My Trip to the Zoo

Hunter and I decided to take our trip to the zoo as a finals break on Monday. Originally, I was a little skeptical whether or not there would be a lot of people there considering it was cloudy, windy, and a Monday morning. Fortunately right when we pulled in Hunter and I noticed almost a dozen school buses. This was a good sign. 

Right when we entered the park we headed over to the first exhibit there: the gorillas. Here, all the kids climbed up on the edge of the fence to get as close to the animals as they could. 

As it turned out, this attraction proved to cause the most laughter out of all the places at the zoo. The kids here seemed to be chuckling nearly the whole time, however, whenever an animal would do something that they thought was funny, the kids would burst out in uncontrollable laughter. The video below captures this excellently. 

Another moment of laughter that I captured occurred in the bird cage. The baby, pictured below, couldn't help but laugh as he reached out to touch the bird. All of the young kids seemed to be so enthralled, yet confused by the animals that their first reaction was to laugh. 

As far as the question of whether or not laughter is contagious, the answer is easy: yes. Nearly all of the laughter I observed at the zoo was a group of kids cracking up. Further, whenever all of the little kids would laugh, it was nearly impossible for the parents/ adult supervisors to not start chuckling themselves. Kids' laughing definitely caused Hunter and I to. 

I really enjoyed this assignment. It was a great study break for this extremely stressful week and enabled us to observe laughter from a different viewpoint. 

Below I attached a picture of Hunter becoming one with the gorilla. 

Learning Experience #3: The Importance of Professors' Appreciation and Passion

As everyone knows, or soon discovers, with college comes a new-found freedom that much of us have never experienced before. In high school, you had to go to class. That’s just how it was, at least for me. The only way you didn’t go is if you made up some excuse to your mom to why school would just be absolutely unbearable today, or you played the good-old “I’m obviously too sick to go to school even though I secretly just want to play the brand new video game that came out yesterday so I could be a higher rank than all my friends and they will all be jealous of me and ask me how I am so good and how in the world my mom was cool enough to let me skip school to play a video game” card. But that was a rare occasion. College is different. You are in complete control with what you want to do with your day, even if that means skipping classes all week.

When I look back on my first year of classes at TCU, one thing sticks out every single time. The classes that I consistently attended, enjoyed attending, put the most effort in, and learned the most in all had one thing in common: the professors appreciated the students and had a passion for their job. Put simply, they made it their personal job to not just teach, but to develop a relationship with the class as a whole and with the students individually. I believe this teacher to student relationship building is imperative for a student to come to class and, in more broad terms, enjoy college and ultimately succeed at a University. Having the opportunity to enroll in small, engaging honors classes and smaller-classes in general was one of the primary reasons I came to TCU. I knew this is something that I wanted in a University and I felt like TCU could provide me with this opportunity. Now, not every teacher I have had thus far at TCU has lived up to this bill and I would be lying to say that is how every class is here, however, I have sincerely treasured the professors who work to know their students and I attempt to make it known to them that I genuinely appreciate their effort to create this sort of environment. 

During the canoe trip, in which I shared a canoe with Dr. Williams, I told him about how he and Dr. Bob Doran were my only professors this semester who gave out a ‘survey’ to learn more about their students. Obviously, this is one of the first steps in developing relationships with students. Not coincidentally, my two favorite classes this semester have been with these two teachers. When teachers try to get to know their students outside the classroom and appreciate their attendance on a daily basis, students are more likely to put forth more effort and enjoy their time in school. I know that the handful of teachers that do this have greatly contributed to my enjoyment and my success so far at TCU.

Although my learning experience about the importance of professors’ appreciation and passion is not necessarily useful at this point in my life, it will definitely be applicable as I move forward in my post-graduation career. In the future when I have co-workers, or in the case that I hold some sort of management position, it will be extremely beneficial to reflect on this learning experience and try to imitate the appreciativeness and passion that some of my professors had during my time at TCU. Professors have a tremendous amount of impact on their students and I hope they always recognize this and continually attempt to put their best effort forth each day. 

