Last Meeting with Thania

            Thania and I switched it up for our last meeting and met at Barnes and Noble for our last meeting. We had a great conversation over coffee for the last time. For this conversation, we talked about a wide range of topics. Because Thania was working on her final essay for her writing clatss, we discussed that. Her essay was about a paragraph long, and I was thoroughly impressed with her writing. The topic of the essay was "who is the most important political figure in your country?" Thania was torn at first about what to write about. She has been living in the United States for over 15 years, and is a full US citizen and consider the United States her home. But she figured that the teacher wanted her to write about where she is originally from, Guatemala. So for the essay, she wrote about Rigoberta Menchu Tum, a Guatemalan famous for winning the Nobel Peace Prize. Rigoberta is famous for her equal rights with the indigenous people.
           Despite Thania writing about Rigoberta, she actually isn't a huge fan of her. She loves what she does regarding equal rights with the Mayan people, but Thania claims that Rigoberta is sort of a communist politically. This kind of brought the conversation to a discussion on the state of Guatemala and its future. Thania says right now that Guatemala is very dangerous because of being so close to Colombia and Mexico. The people in charge of the drug rings in Guatemala used to be kind and gracious to the community. But then the Mexican cartels came in and massacred all the existing drug leaders, and replaced them with their own men. Now she says Guatemala is dangerous, and people are nervous that they might not be able to go to the grocery store and back and surviving. This is especially tough for Thania because the majority of her family is living there still.
         We eventually came to the topic of politics in the United States. Thania is fairly conservative when it comes to politics, however she doesn't like how the parties are so against each other. In the past election, she voted for Obama. She actually thought I was from Ohio and became a little angry when I told her I didn't get my absentee vote in time. She was relieved when I let her know I was from Nebraska.
          At this point, we had been talking for over an hour and it was time to go. I really enjoyed this conversation because I learned a lot about Thania's culture and her views. Our meetings were always entertaining, and I am thankful I had such a enthusiastic partner.

Una compañera nueva?

        Thania and I met again for my 7th overall meeting this past Tuesday. Out of all of my meetings so far this semester, this was by far the most interesting. Originally, Thania and I had planned on going over her essays for her English class. Instead, Thania and I ate lunch with another student in the program, Monica. When I first saw Monica, I had no idea she was in the ESL program, considering she's about 55 years old with blonde hair and light complexion. It turns out, she can  barely speak English. Monica is in the beginner level of all her English classes at TCU. So, instead of Thania and I speaking English, all 3 of us spoke Spanish for an hour. Luckiliy, I know Spanish well enough to communicate decently with Monica. I learned a lot about Monica during this conversation. She is from Venezuela and moved to the United States 4 years ago. She has a son that is a Junior Computer Science major here at TCU as well, and they live just a few blocks away from TCU.
        Because this entire conversation was primarily in Spanish, I didn't really get to ask a ton of questions regarding substance. Most of the conversation was me telling Monica about myself like that I'm a biology major with chemistry and spanish minors. She was very intrigued with my aspirations to go to dental school after TCU, and Monica was shocked that dental school was an additional 3-4 years post grad. In Venezuela, dental school programs are 5 years total of undergraduate plus post grad, and medical schools are 8 years total. She was still impressed with me wanting to be a dentist, and told a story about how expensive it was for her son to get his wisdom teeth pulled.
       At this point, they needed to get back to their homes, so I told Monica and Thania 'adios' and thanked them for the good Spanish conversation practice!

