.

In summary: John Hughes is in my opinion humor at its finest.

First time may be the best?

Well, I guess this is a simple introduction to my very first blog! I must say I am not super excited about having one, probably just because I never have had one before and I don't really know if I could seriously commit to one. This blog is really for Honors Lit and Civ II, and I'm hoping I will be able to keep up with it. Shouldn't be too hard right?
Now on to the good stuff: Conversation partners. This is another thing that I am kind of scared about, as I am usually not a huge fan of just meeting new people, so this is definitely going to be something I am going to have to make a conscious effort to take care of. We had our first meeting February 1st and I just have yet to write about it really (I know, I need to work on writing these sooner). My conversation partner's name is Sina Burmeister, and she is from the northern region of Germany. She is studying abroad here and living with her aunt and uncle. She only really knows of one other German student here on campus, so she has a sort of hard time relating to others here at TCU since most students here know little to nothing about German culture. Sina has been able to make friends here though and has come to appreciate the culture here even as she misses the culture back home. For example, Sina frequents Billy Bob's quite often with her friends and says that she really enjoys it even though she occasionally misses the atmosphere that Germany had to offer. Hopefully as we learn more about each other I will gain a greater insight into what that atmosphere and culture is exactly like.
When Sina and I started to talk about humor, I immediately could tell we did not share the same sense of humor (for the most part anyways). I like to laugh at almost anything, while she says that it takes a certain type of humor to appeal to her and make her laugh. Sina is not a huge fan of Youtube and does not often laugh by herself when watching videos or anything of the like, whereas I frequently visit Youtube and watch videos for the sole purpose of laughing and making the day that much better. Sina did say that she often laughs when things happen in person however, and I was even able to coax a few laughs out of her during out conversation. (Ok, so maybe I just think she doesn't laugh that much, but granted it was our first meeting and most first meetings carry a sense of awkwardness. Sina really does like to laugh, just not at my jokes.)
When I asked Sina what the difference was between American and German humor, she had something to say that I thought was really awesome, something that I've been seeing more of during the course of this class. Sina stated "Humor in different places is the same I think, and it depends more on the person than it does the region." I thought this was actually quite true, and the only idea I really have against that is that sometimes the region has an effect only because people are raised to think that kind of humor is what humor truly is. I know that sounds kind of contradictory, but to sum up my thought, "Humor is defined by people's perceptions of situations. Some people think some things are funny, while others would find the same thing boorish. The only effect that regional humor has is to brainwash its inhabitants into a specific definition of what humor is." (This is my own quote, take it as you will!)
With that being said, I almost feel obliged to stick to my perception of humor when it differs from that of others, if only to prevent from conforming to those around me (call it the leftovers of teenage rebellion. Hoping that everyone else who is reading this is having good luck with their blog as well, and that everyone will always find Enough Time in the Day to do what they love most!