Twain Blog

"I like a good story well told. That is the reason I am sometimes forced to them myself."-"The Watermelon". This is probably one of my favorite quotes from Twain's book. I find it incredibly funny, because it shows his personality to be humorous and sarcastic. He is obviously trying to lighten the mood in his speech which is why he includes this type of joke. Also, I think that a lot of people sometimes feel the same way, in that they believe that they tell good stories. We all like to talk about ourselves which is why I found like quote so relatable to society as a whole.

Wit and Wisdom??

Blog 8

The Wit and Wisdom of Mark Twain

After reading the book of quotations by Mark Twain, I found it bearable. It was not as offense and rude like Juha was, but I also did not find the book to be exciting. Considering this is a class on humor and Mark Twain is supposed to be one of the funniest writers of all time, I was no as impressed as I had hoped to be. But given the book was just a bunch of quotations they may have been taken out of context. If I had read the books, speeches, or poems that the one-liners had come out of I may have been more inclined to judge the phrases as humorous. Because of the expectation that humor is associated with laughter, I pick up all of these books and assume that I am going to laugh-which is not always the case. Overall, I thought that Twain’s quotations were acceptable.

Right at the beginning of the piece I found a quote that I whole heartedly agree with. “Of all the animals, man is the only one that is cruel. He is the only one that inflicts pain for the pleasure of doing it”-The Lowest Animal. I may not have found this quote exceptionally funny, but I did find it applicable to human nature. I don’t think this just applies to extreme situations such as a psychopath who gets off on killing people and witnessing their pain, but it also applies to girls who gossip. Teenage girls are notorious for spreading rumors about other people and talking behind each other’s back; this fits in with the idea of being cruel for the pleasure of doing it. They gossip because they like the feeling of having someone below them, in essence they get pleasure out of someone else’s pain.

 Some of the quotes I read, I did not agree with. Even though Twain is a well-established author I think that he does miss the mark at some times. “When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain”-Notebook. I disagree with this quote because while emotions are a necessity in any relationship, you need to think logically at times. People who search only with their heart en up getting hurt if they have nothing in common. You have to make sure that your heart matches your brain.

“Everyone is a moon, and has a dark side which he never shows to anyone”-Following the Equator”. I agree with this quote. I think it is showing how we all have secrets. We all have parts of ourselves that we can’t show to anyone else. This could even be something as small as or as simple as a flaw we believe we have. It doesn’t necessarily have to be a life altering secret-just something we believe is too dark to share with someone.

“It is by goodness of Got that in our country we have those three unspeakably precious things: freedom of speech, freedom of conscience, and the prudence never to participate in either of them”-Following the Equator. I this quote because it seems like a commentary on human nature. All too often people only remark about our freedoms when they want to make a point, not because they actually believe in our countries foundation in freedom. For instance, if someone makes an offensive comment to another person. They instantly use the claim “freedom of speech”-they don’t actually care about freedom of speech they are just using it as a crutch to stand on when they know they are wrong.

“I never could tell a lie that anyone would doubt, nor a truth that anybody would believe”-Following the Equator. This quote reminds we of those wise sayings that appear really insightful and inspiring but when you think about it, it doesn’t quite make much logical sense.

Last Meeting

Conversation 7

Yesterday I had my last official meeting with Alya. I can’t believe that it has already been seven times meeting with her. It hardly seems like I have met with her at all, but at the same time it feels like I know a lot about her. She is a really great person, and I honestly think that we are going to keep in touch. Today we happened to run into each other on campus when we were heading to class. We both had a class in Scharbauer and both happened to be early so we sat and chatted for a few minutes before we had to go to class. It really showed me that we would not need to be required to meet to stay in touch and have enjoyable conversations.

When Alya first walked in to the bookstore, she was almost jumping in excitement so I knew she had something she desperately wanted to share. The soccer team that comes from her small village outside of Dhahran, Saudi Arabia won the soccer championship they competed in! She told me that this team is not great and often is seen as the weakest link in the Saudi soccer teams, but they managed to beat several teams. Luckily, Alya and her husband have a satellite that allows them to receive Saudi television programs, so she was able to watch the game. While I do not know much about soccer, and am not interested in the sport, I was happy for her team, especially considering how happy she was!

