Wednesday of this past week I received an email from Yoyo (we're on a nickname basis, it's getting pretty serious) inviting me to play ping pong with him in the Rec center. We had discussed the week before how much he liked playing pool and ping pong and how I had never played, so he was offering to teach me. Despite the high likelihood that I would end up hitting myself in the face with the paddle, I agreed.
Yoyo was a wealth of information this week in all honesty. First off I didn't even know we had ping pong tables in the rec, and it turns out there's a whole lounge in the basement that I never knew existed. As far as actually playing the game went he started me off slow, just letting me figure out the proper way to hit and control my swing. Once I got the ball to actually hit the table, we played a real game. Surprisingly to both of us, I was not awful. The game got fairly competitive at some points and we could keep the ball going back and forth for a lot longer than I expected. After some nail-biting overtime the expert prevailed, and Youness beat me 14-13.
While we practiced and played, we talked about our weeks. Youness had a presentation he had to give on Holes so we talked about the book and the movie. This turned into a conversation about what movie genres we like best and what we had seen. We found out we both liked James Bond movies and how we both disapprove of the new remakes (they just don't feel right). I did come to a odd realization when trying to describe The Lion King to Youness. I had said that it was my favorite Disney movie, and when he asked me what it was about I didn't know where to begin. I started off with a simple "It's about a bunch of lions", but the more I tried to describe the plot, the more concerned his face got and the weirder the movie sounded. It made me realize that universally people have the tendency to look at what other cultures think is entertaining or funny and find it so peculiar, but it's not just confined to adult topics. Even children's culture can seem odd through a different cultural lens.
After my sobering defeat Youness had to leave to catch his ride home so we said good-bye. He told me to invite a friend next time and he could bring his, so we could have a whole ping pong tournament. Needless to say I'm setting up a practice schedule for myself so I can redeem myself at our next meeting. Stay tuned to find out how it ends up!
Sunday, February 23, 2014
Conversation Partner: The Beginning
In stereotypical college student fashion, procrastination has made me blog about my first meeting with Youness a week late. (However we've already met twice, so I at least there's efficiency in that!) So as you read this, please do me the favor of imagining I wrote this a week ago and that I'm NOT about to post back-to-back blogs about our meetings.
My first meeting with Youness was on the 14th, and we met up in Union Grounds for coffee. It started off awkward because we didn't exchange numbers or know what the other looked like, so we ended up standing about three feet away from each other without knowing it for a solid five minutes. Now I had been told by pervious students that these meetings usually don't take very long, about twenty to thirty minutes, because the language barrier gets tiresome for both parties and, frankly, you run out of things to say. This had given me some comfort because I was admittedly somewhat apprehensive. Language barriers terrify me. Not because of a lack of cultural relativism, but because I don't like to make people feel uncomfortable, which is something I excel at. If there was a Nobel Prize for awkwardness I definitely would have received it by now because my life is a combination of dropping things and uncomfortable lulls in conversation. The last thing I wanted to do was make my partner feel any more out of place than I know I would feel being in an unfamiliar country trying to learn the language, and I was almost positive I was going to fail. Fortunately, our initial hiccup was the only awkward part.
Youness and I covered so many topics, it's hard to recall them all. We talked about family, sports we liked to watch and play, places we had visited, languages we (I should say he) spoke. He was impressed that I actually knew where Morocco was, because apparently many people just assume his home country is in Spain. He impressed me with just about everything about him. He comes from an engineering background and has a degree in mathematics, and he's looking to get a masters here at TCU. Before moving to the US he spent eight years living in France, so he speaks fluent French. This is on top of speaking his native language of Berber and learning Arabic in school. And now, living in Texas only since January, he's learning English as his fourth language. Listening to Youness speak left me under the impression he had been here since last semester, so learning he hadn't even been in the US for two months astounded me. His accent was think but his fluency and comprehension was incredible, to the point where he even used a few American idioms. I did succeed in making him feel awkward because I praised him for his accomplishments with English. Youness is a very humble person and was embarrassed when I commented on how amazing he was, but I honestly couldn't believe it.