Conversation #6

It is Saturday, May 2^nd and I have just met with my conversation partner for the last time. We were pretty short on time and could only meet for about 30 minutes but we knew we had to see each other one more time before summer break. I did not want to ask Nasrallah questions about a certain topic for this last meeting. Instead, I hoped that we would spend the time reflecting back on our previous meetings. The first half of the meeting we did exactly that. Eventually we began discussing how crazy it is that the semester is almost over. I asked Nas about his final schedule and he told me about how stressed he was. I did my best to reassure him that he would great and tried to inspire him to study as much as he can during this last week. It will pay off in the end.

             It was now time to say goodbye to Nasrallah. I told him how awesome it was to meet with him this semester and how much I enjoyed getting to know him. Over this semester, Nasrallah and I have developed a great friendship, which was something I never forecasted before our initial meeting. I have learned an incredible amount about Saudi Arabia and its unique culture. It is my sincere hope that Nasrallah has learned just as much about my home country as I did about his. To be honest, I can’t believe that was our final conversation. Although we are so comfortable with each other, it still feels like our first meeting was just yesterday. I am extremely glad that meeting with an IEP student was a pivotal part of this class and I hope that this class continues to entail this sort of learning experience.

 

Learning Experience #2: We've got an ant problem

It is Thursday of dead days and my roommate and I have encountered a serious problem in our, dormitory. As my roommate put it, “We got an ant problem”. Unfortunately hundreds, if not thousands, of ants are crawling around my desk area. Upon further investigation, it became apparent that I may or may not have left a week-old, rotting banana in the trashcan next to my desk. Obviously, this is the last thing my roommate and I want to deal with during our study days as we both have an enormous amount of work and studying to do before the end of the school year. The interesting thing is we weren’t mad. Instead, we couldn't stop laughing as we both cracked jokes left and right about having ants in our room. We knew it was an inconvenience, but we both used humor as a way to lighten up the mood and laugh it off. Yes, I hate having ants occupy every square inch of my desk. However, I would take the moments of laughing and the memories that resulted over the inconvenience any day.

Although I could write a blog post about how I learned not to leave a rotting banana in small trashcan, I believe it is much more fitting to talk about an outcome of the ant event: humor.

When I signed up for this class, I literally had no idea what to expect. The title of the class, as we learned through the videos during the first week, could entail hundreds of ideas. When I discovered the topic was going to be humor, I could not have been more excited. I view myself as a pretty funny individual so the idea of delving into why people laugh and what causes things to be funny fascinated me. Throughout the semester, we expanded on numerous theories of humor which are easy to identify on a daily basis. Why do we laugh at the unexpected? Incongruity theory. This makes sense because some event occurs that is against the norm of what we think is going to happen and thus spurs laughter. Many of the other theories are similarly easy to understand…except two. Why do we laugh when someone else gets hurt? Superiority theory. But how is that funny? Why do we find it humorous to make fun of a specific person or group of people? Negative humor. Again, how is that funny? We may never fully understand, but that’s what I loved about his class. We learned about humor. More importantly, however, we were forced to think about things that are seemingly incomprehensible. Thinking outside of the box and developing critical thinking abilities is invaluable.  

So yes, one thing I learned this semester was to not leave an old banana in my room because it will attract an endless amount of ants. More importantly though, I learned about humor and developed critical thinking skills all through a course titled “Literature and Civilizations II”. 

Conversation #5

As you probably can guess by now, Nasrallah and I began our fifth conversation in Union Grounds. As we have done a few times previously, we decided to walk around a bit and then relax in the basement lobby of Milton- Daniel. Before I even had the opportunity, Nas asked me what today’s subject was. For this meeting, I wanted to ask Nasrallah about the biggest differences he notices between Saudi Arabia and the United States, as well as any stereotypes that the Saudis have of Americans.