As for our meeting yesterday, we filled each other in on our weekend adventures. As per usual, mine consisted of studying, writing papers, and a few hours of enjoyment. Alya on the other hand, always manages to have an exciting adventure. She went to Dallas all three days! On a whim, she and her husband decided to take a drive to Dallas for dinner on Friday night after they picked up their children. Since her husband had a guys day planned to watch TV with 20 of his closest friends, Alya spent the day in Dallas with her husband’s cousin. In the Arab culture, some husbands do not like other men to see their wife inside of the home, so Alya had to make sure she was not at home when any of her husbands friends were there. She told me that they always talk about it when they want to have people over to their house, so that no one is offended or gets uncomfortable.

Her husband’s cousin was visiting from out of town so the two decided Dallas was the only place to visit. Alya was sort of laughing at the experience, but her husband’s cousin did not want to come to Texas because she thought it was filled only with cowboys and horses; she instead wanted Alya to visit her in Oklahoma. Having driven through Oklahoma before, Alya said she had no interest in ever visiting there! But they spent the day in Dallas and rather enjoyed themselves, by the way she was talking about it! She is really taking advantage of living in America and enjoying every spare minutes.

While most of her weekend was delightful, Alya clued me in to the not-so-delightful aspect of her weekend. Apparently, a few weeks ago new tenants moved in to the apartment above them and they have been stomping on the floor every time her children make even a small noise. The other night, her daughter fell out of bed and started crying and the neighbor upstairs starting stomping on the floor to quiet them! Another day, her son started doing a dance for less than a minute and the fellows upstairs again starting stomping on the floor to get them to be quite. I could tell Alya was shaken up by these occurrences and she didn’t know how to handle this. Her children get extremely frightened whenever the people above them start stomping and she is having a hard time explaining to them why they are doing that; partly because she does not understand herself. They are never loud and do not let their children run inside the apartment. I was incredibly off put by this and honestly did not know what say. I tried my best to reassure her that she is not doing anything wrong and that she should continue to ignore them as much as possible. 

Second Time Around

Blog 7

In class yesterday we talked about how to think of Juha. The first time I was reading the book I really did not think of Juha as funny at all. I will admit that there were a few instances in a few tales that I found funny and may have even chuckled at. But overall, no I did not find them especially humorous. I could have chalked it up to cultural differences or certain humor aspects lost in translation, but that was before we discussed how to think of Juha. For a bit in class we noted the similarity between Juha and the idea of a trickster. I had never put the two together but I can see now how that is. A trickster is similar to the actions that Juha takes and the verbal remarks that he makes. I think what was throwing me off was that I was always taught that a trickster had to be an animal whereas Juha is a person. But apparently a trickster can be a human.

So I went back and looked at the first section of reading where it talks about the history of Juha and some of the other names he is known for. The section I thought was particularly interesting was the paragraph right before the title heading of “Juha: The balance of opposites”. In that last paragraph the author mentions that this a character who is breaking boundaries and crossing lines. It made me rethink how I depict Juha. Since he is a person I was taking a literal look at all of the tales instead of being in the mindset of a trickster character or one who is breaking boundaries. This is mind frame that I tried to put myself into as I was reading the next section of this book.

The tale about the matchmaker finding Juha and ugly woman was the first tale that stuck in my mind. I tried to look for the humor in it but only cam across the misogynistic aspects. He doesn’t want to look at his wife because she is ugly. Poor girl! Beauty is not everything; personality and love should mean more. I get where the humor is trying to come in to play but personally I don’t really like humor where someone makes fun of someone else. I do not think it is kind. This world has too much hatred and is already so superficial that we do not need to be surrounded by it is folklore. Folklore should go beyond the typical and be used for good.

