Conversation Number Four

Today, despite the dismal weather, Cheng and I met up in Union Grounds (our usual meeting place). He told me all about his debate, apparently it wasn't as bad as he thought it was going to be. He said it was really hard to listen, understand, think, and then respond quickly in English. He has never done debate before, let alone in english, but it sounds like he did well! He's not excited that school is back to session since spring break, but is looking forward to the summer and seeing his friends from home.

He did seem upset though, and when I asked he told me it was about his roommate. His roommate is from Venezuela and he's on the tennis team. It's hard for them to communicate because neither of them speaks english well. He says they've learned to communicate in other ways besides speaking, but that doesn't mean they get along. Apparently his roommate has girls over a quite a bit, and never asks Cheng if it's okay. I can see why that would be really frustrating, especially when he's trying to sleep. The pinnacle of his frustration came when a girl came stumbling to their front door at 2 in the morning on a friday night. Cheng was trying to sleep but she was pounding on the door and demanding to be let in. Imagine a person who doesn't entirely know english, and is also half asleep, answering the door to an intoxicated girl at two in the morning. It's quite the comic sight. She pushed her way in and asked where his roommate was, and lo and behold, he wasn't there. She insisted he told her to come over, so she decided to sleep in his bed instead. She slept in his bed and when he still wasn't there in the morning she left. His roommate came back around 10 am the next day and Cheng explained what happened, to which his roommate replied by just laughing and saying that girl was crazy.

Apparently stuff like that happens all the time in his room. His roommate is gone for days at a time and never tells him wheres he's been or what he's doing. His roommate is quite the playboy, which is extremely different from Cheng's docile personality. This has caused tension between them, but Cheng is keeping a level head and just keeps reminding himself that it'll be over soon! He plans to travel all over China with his friends when he returns home for the summer.

Laughter is the best medicine

The other night in anatomy lab (shocking that this story is about school I know) I was joking around with one of my classmates (Alan). He asked if I'd seen the Lego Movie, to which I obviously replied yes. If you haven't seen the lego movie then let me preface this story: there's an astronaut character, and the only thing he knows how to build out of Legos is a spaceship. He constantly tries to build the spaceship throughout the movie, but the characters are never in need of a spaceship until the very end. When they inform him that they do, in fact, need a spaceship this is his reaction:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2XFgKwnAVhI

He FREAKS OUT, hahah and it's hilarious! So in lab, Alan just keeps looking at me and saying "SPACESHIP" and I, for the life of me, cannot stop laughing. It was one of those moments where it's really not THAT funny for that long, but you keep imaging the moment over and over and it's still funny 30 minutes later. 

Needless to say, our other group members were not pleased that we were basically useless for that lab because all we could do was laugh every time we looked at each other. Then we quoted other scenes from the movie and it was just good clean laughter! I think the scene in the movie is so funny because it's a sense of relief for the audience and the astronaut, he FINALLY gets to build a spaceship! And his reaction is so exaggerated that you're caught off guard and causes side-splitting laughter. 

What I learned in boating school is...

The title is a reference to the popular kids show Spongebob Squarepants and also completely irrelevant. I just finished reading the John Hughes short story and am slightly disturbed. I'm not sure if that qualifies as humorous.. it seemed dark. I recognized the parts of a comic piece such as throwing in the monkey wrench and then making it much, much worse. I also recognized the irony at the end when the mother was pleased with the airplane flight when it was her idea to drive across country. I didn't appreciate the story though, especially the part about the dog being dragged behind the car. I did not laugh at all, rather, I wanted to cry. I guess I'm confused about how we are going to discuss the humor in that piece. I will simply have to attend class and find out!

In other learning avenues, I have been discussing the digestive system in anatomy. Essentially we discuss how poop is made for about two weeks. It's beyond thrilling. However, if anatomy is boring than biology is just death, we're discussing invertebrate anatomy and I could care less about the internal organs of a sea slug. I know that doesn't seem compassionate towards the poor sea creature, but did you know that when provoked, a sea slug will excrete all it's internal organs in hopes that the predator will eat those and leave it alone to regrow? There's your fun factoid of the day. As much as I complain about biology, I have to admit, parts of it are interesting. I enjoy learning about sharks and huge mammals, but it's difficult to be enthralled by plants and fungi.

One major thing I have learned this semester so far is time management. I think I might have involved myself too much this semester and it's been a challenge to commitment 100% to everything. But, I do think it's important to be goal-oriented and one of my goals is time management. Being under slight pressure all the time is good for me, I think, because it keeps me on my toes and forces me to be efficient in all that I do. I hate to sound cheesy but I think this semester has been one of tremendous growth for me as an individual.

Conversation Number Three

Today I was running really late to meet with Cheng. I was out of breath as we dove right into our conversation talking about spring break! He went to Austin, San Antonio, and Corpus Christi with a friend who flew in from Miami University. He loved Austin and wants to live there in the future. He saw Lady Gaga on 6th street which blew my mind! He was so nonchalant about seeing a superstar! In San Antonio he went down the Riverwalk, but he was disappointed about the lack of people there. He misses the crowded streets of China and wishes Fort Worth was more packed. In Corpus Christi he traversed the beach and found some fossils which he showed me pictures of. They were little animals with swirled shells. It was so precious how excited he was about them. Overall he loved spring break, he said it was quite relaxing. We talked about home and his parents can't WAIT for him to come home. I nearly choked on my drink when he told me it was 2000 roundtrip to fly home! I found out that his grandparents live on the first floor of his house and his family and him live on the second floor. Apparently his grandparents just wanted to talk to him all the time and told him when to go to sleep and when to wake up (which is crazy). So he doesn't miss them all that much. It was kind of a rushed meeting but we chatted a bit about my spring break and his classes. All his classes are English classes so there's not much to talk about there. However, he does have to have a debate in his speaking class coming up which he's very nervous about because he's never had to debate in a class before. I completely understood his nerves because debating is all about thinking on your feet, something most people struggle with. We wrapped up by planning our next meeting and said farewell!