Coming of Age 3: Receiving my Driver's License

Throughout most of our adolescent lives, we rely almost entirely on our parents for food, money, and transportation. Therefore, a major moment in any adolescents’ life is to receive his or her driver’s license. It gives them a much greater amount of freedom than they had previously ever experienced.

After badly failing the first test, I thought that I might never be able to free myself from the restraints of not having a license. If I failed another, I would have to wait another 6 months before I would be allowed to try again. Aware of this fact, I decided to focus myself to doing what I had to in order to prepare. After a little time spent preparing and some luck, I was finally able to pass the test and receive a driver’s license.

Receiving a license changed many things for myself. With the license came a whole new set of responsibilities. Because of our large family (seven kids), my parents were constantly busy and not always available to drive or pick me up from places. While my dad would stay at work from about seven in the morning to about 8 at night, my mom had the primary responsibility of transportation.  Taking kids to school, friend’s houses, and soccer practice were all a part of her daily routine. Although my mother did a superhuman job in taking care of us all, she did not always have the time to provide us with a ride.  Now that I had a driver’s license, it did not only mean that I could now drive myself around, but I would also have an added capability to assist my parents in their driving obligations. While many young male drivers are sometimes reckless, because of my duty to my siblings made me view driving as a huge privilege and responsibility because their safety was in my hands. Additionally, now that I had a license, I would not have to be picked up or dropped off from friend’s houses. This meant that I could basically come and go as I pleased. I was responsible for my own curfew and decisions I made. Because of my new freedom my parents had to trust me to make wise decision. In the end, this helped me build trust with my parents through my maturity and integrity.

In conclusion, receiving a driver’s license was a coming of age for me because it opened up a new world of possibility. It was how I decided to handle and use the freedom that my license gave me that built not only trust and confidence with my parents but also maturity for myself.

Coming of Age 2: The Great Scare

It was my senior year of high school and the end of the first semester was quickly approaching. At the same time, the State Cross-Country Championship was coming up in a week. I was the team captain and we had high hopes that year. The four other runners and I that would be representing our school were all extremely talented and we though we had a serious shot at winning for the first time in school history. However, there was a problem. While we had been preparing for this meet for the past 3 months, I was at the time going to be ineligible to go because I was failing my English class.

I could not believe how stupid I was. The whole semester I had been slacking in this class — showing up late, not completing assignments on time, and disregarding the assigned readings. I could have easily been making an ‘A’ but my laziness had actually caused my grade to drop below a 70, the required grade for passing. UIL rules prevented me from running if I could not raise my grade. When my coach found out, he was beyond furious. This was a guy who I had been coached by for the past four years and we had developed a really close relationship. Over the past four years, he had always loved the effort that I put in and my hard work ethic. However, when he found out that I would be ineligible to run, I had never seen him so disappointed and furious. I was letting my whole team down. The way cross-country races work is that you send 7 runners to race, the top 5 scores for your team count. Add the total scores (quantified by the place your finish) and the team with the lowest score wins. Since there was a big drop off between our 5^th and our 6^th fastest, even loosing one runner could destroy our chances at winning. I was not only letting down my coach and myself, I was letting down my entire team. I had to do something.

In the week leading up to semester’s end, I had to find a way to raise my cumulative grade over ten points. That meant that I not only had to ace the midterm, but needed to complete a multitude of missed homework assignments to try and salvage any points I could. After taking the mid-term, all I could do is, sit, wait and hope that I got a high enough grade. I have never been so nervous about a test. I could not believe that I had let it get to this point. As I logged on and checked my grades, I promised myself that I would never let something like that happen again. Thankfully, I was able to make a good enough grade on the mid-term to raise my semester average above passing. I grew up that day and developed a much greater understanding of the importance of keeping up with my work.

Coming of Age 1: The Move

In third grade, I was forced to move from my home in Columbus, Ohio to Dallas, Texas. While Dallas is a great city, it was an extremely tough transition for me. I had to learn to adapt to a new school and make all new friends. In my first year, I did not do well in either of those categories.

In my first year, it seemed like just by being the new kid, I was almost unanimously disliked.  Social circles had already been established and the small elementary school it seemed to adhere to strict social hierarchies where I was close to the bottom. Because of this, the friends that I did have were not always the best influences. These were kids who also had been somewhat rejected by the third grade social groups and we seemed to form a dysfunctional friend group of misfits. In my first year at Hyer Elementary, I went to the principle’s office on at least four separate occasions. Needless to say, I was not leaving a good first impression. While my friends were not necessarily helping me to fit in at the school, I am still greatly thankful to them.