One folk lore that I did find incredibly funny was the one about Juha and his son riding the donkey. Every time they come across a new group of people they judge him for the way he is riding or walking with the donkey and his son. It really does shows how you can never please people. There will always be someone how will be ungrateful or will criticize what you do. This story depicts how we as humans are always trying to please others and make people happy by changing our behaviors. Unlike the other stories in this book that are mean and hurtful this tale seem true because it applies to everyone and no one is getting hurt. Also it applies to all people, of all sizes, shape, color, wealth, and status. I think it is effective in sending it’s message.

Another story that I thought was funny one the one about Juha telling his son to always do two things when he asks for one, so when he asks his son to get the doctor his son also brings the grave digger. I found this story funny because it shows how words can come back to bite you. It is the classic saying ‘be careful what you wish for’ in the format of a folk lore. Plus it has a bit of cognitive shift at the end because you wouldn’t expect a son to get a grave digger for his father. I would have though he could have had two doctors come instead of just one as a way of obeying his father.

The chapter entitled “Naivete and stupidity” was quite promising! When people are dumb or act dumb at least it can cause for a few good laughs. As I was reading this section some of the tales were actually funny. I was a bit nervous that it would just be stupid jokes but instead it was tales about out smarting others. I also liked how at some points Juha was the one being the smart character and at other times he was out smarted. The variation in stories made for an interesting read. 

Another Great Meeting

Conversation 6

When I walked in to the TCU bookstore for our usual meeting, Alya was reading George Orwell’s 1984. I have never read this book but know that it is a famous novel, so I was curious what she thought of it. It was interesting that her class was teaching this novel as a way of teaching English. She is only a few chapters in by she said the plot is interesting and not too difficult to follow. But she did say that there was a lot of vocabulary that was difficult for her, so to help her with pronunciation she got the audio version of the book to follow along with. I thought this was a really smart idea for how to read along with a novel when she is having trouble. That is way better than giving up or not even trying! We talked about the book and how she felt about it for a bit, and she said that the liked how the book was talking about a future that is now the past.

Instantly that reminded me of the film series Back to the Future. She had never heard of this before so I explained them to her. I think I got a little to excited about it because I really like the movies, but she seemed intrigued. I remember from the movies that the one where the go to the future they go to the year 2015. That is not too far away from where we are now. I told her about the flying hoverboards in the movie that are kind of like skateboards but they fly. It was really funny talking about the future, which in just a few short years will be our present. Unfortunately, I don’t think that we are going to have hoverboards any time soon. But then again technology is advancing rapidly. I am still going to hold out hope! Alya seemed interested as I was telling her about these movies and she even wrote down the title so she could remember it for later. One of her favorite movie genres is science fiction; so I think it will be a good fit for her.

We also talked about potential summer plans and when I mentioned that I was trying to get an internship she appeared confused. She admitted that she did not know this word or know what it meant. After I explained, or attempted to explain (I really never know if I am explaining something correctly or enough; it makes sense in my mind, but I don’t know if it comes across as I am intending), Alya said that she understood but that there are no internships in Saudi Arabia. I was shocked! I cannot imagine a place where there are no internships. She said that this concept makes logical sense to her because so many institutions and establishments in Saudi ask for a degree with high grade or a degree with two years experience, only no one will give the experience without previous experience. She has no idea how people get experience when everyone wants them to have held a job in their respective field before they can apply for the job. Alya was impressed with the westernized aspect of internships and noted that she hopes Saudi gets something like that soon. I really hope that she is able to take advantage of the internships and other opportunities that America has to offer while she is here.

Near the end of our talk, we turned to the subject of the conflict in Syria. Alya had just done a presentation about this is class and was thus interested in the topic. I admitted that I was not up to date on the subject but knew that the civil war was distressing and incredibly sad. Luckily, Alya does not have any friends or family who are in the country so they are all out of harms way. But she was still moved by the topic and was interested to know what Americans thought of the situation. This reminded me of the most recent episode of ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ in which two Syrian doctors come to Seattle to learn how to perform surgeries with limited supplies. While the show is a fictionalization about the events occurring in Syria, I thought it was clever of the writers to bring a global conflict into the show. Many Americans probably have no idea what is going on in the show or do not care. This episode raised awareness about the war as well as humanized the people in the country instead of just presenting the facts of who has died and who is winning. Alya enjoys this show as well and we were both happy to see that the writers of the show were able to raise awareness to the issue.

