Unrestrained Laughter #2

During high school, one of my best friends had a fake front tooth. She hadn’t been in an accident or knocked it out. She was just simply born without one. When I met her, she had braces, which had attached a fake tooth to a bracket. Unfortunately, and fortunately, when she got her braces removed, she was missing a tooth, which mad her look like the ultimate pirate.  Within a week the orthodontist had given her a clear retainer with a fake tooth insert, which solved the pirate problem, but she wasn’t able to eat with the retainer on. So, when we eating lunch at a hotel we were staying at for a softball tournament, she had to take out her retainer. Surprisingly, a baseball team was also staying at our hotel so all of us were flabbergasted. My friend with the pirate teeth decided to be bold and take the elevator with a group of the baseball boys to put herself out there. To her dismay, and to our pleasure, she forgot to put her retainer with the tooth back in before leaving to meet the baseball team. As she walked up to the boys, she smiled at them, all at the same time realizing she was missing her retainer with her tooth. The baseball players’ faces all look so confused, they didn’t even know how to treat a girl who was missing a tooth – and indirectly looked like a pirate.

Whether it’s funny to others or only to us, this was our bonding moment as freshman in high school, which started a friend that has lasted five years beyond this event, as hopefully into the future. The reason I remember this is because she this story is told constantly, at times when we’re down or when we’re reminiscing on our favorite memories. No matter what, this is one of my favorite stories and I think it’s hilarious.

Negative Humor #1

Humor is always meant with the best of intentions, but sometimes it goes too far and hurts those who are either telling the joke or people around them. 

When I was a freshman in high schools, I was apart of the varsity softball team, which included 5 other 9^th graders, which meant we made up 50% of the team..  Sometimes with sports in high school, a hierarchy based on grade levels is present, but since my team was made up significantly by the youngest, we had a fairly even playing field. When we would stretch and warm-up before practice we would crack jokes and tell stories, which made for a very light-hearted mood on the team. There was one girl in particular, Kelly, who would continually tell us stories that just didn’t have an ending, but it was hilarious to us. She would say, “One day, I was sleeping and my brother came in and took a picture of me,” and ….. ?  It kind of became a team joke, always bringing it up in funny situations because she told these stories daily.  When she would tell us stories or her stories would be repeated, so would laugh just like the rest of us, however, one day she just had had it and started crying, which none of us saw come.  Our intentions were completely innocent, because we just like cracking jokes and staying happy, but we didn’t considering how she felt, even when she put a mask on when she would talk and laugh. 

After this we never repeated her stories again, because although we still thought they were funny, we weren’t willing to lose a friendship with her. We wanted her to be happy just like the rest of us. 

Learning Experience #2

Learning is a difficult process that requires motivation and determination. As the semester goes on, I find that I’m very intrigued by nearly all of the information and knowledge that is presented or taught to me, but I find it all very overwhelming. While looking at the small picture (Ex. a single course), the information is interesting and usually makes sense after reviewing the course material after a lecture. However, when up to six courses become involved, knowledge feels overwhelming and it’s difficult to find a place to simply start to study.  

My major classes, Organic Chemistry and Cell Bio, teach so much more information than all my other classes combined, that is it difficult to stay motivated and focused on small sections of the material instead of being able to study in sync with the lectures. Instead, I’m constantly playing catch up and trying to not fall behind. I also feel bad because many of my courses that aren’t my major courses are often neglected (sorry) and are neglected throughout the semester.

Through it all, I’ve so far been successful this semester and have been able to balance it all as well as I’ve been taking in all the information that has been taught.   Although TCU has created an intense learning environment, it is and will continue to be worthwhile.

Conversation Partner #2

On February 11^th, I met with my conversation partner and her sister for the second time.  I could see a considerable improvement with her vocabulary and understanding from last time. Her sister joined us again, who seemed to be quieter than last time. We discussed their classes and differences between Los Angeles and Fort Worth, but our main topic was food. We discussed a lot of the prices of food prices here as compared to Taiwan. They told me that all meat is much cheaper than it is back home, which is awful, because I already thought meat was expensive enough here. That also means meat in Taiwan is extremely expensive and I would never want to pay more than I already am.  Near the end of our conversation, they asked me about places to go in Los Angeles if they were to travel after their 6-month language intensive program at TCU, because they would really like to go.  This was an interesting question; because I’ve never considered what I would tell people if they were to ever travel to Los Angeles. I decided the best fit for them would be Santa Monica, because not only is it near the beach, but a lot of surrounding tourist attractions could be reach on foot there.  Unfortunately, I had to leave to go to class, so we plan to meet again in 2 weeks to talk again.