During these first few years in Ohio, it was the only time in my life I have ever truly felt like an outcast. Not having many friends, while it was tough, greatly helped me to realize who I was and what kind of person I wanted to be. I had to decide for myself how I was going to act and live, rather than being influenced by my friend group. My family, having 7 kids, was all going through a relatively difficult time. These first few years of transition I think really strengthened our bond as a family. We had to rely on each other because none of us had any close friends we could talk to for a while.

Even though they were a difficult few years, I am thankful that I experienced this. It taught me about who I was and strengthened my character. Additionally, because we had to rely on each other for help and advice, the first few years in Texas were able to strengthen our family’s bond as a whole. I think that I really grew up in these first couple years. My life in Texas did get consistently better and I have sincerely enjoyed and loved my time here. Now I have hundreds of friends and people I can talk to but I will still never forget my first few difficult years there.

Learning Experience 4: Snow

Living in Texas, I really don't have much experience with cold weather. It is somewhat of an anomaly to me. Can someone please tell me what all this frozen white powder is? Where does it come from? Why is it here? These are questions that may never be answered. When I woke up and stepped out on my balcony this morning I was thoroughly confused. What was this strange substance all around me and where did it come from? To try and answer some of these questions I decided to conduct a few experiments. First, I quickly realized that the surface of the ground in some areas was extremely slippery. My boots provided me with little to no traction and I fell multiple times.  As the hours passed by, I became nervous about the possibility that whatever this stuff was might never go away. After consulting with a few friends, we decided it was time that we got to the bottom of this mystery. I first called my mom in Dallas to see if she knew anything. She told me that the white powder is something called ‘snow’. She said that she didn’t know exactly where it comes from or why but that it had something to do with Christmas and the North Pole.

I wondered… what was the correlation between Christmas, Fort Worth, finals week, and the North Pole?  Why did school get cancelled and all of this ‘snow’ suddenly appear? Then it hit me.  Why is it that right before Christmas time, TCU’s campus mysteriously closes even in the wake of finals week? Is it possible that maybe Chancellor Boschini is no Chancellor at all — Maybe, just maybe, Chancellor Boschini is in fact Saint Nicholas himself. It would explain the faculty’s disappearance. It would explain why this strange and mysterious substance from the North Pole has suddenly appeared in Fort Worth.  I really think that I might be on to one of the greatest discoveries of all time. I definitely learned a lot today about the world and TCU. You keep doing your thing Chancellor, or should I say… Santa?

Let me know what y’all think of this or if there could be any other possible explanations to these strange happenings in Fort Worth. I NEED ANSWERS!!!

Humor 2: Superiority Theory at its Finest

Earlier today, my friend and I were making our way through the treacherous icey terrain outside of the greek houses. We had just parked and were headed as quickly as possible for the warmth of the great indoors. However, just as we were almost there my friend accidentally dropped his phone and watched as it slowly started sliding down the slight hill towards an even steeper hill which finally led to the pond outside the Greek. My friend, Micheal Butler, then desperately followed after it, hoping to stop it before it was too late. As he reached his phone however, he could not get any sort of gripping, as the ice was just too slippery. He then proceeded to slowly slide down this slant towards the pond. Cursing loudly, he then frantically struggled to stop his momentum to no avail. He then continued to slide down the hill towards the frozen pond. Luckily for him he was able to grab onto a small patch of grass and stop his slippery decent. At this point, seeing that he is no longer in danger of falling into the water, start to laugh at him. At which point he starts to yell curse words at the world, causing me to laugh even harder. The situation did not end there however. Micheal then quickly realized that he would not be able to escape his icy prison because there was nowhere he could gain traction. I watched as he unsuccessfully tried to find a way to climb up. 

After laughing at his misery for a good 5 minutes, I thought it was about time that I tried to help out. I considered leaving him there a while but it was pretty cold so I wanted to go inside as soon as possible. Eventually, we ended up crafting a rope made from tying sweaters together. It was a pretty dangerous rescue mission but in the end we were able to pull it off. Once we pulled him out, he punched me in the chest for not helping him out sooner. I deserved it. We then both went inside as quickly as possible and had a good laugh about it.