Blondes

Humorous Blog 4

Last night my roommates were in my room helping me design a poster. I knew the basic information I needed to put on it, but realized quickly there is a lot more to a poster than just words. I needed a graph to show the results, but since I have never created a graph, other than the ones you draw by hand, I was at a loss. Luckily one of my roommates is a business major and she works with Excel on a daily basis and she said she would be able to help me. We were inputting the data and playing around with the different graphs when my other roommate came in my room to see what we were talking about. She saw what I was working on and quickly started suggesting websites that show color pallets that I could use for my color scheme. After about 20 minutes of the three of us sitting in my room talking about graphs, colors, and word placements I started laughing and said “how many blondes does it take to make a poster?” We all three started laughing realizing this is how blond jokes get started. It was quite funny seeing the three of us bounce ideas off of each other about the arrangement of my poster elements; it is such a simple thing and yet we all were working on it. 

Juha

Blog 6: Tales of Juha 1-41

The beginning of this book with the description and historical recollections of Juha I really enjoyed. I especially like how Salma Khadra Jayyusi wrote about the logic behind why Juha is so humorous. He writes “everything becomes inverted, taking on a meaning that runs counter to the norms of common sense and conventional pattern. This is why Juha’s actions and sayings stimulate us and make us laugh. His world becomes a living paradox. A lot of times it is difficult to explain why we laugh or why we find something funny, but the author lays it out for us we have no doubt about why we are laughing at these stories of Juha.

The first tale that I read which stuck with me was the one where two thieves come across Juha and demand he give them his bag. They struggle over who will get it and eventually Juha tricks them into fighting each other until they are both dead. I like this story it shows he is using wisdom to solve the situation. I think this sort of fable could be used to show kids how to solve problems-not killing people actually, but instead talking to them until they overcome the situation. The figurative message not the literal one is the message that is supposed to be meaningful. I can see how this could be used as a moral to talk things through and use wit and wisdom, just as the section title suggests.

Another story that I came across which I really liked was the tale of the friends who blame Juha for a thief stealing his donkey. I don’t really find this a funny story, but it does have a take away message-why blame someone for something outside of their control. This could be good for some child to read and study if they are one of the friends who blames others all the time. I’m just not sure where all the humor comes in. I get the moral, but not the humor. It’s not funny that his friends blame him for a thieves action. What do you think? Am I missing some humor element or technique?

The first tale that I actually found funny was the one where Juha is on a trip with a man who constantly asks him to help prepare the meal and Juha keeps turning his down. In the end the man asks Juha to come and eat and Juha responds “by God I feel so ashamed now, that I turned down all of your requests before”. Juha is being lazy and selfish by not helping the man but then says he feels bad he has denied the man all his previous times, so now he will do as the man wishes and eat with him. He is in a sense helping the man and being kind by him for doing as he requests and eating. It’s the classic excuse and Juha pulls it off and makes the reader laugh. With this story I can see how kids and adults alike would enjoy him.

One tale I just did not get at all was the one about Juha marrying an ugly woman and then when he sees a pretty woman he suggests that he and his wife marry her. I really just don’t get it at all. I know that men can have multiple wives but I don’t see why the wife would be involved or why it would be a joke. My only guess is it is a play on the social attitude toward marriage, but I could also be way off base. I just don’t know. What do y’all think?

My group did our presentation on Arab humor so I thought that the research we did in preparation for describing their humor would be beneficial when it came time to read this book. Unfortunately, it has not. Most of the stories are either way off base that I have no idea what it means, or my research is not applicable. Most of our research had to do with present day humor and satirical jokes about repressive regimes, but these tales seem to be in reference to older times.