Another meeting with Thania (6th Overall)

           The other day, Thania and I met again for lunch at Market Square. Due to her class schedule and duties at home like taking care of her kids, usually we are only able to meet at 1 o clock at Market Square. This is fine with me considering I have 25 meal swipes left to burn at the Bluu. This time, we began talking about the ESL program at TCU, and Thania actually introduced me to the assistant director, Kristin. Thania, having lived in the US for over 15 years, has gone through several intensive English language programs in California and Nevada. The one at TCU is by far her favorite. She is always raving about the teachers and how intelligent they really are. Right now she is about to graduate from level 5 in speaking, but she's still working on level 3 and 4 in writing and reading. She believes she still has a few quarters left in the program before graduating completely. Writing appears to be her most difficult subject because she has trouble focusing on one idea and instead tends to circle around various information. This was easy for me to relate to because writing tends to be one of my weaker subjects. However, she still wants my help, and she plans on bringing in a few of her essays next time we meet to see if I can proofread them for her. I'm looking forward to this because I'm interested in what type of essays they assign in her writing class. When speaking to her, it's obvious that she's a fairly advanced in English. I rarely don't understand what she's saying, and when she speaks a little too fast, I try to help her with the pronunciation.

        The next topic of conversation was Thanksgiving. I was intrigued if she celebrated the holiday like most Americans. Thania loves Thanksgiving, but she has yet to master the cooking of a turkey. This wasn't a problem for her because her family and two other Hispanic families met at her neighbor's house for dinner. Luckily, her neighbor took charge of perfecting the turkey. I really enjoyed this conversation because I got to learn about Thania's family. Her husband and Thania have started a small computer science business, and her husband even has his security clearance from the federal government! He often consults at schools like John Hopkins and Columbia. I then asked her about what language is predominantly spoken around the house. Both her children mostly speak English, but she's trying to get them to learn Spanish as well. The daughter is open to that idea and speaks fairly well, but the son doesn't want to learn Spanish as much. Thania says that's because he's so used to speaking English in school.

          We then got onto the topic of her returning to Guatemala twice a year. She hasn't taken her kids back to Guatemala to see the majority of her family due to vaccinations. However, Thania still returns twice a year, and even showed me a "Quetzal," the form of currency in Guatemala. She actually gave me two quetzals, one being a coin and one being a pill. Here's a photo of the bill from google:

I really thought it was cool that she's so enthusiastic about our meetings and gave me the two pieces of Guatemalan culture, even though it's roughly worth 30 American cents!

Another Meeting with Thania (5th overall)

      Thania and I were unable to meet again before the break, so we got together for lunch today (Monday). Again we met at the lovely Market Square, but this time Thania came prepared for the topic of our conversation: humor. Thania brought me several of her favorite jokes from Latin America. She said a lot of the humor was probably too obscene to discuss, so instead she brought political cartoons by a particular artist. They feature a character named Mafalda. Here is an example below.

Luckily, I'm working on a Spanish minor, so I was able to understand the jokes. This cartoon above shows this young girl named Mafalda eating soup. Inside the speech bubble it says that "The soup is to children what communism is to democracy!" As you can see, these cartoons often comment on social satire. They use the character of a young girl to make comments on politics or just society in itself. I was very glad Thania showed me these cartoons, and they seemed to be her favorite type of humor.
     Next, Thania wanted to discuss what we talk about in class regarding American humor. I let her know that we mostly discuss themes and read various examples of humor from different cultures. For example, we talked about all the Humor around the World projects and other readings we've discussed. She was always really intrigued and excited about everything. At this point, Thania had to go pick up her kids, so we said our goodbyes and planned on meeting later in the week!