I think that this situation perfectly illustrates superiority theory. I watched as an unfortunate series of events unfolded on my friend right before my eyes. To him it was a miserable experience but to me it was great entertainment. This discrepancy really shows how, in some instances, watching others struggle can cause laughter. I think that this may be in part because, as humans, we are constantly comparing ourselves. When we see someone who is going through a bad experience or struggling it makes us feel happy to not be in his or her position. Once I knew that he was in no real danger, the situation became comical.

Poll: Which clip is the funniest to you and why?

Hey guys, ok here are three separate video clips from the movie Napoleon Dynamite, in my opinion one of the greatest comedy films of all time. I’m taking a survey; please comment whichever one is your favorite and a comic theory it might be employing.

Learning Experience 3: Chinese Movie Night

I think that it is extremely important to allow yourself to go outside your comfort zone because I believe that the more you are outside of what your used to, the more you learn about yourself and realize how big the world is. This is a broad and generalizing statement but here’s a specific example of a time that I allowed myself to go outside of my comfort zone and not only enjoyed the experience but also learned something from it.

Last week, as part of our required curriculum, I attended Chinese Movie Night. There we met up with the native Chinese students here at Texas Christian University, ate a Chinese food dinner (which was actually delicious), and then watched a movie. The movie at first I wasn’t sure about because it was all in Chinese with English subtitles. However, as it progressed I became extremely interested. The movie was set during the stage in Chinese history directly after they had transformed into a democracy. I thought it was very odd because, in the documentary, when the teacher asked her students if any of them knew what democracy meant none of them had any idea. The idea was entirely foreign to them. The plot line of the movie followed a class of Chinese students as they, for the first time, held class elections for student monitor (a position which had previously always been selected by the teacher, much like how the Chinese government operated prior to the transition).  It was very interesting to see the various tactics employed by each student competing to win over the votes by their classmates and how seriously they took it. In fact, it was not just the students who took it extremely seriously, but even more so their parents. Their parents’ involvement with their lives seemed to be at almost an absurd extent. To me, this was very interesting because I could clearly see the impact that the one-child policy had on the parent-child relationships. Also, there were other things that stuck out to me, for example, there was one mom who was divorced and the child’s father was not there. The mom seemed to blame much of the child’s problems on the fact that he does not have a mom and a dad like “all the other children”. Here in America it is a lot different because divorce is relatively common, whereas in China, it is seem as dishonorable and divorce is much less common.

I found that this video opened my eyes to the many cultural differences that we don’t even realize exist. It was also interesting to me after learning a little about Chinese history and culture; things like the one-child policy that have a big impact on the way people there live. I hope to keep allowing myself to experience new things and learn more about people, cultures, and belief systems that are different from my own. In this way, through learning about others, I think we can subsequently learn much about ourselves.

Learning Experience 2: Procrastination Problem

Coming from a big family with many young kids, it is always interesting coming home for the holidays because they are all constantly growing and changing. Because I am the second oldest, I have a responsibility to set a good example for them. It’s a lot of pressure because not only am I worried about the consequences of messing up in school or getting into trouble for myself, but I also am concerned about setting a bad example for my younger siblings. In fact, I am realizing more and more that the decisions that I make today will have a great affect on the future. However, I had a learning experience coming home this weekend for thanksgiving when I realized the importance of time management and decision-making.

Before coming home, I was really worried because I had recently messed up and got a really bad grade on a test and was concerned what my parents would say when I got back. When I actually talked with my parents however, instead of getting mad, they offered me advice of how I could improve and were much more supportive than angry. This was the first time that I felt like I really screwed up in school and it felt good to see that my parents understood about it.  I realized that the reason I did so bad is because I thought I could wait until the night before the test to study because that is what I had done in the past for so many other classes. I also realized that I spend about the same amount of time studying whether I wait until the night before or if I were to spread it out over the course of the semester.  Similarly with papers and essays, I have always had a tendency to wait until I absolutely have to write them. I realized that even during this Thanksgiving break I procrastinated on writing these blog posts, studying for my finals, and reading until the very last day. Now I am overloaded and stressed out because I didn’t use my time wisely to begin with. For me, this learning realization is all about learning to balance my time with work and relaxation so that I don’t put myself in a bad position.