Listening in to Laughter

I went to the bookstore to get some work done and decided that would be a great place to listen it to people’s laughter. A lot of people go to the bookstore to get a coffee with friends, so I knew it would be long until I heard some laughs. Sure enough a group of girls sitting at a table across from me started laughing at something on their laptop. I turned my attention to them tried to pick up on the funny subject. One of the girls told a story about how she looks awful in the pictures that so-and-so tagged of her on Facebook and was pretty pissed that so-and-so put them online. She was saying that she only like pictures where she look nice to be up for people to see. I did not really get where the laughter can in to this story until one of the girls turned the laptop around and said that this was a perfect example of who she was then. I looked at the laptop and saw two pictures of a black cat-one where the cat was laying down and the other was of the cat bug-eyed and mouth open. I could tell from the website that they were on Pinterest so I looked up the photo so that I could show it along with my blog. I thought that it was really funny too! I laughed. I think the humor is in the reality aspect. We can pose and look pretty for a picture, but candid photos are not always beautiful representations of ourselves. But from the conversation I listened in to I can see where the humor was coming from. 

Another Chat

Conversation 5

Right about now Alya is probably riding a roller coaster at Six Flags. We met yesterday and she was excited to tell me that she was going to Six Flags today with her husband. Alya has never been to this amusement park before because she always has her children with her and trying to get them to go on rides in difficult. They are young and cannot go on all of the rides so she would have to have her husband wait with the kids while she goes on a ride, but who wants to go it alone? Since we do not have school today (but her children are still in daycare) she and her husband decided to go. I could tell by her tone of voce and expression that this was a big deal for her. She said she has been to an amusement park before, but only once in Paris. It is hard to imagine rarely going to amusement parks, I feel like Disney World (or Disney Land for those on the west coast) is a right of passage for children. But then again, there are no amusement parks in Saudi Arabia (they do not want people of the opposite sex to mingle with one another). It always surprises me the little differences that we Americans take for granted growing up here.

One of my favorite topics to talk about is food. I love food, especially food from other countries. Because we met around lunchtime yesterday food was on our minds. Alya told me about her favorite dish from Saudi Arabia-dolma. I am not sure if I am spelling that right, but that is how is sounds like it is spelled. Dolma is grape leaves filled with rice and sometimes meat. Alya said that the best kind she has ever had is her grandmother’s recipe. Alya prefers the kind without meat. I asked her if she knew how to make it for her children and she informed me that it takes a lot of time and patience to use grape leaves and roll them so she does not like to make it often. But a friend of hers loves to makes so she surprises Alya with dolma sometimes when they are at the mosque. Alya asked if I had ever tried dolma before and if not she said that she would make them for me sometime. It was so nice to hear that she would! Middle Eastern hospitality is such an amazing treat.

Also she mentioned her favorite food in America. Can you guess what it is? Hamburgers! Her and her family all love hamburgers and always try new restaurants if they have hamburgers. She says there are no restaurants in Saudi that make hamburgers, except fast food chains, which are not good. She said that her family gets hamburgers at least once a week! I asked her if she had tried to make them since she enjoys cooking; she has but they are not greasy like at restaurants and that is what she loves most. I guess American food really is hot dogs and hamburgers!

Since Easter is just a few days away, Alya asked what most Americans do for Easter. She did not know much about it and was curious to see how we celebrate the holiday. I told her that most people go home and spend time with family and attend Easter service at their respective church because it was a day to remember the rise of Jesus Christ. We talked a bit about what that meant and then she asked if it was similar to Ramadan. We had a few laughs about how her husband has to give up coffee during Ramadan and often has a difficult time with that. Since Muslims are not allowed to eat or drink during the day during Ramadan, her husband has to begin weaning himself off of coffee starting about two weeks before Ramadan begins. She was laughing to herself at the experience of watching her husband get headaches from caffeine withdrawals. I told her that I could relate to that-when I try a day without coffee I get a massive headache.

As usual my hour with Alya flew by. It was great to be able to meet with her and hear that her GMAT went better this time. I know she was stressing about improving her score so she was relieved to have improved by over 100 points! Congratulations to her!

Only Joking

Blog 5: Only Joking

Right off the pat it struck me that what this guy has to say might just be worth noting. He says on page one “jokes spread around the world and embed themselves in our shared culture”. From meeting with my conversation partner, I know that this holds some truth. Even though we grew up in different parts of the world, with completely different languages and cultures, we still find the same things funny and even know a few of the same jokes. It’s funny to think of how such a simple (and probably overused joke) such as “why did the chicken cross the road” could be known by people in such different locations.