Second Juha Readings

         I really enjoyed the next to readings in the Tales of Juha, as I expected after the first 40 pages. Juha is a very versatile character, and he really can be whatever the storyteller wants him to be; this is really evident in today's reading. The first section was titled "Social Satire." Juha was his usually witty self in this chapter, using his clever wording to poke fun on a lot of social issues and common issues. I really liked this chapter because, as many people mentioned in class, it's easy to relate to. For example, Juha's story about how there are a total of four people in bed at night with his wife. Past relationships often come back and affect current relationships. Most people have had this type of experience. Another story that I found amusing was the story of Juha and his son at the funeral procession. The mourning widow told the deceased husband that the funeral procession was taking him somewhere with no bed, cover, carpet, food or water. Juha's son then exclaims that they're taking him to Juha's house. This short story wasn't the most satirical or clever of the chapter, but it definitely provided a good laugh.
         My favorite story from this chapter was the one with Juha, his son, and the donkey. In this story, Juha and his son can't decide whether to ride the donkey together or have one of them walking. No matter what they're doing, people passing by comment on how they're doing something wrong. Eventually, Juha and his son start carrying the donkey and then just walking aside the donkey. They continue to get upsetting comments from people passing by. At the end or the story, Juha comments that it's impossible to please everyone. This situation is easy to relate to for almost everyone. People in society often judge people no matter what they do. I think society in general is the target of the satire here.
         The next chapter is titled "Cunning and Resource." Juha is quite the trickster in this section. My favorite story would have to be the story about Juha and the 1000 dinars. Juha tricks his neighbor into giving him 999 dinars, a new donkey, and new clothes. Juha's clever trick in court was very amusing, and definitely fits the cunning trickster role he often plays. These first two sections of the reading were very similar to what we've seen of Juha so far. He's clever and smart, but in the next chapter he is much of the opposite.
          The last chapter was titled Naivete and Stupidity. Juha seems to be a totally different character from previous stories. Here he is a lot less clever, often at a loss for words, and is at the butt end of most jokes. However, I still found these stories entertaining. My favorite story from this section was when Juha sat at the preacher chair in the mosque. He was going to deliver a sermon, but he couldn't find anything to say. Usually I would expect Juha to think of something clever to say on the spot, but instead he just admits that his mind is blank. This kind of cognitive shift made this short story pretty amusing. This chapter definitely shows how versatile a character Juha. It reinforces the idea that Juha can be any type of character the story teller wants him to be.

1st Meeting with Thania (4th Meeting Overall)

               My former conversation partner was Ricardo, a 23 year old Brazilian businessman. Ricardo recently made an impromptu trip to Vegas and then headed back to Brazil. Since we only got to meet three times, I needed a new partner. Thanks to Zhenya, I now have Thania as a new conversation partner. Thania and I met at Market Square last Thursday. Thania is a middle aged woman from Guatemala. She actually moved to the United States over 16 years ago. Her time in the US has taken her many places across the country. She originally moved to Reno, Nevada, with her husband 16 years ago because her  father lived there. She then moved around California, and now Fort Worth, TX.
          Here in Fort Worth, Thania, her husband, and her two children reside. She has a busy schedule, waking up every week day at 630 to drive her son to school over a half hour away. Classes from 9-1 keep her busy, and then she usually has to pick her son up from school around 215. With her busy schedule, Thania still managed to find time to meet with me from 1-2. What I really enjoyed about meeting with Thania was her enthusiasm about the ESL program. Previously, she was not assigned a conversation partner because she has lived in America for 16 years. The teachers believed her English was proficient enough that other students needed the conversation partners more. This surprised me, considering Thania's English was often mispronounced and very hard to comprehend. She knows that she needs help with her English, and she really wants me to help her whenever she makes a mistake. Several times I helped her pronounce a word or let her know that she should slow down when speaking.
          Having an enthusiastic conversation partner really has its advantages. Thania would always want to discuss what was going on in school and especially this specific class. I explained that the class' main theme was humor. She instantly took that explanation as me assigning her homework. For next time we meet, she plans on bringing a collection of Latin American jokes.
           After talking about her history, Guatemala, and my classes, it was time for us to part. For our next lunch, we plan on talking about Guatemalan culture, and specifically the humor.