This philosophy can also be translated further to my life. I need to start preparing now and making the right decisions to make things easier on myself in the future when I’m either trying to get a degree, a job, or whatever it may be. I can look back at my life and pinpoint areas where I could have easily excelled had I spent a little time working on them. Looking back on it, even with my college essays, I waited until the last minute to write and submit them. I plan on making a conscious effort to try and improve in this area and hopefully make life easier on myself in the future.

Humor 1: Scared by a Little Girl

Before I begin this story I should say I am not afraid of the dark. I am not afraid of snakes or spiders or cockroaches. I am not afraid of clowns. I don’t believe in ghosts, demons, or the supernatural. I don’t ever go see horror movies because I find them boring. That being said, I will now disclose to you the story of how my friend and I were put into a state of sheer terror from a seven year old girl and subsequently laughed about it uncontrollably.

The other day, my friend and I were casually driving down Berry Street on our way to get lunch at Chipote on Hulen. We were both in conversation, I forget what we were talking about but I remember we were into a conversation about something. At this point we pull up to a stop sign. In front of us is a car with its blinker on turning left. At first glance, I nothing caught my attention, however something just wasn’t right. I then heard my friend next to me mutter frantically, “oh my god. Oh my god. Dude… Dude... oh my god”. I then turned my head back to figure out what it was. In the rear window staring back at me was something out of a horror movie — a girl, no older than 7, red hair, dark rings around her eyes, and a look of pure hatred for the world and everything in it in her eyes. As I said before, I do not get scared easily, but his look of hatred was so intense that my first reaction was that I jumped a little in my seat, it was so intense that I could not avert my gaze, so intense it transformed my perception of a little girl who, in all likelihood was completely innocent, into something purely evil. As the look continued as the car took a slow turn left, I could not avert my gaze. The look of hatred intensified as the girl’s eyes continued to be locked in on our souls as the car continued to turn.  At this point we were both actually in a state of sheer terror. As the car veered away and we continued along Berry Street our hearts were still pumping steadily and quickly, our bodies pumped with adrenaline from fear. Within seconds however, we both started laughing. I was still significantly disturbed by the event but once I felt we were safe and no longer under the girl’s icy gaze, the situation became incredibly funny. I believe this is due to the relief theory and also incongruity. We definitely were not expecting to have this encounter on the way the Chipotle. I mean it came out of nowhere. However, that in itself did not make it funny, in fact, that aspect contributed to my surprise and subsequent fear instilled from the situation. However, following relief theory, once the “danger” or situation resolved itself and  there was no more unknown, we felt relief and all of the fear and uncomfortableness we previously felt turned into laughter.

Learning Partner: 3rd Meeting — Ping-Pong with Winslen

Winslen and I discovered in one of our earlier meetings that we both had a hobby of ping pong. Because of this mutual interest, we decided that our next meeting would be in the recreation center so that we could play table tennis. There’s really not much to say. While we hardly spoke at all, I felt that it was our most productive meeting yet. We were able to compete with each other and it was a lot of fun. After about 30 minutes of playing we were both pretty tired and decided to call it quits. There was no clear winner because we both just rallied the whole time and didn’t worry about keeping score. We did at one point have a crowd of about 20 people watching us because there was a tour group who came through the rec center and they stopped to watch us play for a while. We both thought that was pretty cool. Afterwards, I feel that Winlen and I felt much more comfortable around each other. In some strange way it is almost as if we communicated more by competing against each other for 30 minutes than we ever could have by making small talk for an hour. A wise man once said that you can learn more about a man in an hour of play than in a year of conversation. I agree.