Our conversation went on for an hour and only ended because I had another engagement I needed to attend. In that time I learned a lot about the weather and culture of Morocco, and how the three cultures he had experienced compared to one another. I took Language and Identity in Cultures last semester with Dr. Tracy Williams, and we focused on how language can change and impact in different ways because of different cultural expectancies and influences. I loved the class and it made me very curious, so I had plenty of questions about what Youness thought of the comparisons and contrasts of the three countries he had experienced. I was honestly sad when we had to say good-bye, but excited that it had gone so well and I hadn't embarrassed myself or spilled anything. (It's the small victories in life that keep us going.)
In short, my initial worries were completely unfounded. I got lucky on this project by being assigned to someone that I genuinely get along and could talk about a variety of topics with, which is what is key to having engaging conversations. I can honestly say that right now it seems this will be more than just a class assignment and actually develop into a friendship.
My first meeting with Youness was on the 14th, and we met up in Union Grounds for coffee. It started off awkward because we didn't exchange numbers or know what the other looked like, so we ended up standing about three feet away from each other without knowing it for a solid five minutes. Now I had been told by pervious students that these meetings usually don't take very long, about twenty to thirty minutes, because the language barrier gets tiresome for both parties and, frankly, you run out of things to say. This had given me some comfort because I was admittedly somewhat apprehensive. Language barriers terrify me. Not because of a lack of cultural relativism, but because I don't like to make people feel uncomfortable, which is something I excel at. If there was a Nobel Prize for awkwardness I definitely would have received it by now because my life is a combination of dropping things and uncomfortable lulls in conversation. The last thing I wanted to do was make my partner feel any more out of place than I know I would feel being in an unfamiliar country trying to learn the language, and I was almost positive I was going to fail. Fortunately, our initial hiccup was the only awkward part.
Youness and I covered so many topics, it's hard to recall them all. We talked about family, sports we liked to watch and play, places we had visited, languages we (I should say he) spoke. He was impressed that I actually knew where Morocco was, because apparently many people just assume his home country is in Spain. He impressed me with just about everything about him. He comes from an engineering background and has a degree in mathematics, and he's looking to get a masters here at TCU. Before moving to the US he spent eight years living in France, so he speaks fluent French. This is on top of speaking his native language of Berber and learning Arabic in school. And now, living in Texas only since January, he's learning English as his fourth language. Listening to Youness speak left me under the impression he had been here since last semester, so learning he hadn't even been in the US for two months astounded me. His accent was think but his fluency and comprehension was incredible, to the point where he even used a few American idioms. I did succeed in making him feel awkward because I praised him for his accomplishments with English. Youness is a very humble person and was embarrassed when I commented on how amazing he was, but I honestly couldn't believe it.
Our conversation went on for an hour and only ended because I had another engagement I needed to attend. In that time I learned a lot about the weather and culture of Morocco, and how the three cultures he had experienced compared to one another. I took Language and Identity in Cultures last semester with Dr. Tracy Williams, and we focused on how language can change and impact in different ways because of different cultural expectancies and influences. I loved the class and it made me very curious, so I had plenty of questions about what Youness thought of the comparisons and contrasts of the three countries he had experienced. I was honestly sad when we had to say good-bye, but excited that it had gone so well and I hadn't embarrassed myself or spilled anything. (It's the small victories in life that keep us going.)
In short, my initial worries were completely unfounded. I got lucky on this project by being assigned to someone that I genuinely get along and could talk about a variety of topics with, which is what is key to having engaging conversations. I can honestly say that right now it seems this will be more than just a class assignment and actually develop into a friendship.
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
The Constant Repetitiveness That Is My Degree Plan
As I write this post, I sit in the library with an assortment of books in front of me. One is Verbal Behavior by B.F. Skinner, assigned by the research lab I am working in this semester as we look into different reinforcements for teaching language variability in children with autism. It sits on top of my notebook for Language Development in Children, where we discuss the acquisition of language (I cannot begin to count how many times I have written that phrase) and what types of childhood contexts and disorders influence it. Open next to this stack is my Developmental Psychology text book, where we are currently looking into different theories of development and how we socially, physically, cognitively, and emotionally grow through out the life span. Left out of all the fun is The Out-of-Sync Child, which rests safely in my backpack waiting for me to pick it up and continue picking apart auditory and language deficiencies in children with Sensory Processing Disorder.