Hokum Readings 11/5

           I enjoyed today's readings from Hokum a little more than the previous stories. The first reading was "Adventure" by Langston Hughes. This short passage had similar content compared to most of the stories in Hokum. They all seem to focus on the oppression against African Americans in the United States. Most of this oppression comes from white people. In this reading, I found the sarcastic tone throughout interesting. The ideas of a sight seeing tour with whites and blacks in Alabama was fairly amusing. However, this reading didn't make me laugh, as with most of the Hokum readings. I don't think most of these stories are aiming to provide a belly aching laugh. Instead, they poke fun at all the injustices African Americans faced at the time by trying to show how outrageous those injustices were.
           The next reading was "The Lesson" by Toni Cade Bambara. I was actually able to relate to this story a little because of the toy store. When the kids started looking at the unbelievably priced things in New York, I immediately knew where they were because of my job this past summer. I worked for West Corporation as a customer service specialist for their client, Toys R Us.com. During my training process, I learned that Toys R Us actually owns FAO Schwarz. Whenever I would get an FAO Schwarz call my eyes would light up hoping for a celebrity or some CEO to call in and order the 16 foot tall giraffe we sold for $7,999. This never happened, but I do remember one guy called in and had me order three toy trucks for him, with overnight shipping for a final bill around $300.00. For his billing address, he told me the 47th floor of a building on Madison Avenue; and for the shipping address, his summer home in Nantucket. I'm definitely not in the same situation as the kids in the story, but it's crazy to think about how much money some people have earned. Now, back to the story. The Lesson seems to be another amusing story that has a certain message but no major laughs. The lesson Miss Moore is trying to teach is kind of telling wit this quote: "Imagine for a minute what kind of society it is in which some people can spend on a toy what it would cost to feed a family of six or seven (197)." On the surface, it appears Miss Moore is showing the kids major differences between people in America. Along with this message, I thought "The Lesson" was pretty amusing. The narrator is a young girl who tells the story in a humorous tone. The way she describes all the mischief with vulgar language is entertaining. It never really made me laugh, but it made this story easy to read.
           The last reading was "Dark Prophecy: I sing of Shine." I'm just a biology major so I wasn't exactly sure the specific type of style, but I'll call this reading a poem. This poem uses a lot more vulgar language. It tells the story of an African American, referred to as "Shine," fleeing the titanic when it was sinking. Several white people offer "Shine" different things if he would save them. Shine just swims on to Harlem while all the white people sink and die. To me, this poem sends the attitude "why should African Americans help white people after all the years of injustices." Following the apparent theme of Hokum, this poem definitely wasn't funny. I probably wouldn't even call it amusing because it felt morbid.
           

Hokum Readings (10/29)

In my opinion, Hokum is the most difficult thing we've read this year. Yes Morreal was a little dry and somewhat organized, but it was fairly easy to understand. Hokum is written in a way that I often have to read    over and over again until I understand anything. However, once I finally understand fully what's going on, I find myself intrigued in the stories.

The story that I want to discuss is "The City of Refuge" by Rudolph Fisher. I often feel confused about why these stories are considered African-American humor. "The City of Refuge" never really made me laugh, or amused. I would say that it made me kind of angry the way that Mouse Uggam took advantage of Gillis. He had Gillis run his drug business by convincing him he was just selling French medicine. Gillis is ignorant of everything going on, and ends up taking the fall for the drugs at the end. I'm not really sure if the story is supposed to be amusing or humorous because I found it more sad. However, there is a lot of incongruity in the story. Almost all the incongruity is based off of the King Solomon Gillis' lack of intelligence. One would expect him to easily figure out he's being set up, but he has no idea. Another example of incongruity is Gillis' amazement with Harlem. He feels it's the best place on Earth, the 'city of refuge', but really it is not a place to live. 

Though I felt like there are incongruous parts in this reading and in other Hokum readings, I definitely don't consider it 'funny.' This is probably due to a few reasons. First is that most of these stories are from the early to mid 1900's. The dated time period makes it very hard to relate to any of these stories. Another reason is that I am a 19 year old white male. I've gone through over 13 years of schooling teaching me about the horrors of slavery and injustices against African-Americans. When reading many of these stories that appear to encourage certain stereotypes about African-Americans, I don't chuckle or smile. Usually I just find it pretty racist because of today's culture. 