Learning Partner: 2nd Meeting — Culural Perceptions and National History

I met with Winslen again last week at the Barnes and Noble and we discussed stereotypes and historical events that impact the way people view our culture. First we discussed Pablo Escobar and how he impacted Winslen's childhood in Cuba. Winslen seemed to be bothered by the fact that many people associate Colombians with drug trafficking because of their history. He said this would be similar to associating Texans with the K.K.K and confederate history. I was actually surprised at how bothered Winslen was with the stereotypes people give Columbians because of their history. I always found Columbia’s history surrounding Pablo Escobar extremely interesting because it has a certain appeal to it. I asked him if he had ever seen the movie ‘Blow’ starring Johnny Depp about George Jung and his escapades in the drug trafficking industry and eventual encounter with Pablo Escobar. He said he hadn’t. I agreed with him but also stated that my interest did not stem from associating all Columbians with drug trafficking but moreover an interest for the history of it. In fact, Winslen told me that his father worked in the military for several years and therefore he heard many things about Pablo Escobar’s impact on Columbia as a child. Later, he told me how Pablo Escobar almost single-handedly stimulated Columbia’s economy by bringing in so much money. When he was killed, Columbia’s economy was hurt. I found this to be very interesting that a single man could have such influence over a country even when outlawed by the government. Winslen told me that, despite his status as a criminal, the people loved Pablo Escobar. This is because of all the things he brought to Columbia — money, power, opportunity, and even a world-class futbol (soccer) team.

Learning Experience 1: Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival and Comedy Skit

Here is a video of a performance my group and I put on for the Chinese Mid-Autumn Festival, part of TCU's culture week. We performed a comedy skit in front of all of our fellow 'zhongwen tongxuemen' (chinese students) as well as our native chinese speakers here at Texas Christian University.

Going into our performance I was extremely nervous. We would be performing in front of around 50 people, a relatively small and yet still daunting amount. The scariest part about it was that we would be performing in solely Chinese after only a couple months of learning. My speaking ability at this point has definitely improved a lot since then but at  that point there was only a few sentences I could say and understand. The difficult thing about Chinese is that in addition to there being different words, there is also different tones for words which change their meaning. For example, (and just by the way I learned this one the hard way and it caused much embarrassment), to say I am a elder or a master you can say ‘wo shi xiou jie’ — xiou middle tone and jie falling tone, however, if you were instead to use jie in rising tone then you’ll end up calling yourself an old prostitute. This caused my Chinese teacher to laugh at me uncontrollably for a few minutes and then make fun of me meanwhile I still had no idea what I had said. Nevertheless, It’s safe to say I still had quite a few reservations about going up in front of so many people and performing, especially considering how easily I could mess up and say something totally different than what I intended to.

However, we managed to pull it off. Or at least it seemed to be entertaining enough. While my face got pretty red while I was up on stage, we managed to get a few laughs, which was the main goal. The whole experience gave me a lot more confidence in just experimenting with speaking to other native speakers and not worrying so much about screwing up. In fact, I think that our screw ups and mistakes in speaking actually probably made our performance funnier than it would have been had we spoken perfect Chinese. Obviously, there are still miles of room for improvement and after our performance I was more excited than ever to improve on my speaking and understanding. I think that the performance also gave me some insight into the Chinese comedic perspective. The native Chinese speakers who were there seemed to particularly enjoy when groups went over to top and also when we emphasized common mistakes those non-native speakers make. I think that it was really useful to be able to practice humor because it is such a common and important element to any culture and language.

Learning Partner: 1st Meeting — Introductions

I met last week with my learning partner, Winslen, at the Barnes and Noble here on campus. He came to America from Colombia with his wife in hopes of a better future for him and his family. He explained to me how health and medical benefits as well as the standard of living here is much better than back in Columbia. He also explained that he is attending TCU to learn English fluently for his career as an industrial engineer. We talked about the different economies around Latin America and which ones are growing faster and reasons why. We also discussed the differences in climate between Texas and Colombia and how the climate back in Colombia is the same all year round. I understand now why it was so hard at first for us to meet because Winslen is not a regular student; he lives with his wife around Arlington and relies on her for transportation to and from school. She works nearby as a linguistic coach for children. It really surprised me to hear that Winslen did not have a car. I previously had expected my learning partner to be a student here living on on-campus housing, so the fact that he was neither changed my views quite a bit. I now understood fully why it was so hard for us to find a time to meet previously. While I was frustrated earlier with our lack of common time to meet, I now feel a little embarrassed for my frustration now realizing that his schedule makes it much more difficult for him to meet than my own. In this first meeting, we were both a bit reserved — talking about our general backgrounds and not going into much deep conversation. This however is a necessary step in meeting and getting to know anyone however. As I discussed before, previously I had no idea about Winslen and it led me to be frustrated by our lack of common ground in our schedules. Now that I’ve met him and spoken with him I feel like we both understand each other much better.

TCU sorority girls Lay It All On The Line this week on Bid Day