The idea of dissecting a joke is true in my opinion. If you do try and talk about what makes it funny or look at the cultural undertones of a joke, you will probably come out thinking that it is not in fact funny. It reminds me of the friend we all have who thinks just doesn’t get the joke. When a room full of people are laughing about something someone just said they lean over and ask you why its so funny-if you try and explain it to them you find out that the joke is not actually that funny. It probably has to do with taking it out of the moment or out of context. Either way it’s just a bad idea to explain a joke. Let them figure it.

I never really gave much thought to the idea of other species laughing or having humor. It makes sense that humans would not be the only species with the ability to laugh, but it’s just not something I sit around pondering during my nights of studying. After reading the section about how apes laugh it made me think about what it would sound like for them to hear us laugh. While we interpret an ape laugh as a person sanding wood, what do you think they interpret our laughing as? We interpret the ape laugh as a human sound when it is not one, so what would they make our human laugh into as an ape sound? Probably something we would laugh at if we knew.

One thing I did not agree with in the reading was that the single funniest thing we can ever see is someone falling on his or her arse. I have never laughed when someone has fallen down because I feel sympathy for the person-for the pain they are feeling and the embarrassment they feel for everyone laughing at them. I don’t think it is right to laugh at someone’s embarrassment. They feel bad enough that they feel with other people around, and you are going to laugh at them and make it worse? Not me. I don’t think people should classify this as the funniest spectacle we could ever see. That is a bit of an overstatement in my opinion.

It was completely new to me to read that computer programs are creating jokes. I am not technical and cannot really understand how this is even possible, but apparently it is. While the few jokes that this book shared with us readers were not laugh-out-loud funny, some were funny in their puns. I was more impressed with the fact that a computer is making children laugh! They say that machines are going to take over the world one day and this just supports that theory. Since machines can tell jokes, what can we do that a machine can’t nowadays?

Overall, I found this reading enjoyable. Since it was primarily theories of humor mixed with examples of humor, it did a good job of keeping my interest. Compared to the book Comic Relief these authors were able to portray their meaning and definitions of humor without losing the humorous tone. Their writing style is much more in line with what I imagined when I thought of reading about humor instead of reading something humorous. 

Weddings in Saudi

Conversation 4

After a week away from Texas during spring break, I was able to meet with Alya again today. We began by talking about our travels away from Fort Worth this past week. Alya was able to take a road trip to various cities in Texas. With her father-in-law in town she wanted to show him San Antonio before he left. Unfortunately, the city was not what they expected. There were stains and unwashed sheets in the hotel that they stayed at. It gave her a terrible impression of the city and did not want to stay the full three days they had planned. She ended up leaving and traveling to Houston. While she did enjoy her time there she says she still prefers Dallas. While I would think she would be exhausted from all that driving and traveling, she is planning to go to Oklahoma this weekend to visit a friend. She sure is making the most of her time in America!

I figured that today would be the usual conversation of what was going on in our lives and what we had planned for this week, but surprisingly I learned a lot more Alya’s culture! I told Alya that part of my spring break was shopping for my cousin’s upcoming wedding, which lead me to ask about what weddings are like in Saudi. I knew a little bit about them from my experience in Saudi, but it was so incredible to hear about a Saudi wedding from an actual Saudi who has been to many and even had one of her own.

For starters, Saudi weddings are nothing like American weddings. She began by saying that before the party is the signing of the marriage certificate where a legal advisor comes to the woman’s home and has her sign a document that states she does actually want to get married and she is able to write down conditions that the man must agree to for her to marry him. She said that these conditions are usually about allowing the woman to continue schooling; women in Saudi are afraid that once they are married the man will forbid her from going to school and will only allow her to stay home with the children. It is such a different concept than what American marriages are like.