3rd Meeting with Ricardo

           Ricardo and I met for the third time the other day, for a short lunch at Market Square. It was a short lunch because Ricardo needed to head over to the airport for his trip to Vegas. At this point, he let me know that once he returned from Vegas in a week or so, he would go directly to the airport and back to Brazil. I had no idea Ricardo was to return to Brazil so soon. This was definitely a big communication error on my part. Once I realized I wouldn't be able to meet with Ricardo again, I asked him a few questions about his thoughts on humor.
             Ricardo said Brazilian humor, in his opinion, consists of a lot sarcasm. He finds short, clever jokes and sayings in the middle of a conversation the funniest. I told him we usually call that a dry sense of humor. He didn't elaborate much more on the sarcasm, so I asked him what he thought of American humor. He says he finds some TV shows funny like The Office. Ricardo doesn't like the physical humor in America. When a guy goes up to another guy and hits him, he doesn't laugh. I told Ricardo this often called slapstick humor. That was really the extent of our humor conversation because he needed to catch a plane to Vegas. I wished him good luck on his gambling and to have a safe return to Brazil. Though we only conversed three times, I always enjoyed the conversations.
               Now, hopefully I'll get a new conversation partner to meet with for the rest of the semester...

Another meeting with Ricardo

                 Ricardo and I met again at Market Square this past Thursday. It had been a while since we last met, so we caught up for a bit. Ricardo had been busy the past few weeks with classes, and then he traveled to Austin with his brother. His brother traveled to Austin from Brazil for business, and decided to stay in Texas until Ricardo returns to Brazil in November.

                While his brother is here, Ricardo has some big plans. In a few weeks, they’re going to Vegas for the national rodeo. Ricardo has traveled all across the United States for rodeos. He actually listed off about 15 or more major cities in the country that he has visited. Ricardo’s cousin is a professional calf roper, so he often travels with him to the major rodeos around the country. It surprised me that he’s been to more exciting cities in the United States than me, and I’ve lived here all my life. He’s definitely not a stranger to the culture.

                The conversation about all the places Ricardo has visited brought up the topic about major cultural differences between Brazil and the United States. Ricardo said that the most confusing thing in the US is the federalist government. The different between state and national government definitely confused him because he’s traveled to so many different states in the country. To him, it’s so odd that specific laws vary in different parts of the country. In Brazil, no matter where he is, there is only one set of laws. This intrigued me a lot because I never had really thought about laws changing across state borders.

                Ricardo brought up some other big cultural differences between Brazil and the United States. In Brazil, soccer is the only really popular sport that everything else takes a back seat to. This is obviously different compared to all the variety we have here. Law wise, Ricardo liked that most people can get a driver’s license at age 16 here. In Brazil, one must be 18 to drive. Another major difference exists between laws regarding alcohol. Ricardo told me how he could go to a night club in Brazil and see tiny 14 and 15 year old boys and girls intoxicated, but here it is a lot stricter. Before speaking to Ricardo, I never realized how many small laws and things could make a country seem so foreign. 

Family Vacations

            John Hughes' "Vacation 58" was one of the funnier stories I've read so far this year. What I liked most about it was the nonchalant manor that the young narrator talked about a chaotic event. Throughout the story, crazy, over the top events happen to the narrator and his family, and the fact that the narrator is a young boy makes the events seem like no big deal. For example, when Clarke (the father) is driving through Illinois late at night, the narrator states, "Dad drove up on the side-walk and ran over a bike and some toys. Mom accused him of being asleep at the wheel, but he said he was just unfamiliar with traffic signs (263). The somewhat flattened voice that the narrator states the chaotic events makes it very humorous. It is a form of incongruity because one would expect the narrator to freak out when his dad recklessly drive, but he just casually tells the story and moves on.
           This same exact patterns happens again and again in the story, except the car ride keeps on getting more chaotic. Highway patrol pulls over the station wagon, and it turns out that they were dragging the dog at 60+ miles per hour for half a mile. They drove the station wagon off a four foot cliff. They get robbed by the gas station attendant that towed their car. The dad robbed the hotel, runs from the police, get attacked by Indians, and eventually the events climaxed with Clarke shooting Walt Disney. Every single one of these chaotic events is told in a flat tone from the young narrator who doesn't really understand the severity of the situation. The difference between the chaos of the events, and the nonchalant way the events are told is an example of incongruity in this story.
          Another thing I liked about this story was the underlying suburban, Midwest stereotype. I'm from Omaha, Nebraska, which is essentially in the center of the continental US. To drive anywhere fairly exciting, it's either an expensive flight or a long road trip. With a family of six, flying was rarely an option so for almost all vacations we would pack up the suburban and try to stand each other for usually over eight hours. The beginning of "Vacation 58" is pretty much an exaggerated version of what happens before each of my family vacations. My dad will be super meticulous about packing the car just right, making sure to include his golf clubs. We always plan at leaving around 8:00 or so in the morning, but rarely make it out before 9:30. For my family at least, vacations always seem like a great idea but always result in tears, blood, and a lot of stress. I feel like Hughes captured this situation perfectly. The family was so excited to go on a great vacation to Disney Land, but it turns out to be fairly destructive. Granted the family in the story went through a little more chaos, I was still able to relate to the fundamental situation.