             The first thing that Nasrallah mentioned was the vast differences in schooling between America and Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, the boys and girls attend different schools and there is no mixing between the two genders in education. Nasrallah, however, insured me multiple times that he is completely fine with going to school with girls. Since the topic had been brought up, I asked Nasrallah more about the education system in Saudi Arabia. Something that I found very interesting is that Arabic is the primary language used throughout grade-school and high school, but in college all the professors teach in English. I guess they assume that the students ought to be fluent in the English language by the time they reach the college grade level. The second big difference that Nasrallah notices between the two countries is the way kids treat/respect their parents. Nasrallah told me that he has encountered the situation numerous times when a kid is yelling profusely at his or her parents and even cussing at them. According to Nas, this behavior would not be accepted in his country. Saudi Arabian children respect their parents much more than what he has experienced here in the United States. When Nasrallah was telling me this, I felt rather embarrassed. However, I completely understand why he thinks this way. I think all of us have seen how disrespectful others, or even ourselves, can be to parents and other adult figures. It is sad that Nas specifically notices that about America, but often times it is completely true.

             As far as stereotypes go, Nasrallah says that the majority of Saudis view Americans as smart individuals. This is why a lot of them want come to America to study and eventually live. According to Nasrallah however, Americans don’t think. I was rather confused by this and so I asked him to explain what he meant. Nasrallah responded that Americans seem to need a manual for everything we do. We always follow a procedure list and go step by step, rather than figuring things out on our own. He stated that “Americans are smart but still look to procedure and check list instead of using their own brains”. Nasrallah then provided an example that he has experience in his own life. As I mentioned in a previous post, Nas worked for an American company and often times he would be fixing a radio or something along those lines and know how to do it on his own, however the Americans would get mad at him for not following the procedure list. In Saudi Arabia, they do everything on their own and aren’t so set on a specific way to do it. I thought this was an extremely interesting point and something that I have failed to really notice while growing up.

             Through this conversation I was able to develop a better idea of the Saudi Arabian Culture and the differences between the two countries. Further, it is interesting to hear an outside perspective about the stereotypes of the country that I live in. Day to day life I don’t necessarily pick up on the things that Nasrallah pointed out, however it is easy to notice these specific stereotypes if you take a moment to just reflect. I have gained so much more insight even about the country I live in, which is something I never expected when I first met with Nasrallah. 

Negative Humor

For this blog post, I have decided to not focus on one specific incident, but rather cover an example of negative humor that I tend to hear on a consistent basis. Very often I hear individuals, often times my own friends, say phrases such as “He’s acting like a kid with downs” or “He looks autistic”. After these statements, the group cracks up and laughs at the ‘joke’…everyone but me. If there is a quintessential example of negative humor, I believe these vicious remarks about people with learning disabilities is it.

The reason I am so bothered by comments like these is because I have personal relationships with individuals who have the disabilities mentioned. My brother is autistic and one of my cousins has down syndrome. I absolutely love both my brother and cousin, so when people make jokes about the way they look or act I am extremely offended. I don’t understand how these jokes could be funny in any way whatsoever and I am always upset when people tell or laugh at things similar to this. 

However, this is exactly what is worrisome.

The majority of the humor I am exposed to on a daily basis is negative humor, especially on a college campus. In fact, there is probably an incident almost every day where I participate in negative humor, whether that is telling an offensive joke or laughing at one. This is exactly what scares me. I get so offended and upset when people tell a joke that involves autism or down syndrome, yet I probably laugh at jokes that other people are equally offended by. More than likely, you will laugh at any example of negative humor except when you have a personal connection to the thing being ‘joked’ about. Whether they admit it or not, someone is almost always adversely affected by an incident of negative humor. Since our class discussion on negative humor, I have begun to notice the prominence of negative humor on campus. To be honest it is sad that our society views demeaning and offensive things as funny, but we do. Somehow, I believe this needs to change in our society. Personally, I have tried my hardest since the discussions to avoid engaging in negative humor and I try to utilize other pathways for laughter. Although negative humor will more than likely continue to flourish, if we each attempt to abstain then hopefully we can begin to make a difference on TCU’s campus.