After the signing of the documents, the husband pays the woman money which starts at $15,000 and goes up depending on how much he wants to give her. I was a little confused what this money is for or why the husband must give her money, because the man must pay for everything the woman needs. This money is the wife’s and she can do whatever she wants with it. When I told Alya, that we do not have anything like this is America, she was surprised! She didn’t see why the woman would not get money for getting married. It is funny the stark differences between different cultures. And better yet, with the signing of the documents, the two are legally married, but the woman continues to live at home with her parents while the husband visits her and the get to know each other. This can last for as long as a year before the wife moves in with the husband!

But then comes the fun part-the wedding. I had heard about the weddings before. The men and women celebrate separately, so all the men go to one place while the woman go to another. The women wear giant ball gowns and for once do not have to get covered up, since only women are around them. I have seen the dresses that women wear to theses weddings, because the top floors of most malls in Saudi Arabia are dedicated to dress shops. These are huge puffy “Cinderella” dresses in all different colors! The women gather together for huge celebrations of dinner, dancing, and congratulations to the bride. These weddings can last as long as 8 hours, and some go until sunrise the next morning! This event is a great time for mothers to meet women who may be potential wives for their sons. Meanwhile, the men gather for the groom’s celebration. They usually have a band and people are able to get up and sing along with them. All of the man make sure they shake the hand of the groom at some point during the night. Perhaps the most interesting things that Alya told me about these weddings was that the men dance with swords! Also, these weddings are huge. A small wedding party is one in which there are less than 500 people! Most weddings have over 1500 guests! Can you imagine?

Tragedy Plus Time

Humorous Event

You know that old saying about tragedy plus time equals humor? Well that exemplifies my Spring Break. I flew in to D.C. and was planning on taking an early morning train to New York City to visit one of the graduate schools that I am applying to. I had to wake up really early to get to the train station in D.C. to make the train. Now, I am not at all a morning person so this was extremely difficult for me to do, but alas I managed to get there on time. I was early for the train and waited patiently for it to arrive. But of course with my luck, the train was late. After ten minutes of waiting they made an announcement to wait in the terminal that the train would be arriving soon. Thirty minutes later it still had not arrived. 

I glanced over and saw that another train was heading for New York and would be departing shortly. I decided that I would see if I could transfer my ticket to that train, so I went to the ticket counter and they allowed me to change my ticket free of charge. But the attendant was new and he printed off the wrong ticket. At some point he canceled the original ticket and continued trying to fix his mistake. After ten minutes he finally got in figured out and printed my correct ticket. So I ran across the station to catch the train, but it had closed its doors for passengers and I was not able to get on. To make matters worse, my original train had arrived and was boarding passengers, but my ticket was canceled for that train so I was not permitted to ride. 

So again, I walked over to the ticket counter and attempted to get another ticket. The attendant was kind and issued me a ticket for a train that left in 50 minutes. I went to my gate and sat there for 40 minutes until the train arrived and let me on. By the time I sat down on the train and we pulled away from the station, I should have been arriving in New York City in half an hour. While I was irritated beyond belief at the time, I made it to the city in time for my interview and everything went great. Looking back on the incident, I can see the humor in watching myself miss trains and running around the station looking ridiculous. Of course I would never want to deal with that again, but it is a story that I will take with me.

Slaughterhouse-Five

Slaughterhouse-Five (First Part)

Whenever I begin a new book, especially if I do not know what it is about, I begin by reading the reviews of the book. I think this gives an impression of the novel other than a short summary that usually resides on the back cover. Reviews are other reader’s interpretation and give me a sense of what to expect as I begin reading. When I did that for Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five, the review that stuck out the most for me was The Atlantic Monthly’s note which reads: “Our finest black humorist…we laugh in self-defense”. When I read this I knew what was in store for me. Honestly, I do not really enjoy dark humor because it usually is used in war and death, which I feel should not be made light of. But I tried to put my opinions aside and give Vonnegut a chance.