         

What's Better than Breasts and Drinking?

    Out of today's readings, my favorite was definitely Nora Ephron's "A Few Words about Breasts." I predict that the majority of the class will have the same thoughts as me because Ephron's story is easy to relate to. We're all young college kids who somewhat recently went through the awkward stages of "development." Though I didn't necessarily have to deal with "cramps," I was somewhat similar to Ephron in high school considering she was younger than everyone. I have a late August birthday, and most of my friends were at least 8 or 9 months older than me. Combining this with my braces, fairly short stature, and friends that already had full beards, my high school life was fairly interesting. Reading this story brought me back to the days of sophomore year when there was never a time I wasn't asked for an ID at a PG-13 movie. Many people shared these same experiences, and that's what makes Ephron's story so easy to laugh at. Past times may have been slightly uncomfortable, but looking back at them now can be very amusing.
      My next favorite reading was Donald Barthelme's "In the Morning Post." Barthelme seems very quick and witty, and I loved his sarcastic answers and analysis of certain questions from the Writers Digest questionnaire. His humor reminded me a lot of my dad's growing up.Like my dad, Barthelme never really me burst out laughing, but his comments about drinking with Thomas Aquinas definitely made me smile. He kept a playful, amusing style throughout the short reading that really made it enjoyable for me.
     I didn't like Blount's or Ivin's stories as much as the previous two. They both played off stereotypes that were amusing, but just not as funny to me. However, I can see my friends and family back in Nebraska enjoying Ivin's remarks on Texas drawls because they make fun of me every time I say "y'all." Stories like Ivin's and Ephron's make me think that past experiences and cultural background play a big role on what makes people laugh. 

3 Comic Relief Take Aways

Here are 3 things that I found most important in Morreal's Comic Relief:

1. The concept of humor as a cognitive shift.
One of the most interesting things that I got from Comic Relief was the pattern of us enjoying a cognitive shift. The pattern basically starts with a cognitive shift, which is a rapid change in our perceptions or thoughts. After the shift, we are in a play mode rather than a serious mode, so we are disengaged from conceptual and practical concerns. Because we are in this play mode, we enjoy this shift, which we express with laughter. This basic pattern is seen in many jokes.

2. Amusement is not an emotion
Morreal explains that the feeling of amusement is not an actual emotion because it does not have the typical characteristics of emotions:
1. Beliefs and desires
2. physiological changes
3. adaptive actions
4 sensations of those physiological changes

His example that really helped me was his story about the eggplant at the market. He saw an eggplant that looked like Richard Nixon's nose. He laughed in his mind about that, but he didn't believe that it was really Richard Nixon's head. He wasn't triggered by fear or anger, and he had no "fight or flight" reactions. To be amused, you don't need to have any of the characteristics of emotions.

3. Laughing is healthy
A lot of people find a lot of laughter foolish or childish. Few people know of the positive physiological effects of laughter. Morreal points out that laughter can reduce stress, blood pressure, muscle tension, and even heart rate. Now that I know this, I can tell my dad he doesn't even need his Lipitor, he just has to laugh at my jokes.

These three things might not be the most profound points that Morreal makes in Comic Relief, but they are things that made me think of humor in a different light. Before this book, I never really thought about why people laugh. Now every time I laugh, I might enjoy that cognitive shift a little more.

