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.