Conversation Partner #4

As Vera and I approach finals the cross-cultural and cross language fears associated with finals begin to set in. While her classes are much more narrow than mine, I believe they may be harder. The reason that I can at least read and understand what the question is asking. While reading the questions is part of the test for her. This lack of familiarity with the language that the test is worded in is some that I find scary.

This unknown of what the question is even asking scares me more than her. I believe that this is because of something else that we have talked about previously. Vera and other Chinese students are used to pressure. They have to succeed to get put into the high school they wish and ultimately their tests and schooling are more rigorous than ours in the United States is. This obvious pressure leads to some of the differences in our culture.

Our talk again returned to food. She loves the food here to my surprise while she says that the Chinese is not very realistic. Her favorite food also surprised me. She said it was noodles that apparently are a staple in China. When an American is asked what type of food is their favorite they generally respond with: Chinese, Italian, or Mexican. I thought that a specific aspect of food being named was interesting.  However, I guess that there are many ways to cook noodles that I haven’t thought of  and that is a possibility I hadn’t previously considered.

These conversations that started as a chore have started to become of the parts of the week that I look forward to and I am sorry to see them approach an ending.

Learning 4

This week has been full of learning experiences. I have made great strides in my research. My classes are going extremely well. One of my professors has been saying something interesting the whole year. The quote is that “The people want us to be Harvard Monday through Friday, Alabama on Saturday and Texas CHRISTIAN University on Sunday.” This is so true and I believe a great goal to have. Sure it is harder because the more parameters and goals you set for yourself the harder it becomes to be successful at the plethora of things you challenged yourself to be. This is the only way to operate in my opinion if it is easy to reach your goals then you are not straining yourself to your greatest capabilities.

This is true in all aspects of an organization’s or an individual’s life. I feel like the greatest ability someone can have is the drive to make themselves better. This is something I have learned this semester, that it is a whole lot easier to say “oh I’m too busy for that” or “that will be hard” when you could improve and sharpen yourself if you trust in your abilities.

This is one of the themes of the semester for me. I took on a lot of extra responsibilities and tasks and it has forced me to become more efficient and a better planner. These are skills that will serve me much longer than some of the useless facts that were driven into my brain this semester.

This last part has a lot less to do with a learning experience (As soon as I got done writing that sentence I realized how untrue it was). My grandmother passed away last Thursday and she will be greatly missed. She taught me how to be kind to others and how to be gracious and inviting to guests. One of her favorites statements when someone would come to her with an issue about another person was “kill them with kindness” she was one of the most generous people I have ever met and I learned so much from her and she will be missed in more ways than can be counted.

Uncontrollable Laughter

There are many things we learn to do by watching or listening to others, and there are many things that we are born knowing how to do.  We are born with the instinct to cry, blink, and breathe. Over time we develop the sense of laughing and smiling and this is a big moment for our parents.  Laughing becomes apart of our lives very quickly we use it to express ourselves and to let others know how we feel.  This got me thinking of things that make me laugh, and mine are similar to almost every other 21 year old male: my friends, funny pictures, hilarious personal stories.  But one thing that might set me apart is the way I laugh at myself.  I laugh at myself on the daily and have no problem sharing my embarrassing or awkward situations with others so they can laugh too.

            I am a pretty clumsy person and my clumsiness seems to come out in the most crowded/awkward situations.  One fine Friday walking to class I was going over some note cards before a test.  I got a call from my sister; we were talking about normal brother-sister things like our day and other family matters.  I was chatting, studying, and walking—essentially I was doing what no naturally clumsy person should ever have to do which is multitask.  I came to the busy 4 way stop right between campus and the fraternity/sorority houses when a gust of wind came and blew my note cards right out of my hand.  I hear car horns beeping and tires screeching as I run back into the rode to collect my much-needed study supplies, all while still on the phone with my younger sister.  While reaching down to grab my last notecard my balance is shifted because of the weight of my backpack and I tumble, face forward into the hot asphalt.  Cars are idly driving by laughing at this random college student falling in the middle of the busy street.  I finally collect all my notecards and what is left of my dignity and pick up my pace to get out of the street.  I’m trying to get my cards back in order while also trying to explain to my sister what’s going on when BAM my head connects right into a tree branch.  I feel my body from the force of my weight slamming into this small tree falling backwards again right into the grass and dirt that that small tree is rooted too.  On the ground that is where I start to lose it.  I laugh so loud and for so long that people are really starting to stare.  Tears start to fill my eyes and my stomach starts aching from my uncontrollable laughter.  A couple of random students came up too me and asked if I was okay while they too were trying to hide the smile that was crippling across their face.  I got up still on the phone with my confused sister brushed myself off and proceeded to my class.  One thing that didn’t come across my mind is that I was very conveniently wearing white athletic shorts so during my final fall into the dirt caused the back of my shorts to be tie-dyed with a perfect grassy green and a dirt brown.  As you can guess for the rest of the day people were asking me about what happened and why my shorts were ruined and every time I told the story I couldn’t help but laugh and neither could the person I was telling my story to.

Learning 3

Learning experiences have been coming frequently this semester. Sometimes they are so frequent that I do not have time write on my blog…;) I have learned over the past week about aging and living both in the classroom and in real life.

First a quick background on my family. My dad was completely planned child when my grandparents were at the ripe age of 43. This was in the sixties, not today when many people were waiting till they were older. This decision my grandparents made 1. Gave me the chance to be born (which I will be eternally grateful to them for that) and 2. Some really interesting age breakdowns. Most of my cousins are 20+ years older than me and I have uncles that are in or approaching their seventies. This also means my “Meme” is 92.

Meme fell on Thursday and has not been doing well since. Intriguingly enough we learned about aging and when life stops in Evolutionary Medicine this week. I have now seen the drastic effects that old age can have on recover and responses to accidents in person like I had just learned about previously.  I have came to the somber realization that life isn’t as black and white as a heart’s beat and a lung’s breath. It is much more, the ability to interact and participate in what is going around you in imperative to life in my opinion. The ability to learn and grow is also important.

So what I’ve learned is that the biological definition of life and my definition of life differ on many levels.  However while Meme is not participating in life as she once did, she is still having an effect on those around her. There was more of my family in one place than there has been in a long time and I know she would have enjoyed seeing that.

Conversation partner #3

Vera and I haven’t been able to meet for a while. It was spring break and then we were both busy so we had a lot to talk about. She is excited to be able to enroll as a full time student in the fall.

Her English has gotten better just from our first meeting. She no longer has to think as much about what words to use and her English is flowing much better. I have read several comments about the differences in economics between other people’s conversations partner’s countries and the US. I wanted to get more in depth with Vera about this. She states that the government is just much more involved. They accept this as reality while we are constantly fighting about the level of involvement of government in business.

I asked her about the differences in the weather again and she said that she is enjoying the warmer weather. I told her about my summer after my senior year and how it was over 100 degrees for over 100 days. She looked at me like I was lying. We both realized we were using different forms of measurement. I was using Fahrenheit and she was thinking Celsius. So we spent a couple of minutes doing the conversions. This is yet another instance of the cultural and global differences that I have come to realize through this semester with my conversations with her.

I am starting to get to know Vera’s personality and that compounded with her increased English abilities has started to make our conversations much more enjoyable. It is crazy that the semester is over so fast and that our conversations will soon be at an end. We have talked about maybe continuing our conversations next semester.  Vera wants to do this for her English skills and I enjoy our conversations to learn about China and their culture.