First Meeting with Ricardo

This past weekend, I had my first meeting with Ricardo Marchi. It was a romantic man date at Market Square. Over mediocre lunch food, we got to know each other a little. Ricardo is a 23 year old from Brazil. His native language is Brazilian Portuguese, but his English speaking was pretty good. He had an impressive vocabulary, and it was always pretty easy to understand him. He still wants to improve his English, which is why he came to Texas after already earning a degree in Business Administration in Brazil.

Ricardo came to Texas in March to study English, and he actually first started out at the University of Texas at Arlington.  This wasn’t his first time in the United States, however. He vacationed in America at least once a year. Ricardo has visited more places in America than me, including New York, Miami, Orlando, San Francisco, and San Diego. At UTA, he didn’t have a great experience because of his roommate situation. According to Ricardo, he lived in an apartment with three other guys that despised him. They wouldn’t even acknowledge him when he walked in, but they still would eat his food and drink his beer. After being at UTA for a few months, he moved to Fort Worth and started studying at TCU. This time he decided to live in an apartment by himself. He takes English classes every week day from 9 am to 12 pm. The classes mostly consist of grammar, which he doesn’t enjoy too much. Like most people, he finds grammar for any language a little boring. He plans to study here until November, when he will go back to Brazil to pursue Business Interests.

Ricardo’s favorite hobby is calf roping. He began calf roping when he was 14 years old, but sold his horse because he didn’t have time once he started college. Now that he’s in Texas, he decided to start up his hobby again. He calf ropes a few times a week at his friends ranch, and he even competes a little.

After an hour long of getting to know the basic information about each other, Ricardo and I decided to part ways. We plan on meeting again this week. 

The Development of Humor

A response from chapter 3 of the reading 41-89 in Comic Relief

This chapter of Comic Relief  by John Morreal is about the evolution of humor. He starts with how humans and apes share many similarities regarding amusement and humor. Being a Biology major, I discuss and study every aspect of the Theory of Evolution, so I figured I would focus on a part of this chapter that was a little different than my norm. For me, the four stages of development of humor provided the most interest. These 4 stages were distinguished by Paul McGhee, and he basically splits up major changes in what children think are funny.

The first stage, called “Incongruous Actions toward Objects,” is when a child does inappropriate things with objects. Morreal references Jean Piaget’s story about his daughter pretended to eat non edible things when she was 18 months old. I was instantly relieved to read that I was not the only one who did this as a child. I don’t vividly remember it, but my mom always tells my friends that I used to jokingly take bites out of my vast collection of TY Beanie Baby stuffed animals. According to her, obnoxious exclamations of  “mmmmmm” and “yummy” always accompanied my furry meals.  

As I kept reading about each stage of development of humor in children, I continued to make connections between what Morreal explained and what I grew up around with younger siblings, cousins, and neighbors. The “Conceptual Incongruity” stage is probably the one I’m most familiar with. This is the third stage and is defined by when children have developed concepts for mom, dad, cat, pig, etc., and can “violate those concepts” for entertainment. I couldn’t count how many time a little 3 or 4 year old cousin came up to me at a family Christmas party and screamed “moooooooo” or “oink” and immediately fell into hysteria. These animal noises always seemed to make them laugh, but my hilarious jokes about sports or school didn’t really resonate with them, much to my dismay.

 Eventually, my young cousins started growing up, and there humor also matured greatly. Instead of laughing at their awkward attempts to scare me with animal noises, I began to enjoy their clever stories about elementary school romance. Because of these connections, this section of the chapter was really easy for me to relate to. I was constantly reading an example of a child’s humorous behavior and thinking, “I remember when Meg was 3 and did those same things.” This sort of brought a sense of nostalgia to me, and that’s why I felt inclined to blog about this reading in particular. 

What's so funny?

What makes someone laugh?

Michael Barrera and I asked a few of our friends what really makes them laugh, and we received a variety of answers:

"Sexist jokes"

"I don't know, usually just a good joke or story."

"You know I'm pretty easily entertained so I laugh at everything"

"I love stand up comics like Daniel Tosh cause he doesn't care about being politically correct"