Needless to say, my learning experiences at the moment seem to focus explicitly on two things: language and kids.
If these two things we separate topics of study, I do not believe I would be semi-procrastinating by "taking a break" to work on my honors class homework. That has to say something, right? No, instead of having one or two classes only focusing on one topic or the other, all of my classes (aside from the blessing that is Literature and Civilization II) focus heavily on BOTH. And how they interrelate. And talk about the same topics. At the same time. In strikingly similar contexts.
Of course I feel like I should not be complaining. All of my classes teaching the same stuff means less studying, right? True, the similar concepts help a lot with learning the material. Having different approaches and angles of the same topics being taught to me helps to get a more well-rounded idea of the theories, hopefully giving me the tools to apply them more effectively. Yet one cannot help but get a little bored sometimes. As helpful as overlapping criteria can be for my GPA, it does nothing good for my attention span. Sooner or later, the school days get monotonous.
When I really reflect and put my petty complaining aside, I truly cannot complain. Sure, I might have language acquisition and developmental delays being beaten into my skull, but I love it. Well, I love the content, not the beating. I chose my majors because I have a deep interest and fascination issues and concepts and, more importantly, because I want to be able to help children who need it most. So while it may be a little mind-numbing at the moment, it will all pay off in the end when I am equipped with the knowledge I need to do what I love.
Needless to say, my learning experiences at the moment seem to focus explicitly on two things: language and kids.
If these two things we separate topics of study, I do not believe I would be semi-procrastinating by "taking a break" to work on my honors class homework. That has to say something, right? No, instead of having one or two classes only focusing on one topic or the other, all of my classes (aside from the blessing that is Literature and Civilization II) focus heavily on BOTH. And how they interrelate. And talk about the same topics. At the same time. In strikingly similar contexts.
Of course I feel like I should not be complaining. All of my classes teaching the same stuff means less studying, right? True, the similar concepts help a lot with learning the material. Having different approaches and angles of the same topics being taught to me helps to get a more well-rounded idea of the theories, hopefully giving me the tools to apply them more effectively. Yet one cannot help but get a little bored sometimes. As helpful as overlapping criteria can be for my GPA, it does nothing good for my attention span. Sooner or later, the school days get monotonous.
When I really reflect and put my petty complaining aside, I truly cannot complain. Sure, I might have language acquisition and developmental delays being beaten into my skull, but I love it. Well, I love the content, not the beating. I chose my majors because I have a deep interest and fascination issues and concepts and, more importantly, because I want to be able to help children who need it most. So while it may be a little mind-numbing at the moment, it will all pay off in the end when I am equipped with the knowledge I need to do what I love.
Ali Rafetto, Kira Markus and I decided to do our project together for the jokes, cartoon, and videos we would bring in. It all started with Kira sending this cartoon to us, swearing it was the funniest thing she had ever seen:
I liked the satirical side of this cartoon, so I found these sports jokes:
Q: How many NCAA basketball players does it take to change a light bulb?
A: Only one. But he gets money, a car, and three credit hours for it.
The college football player knew his way around the locker room better than he did the library. So when the librarian saw the gridiron star roaming the stacks looking confused, she asked how she could help.
“I have to read a play by Shakespeare,” he said.
“Which one?” she asked.
“William.”
A Giants fan, a Padre fan, and a Dodger fan are climbing a mountain and arguing about who loves his team more. The Padre fan insists he’s the most loyal. “This is for San Diego!” he yells and jumps off the side of the mountain. Not to be outdone, the Giants fan is next to profess his love for his team. He yells, “This is for San Francisco!” and pushes the Dodger fan off the mountain.
Ali liked the sports idea since the olympics are currently in the popular media, so she found these videos:
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