I have not really formed an opinion of the book as of yet. I don’t love it, but I don’t hate it either. Hopefully as the story goes on I will be able to form a concrete opinion of this author and his message. For the most part I actually like his writing style. He tells it like it is.  On page 8, he writes “then we were sent home, and I married a pretty girl who was covered with baby fat too. And we had babies. And they’re all grown up now, and I’m an old fart with memories”. I found it unusual for Vonnegut to be so straightforward with everything that he says, because most authors draw every phase out and paint a clear picture for the reader to imagine so they can feel as if they were there too. While that is the modern way of writing, I think it is brave of an author to go outside the norm and try something new. Of course some authors will fail at this, but he was able to succeed.

As I continued on reading, I have come to the conclusion that Vonnegut decided to use this simple straightforward tone so that he could leave out the descriptions. Some war instances and depictions of people dying are difficult for readers to take, but by remaining simple with only the facts, such as he died, the reader is able to continue reading without being too invested in a certain character.

One of the most notable instances of dark humor that I have come across so far in the reading was with the hobo who is captured with Billy. (I was not sure where we were supposed to stop, but I read through chapter 4 so if you have not read that far this may be a spoiler.) The hobo keeps describing this situation as “ain’t so bad” and saying that he has been through worse. Those are even his last words that he uses before he dies. This ironic dark humor is portrayed so that the reader is able to laugh at a difficult situation. As I said before, this is not my kind of humor but I can see what he is attempting to do and why he chose to write this way. Also, during times of war men may have used this dark humor to get through every day.

It is obvious that his style of humor is dark humor, but one of the instances that I have begun to pick up on is his use of repetition. I think this complements both the straightforward tone of writing and the humor. He continually says “So it goes”. I believe that he is trying to make use of this literary technique so the reader laughs instead of cries. He creates a mock-serious tone when he repeats these words that leads to absurdity at times.  What do you think?

Snow!

Conversation 3

After a week of not being able to meet with Alya, we finally found a time that worked for both of us. Unfortunately, her son had been sick last week when we had planned to meet and she caught the same cold after him. I was pleased to see that she was feeling better and was available to talk. I asked her about her experience with the doctor here and said it was surprisingly easy. This was the first time since being in America that she had the need for a doctor, but found the process better than she had expected. I was glad to hear this because I know that some doctor offices are slow and usually behind schedule. Alya told me about her insurance she gets from her University in Saudi and how they pay for everything! I was surprised to learn that, especially because of all of the recent debates about Obama’s health care plan. Alya said she loves that her insurance pays 100% of her needs because they also pay for new glasses every year (which she informed me was a blessing because she often losses or breaks her glasses so she requires new ones often).

Among other things that I had missed in just that one week with her, Alya told me that her father-in-law was visiting her family for a month. She told me about their future plans over spring break to try and show him as much of Texas as possible before he must leave. Last weekend they went to Dallas for lunch (apparently they serve amazing hamburgers that her entire family loves); after which they went to a petting soon and her son got to feed some animals for the first time. It was great to see her reactions to the stories of what her children are able to experience living in America. I can tell that she is making the most of every day here in Texas. As for spring break, she is hoping to go to Austin with her father-in-law and show him the city there. She hopes to be able to take a few days off to spend there but is worried about making time to study.

Currently Alya is studying for the GMAT. She already took it once, but says she did not get a high enough score to qualify for some of the schools she had hoped. Since next week is spring break, her goal is to study while her children are in school and take the test after break when she has been able to study for a few hours each day. I know what Alya is going through in terms of stressing over a test because I am studying for the GRE. We talked for a while about studying habits and good study fuel and tried to lessen each other’s stress. She is a kind person and can tell that she really means everything that she says to me. I honestly think that is part of the Middle Eastern Hospitality.

Another aspect of school that Alya confessed she was stressing about was her talk she has to give about marriage. She asked me to fill out a survey for her class and I was happy to help! She told me a little about the project and admitted that she does not feel comfortable speaking English in front of people because she is worried that it is poor. I am not sure where she gets this mentality from because she has beautiful English! Rarely does she ever not know a word or miss uses one. I hope that she does well on her project and has the confidence to speak with pride. It was funny when she talked about her family. Both her husband and her brother are here at TCU with her to learn English. She said that her husband was in the same classes last semester but now they are separated. I asked which way she preferred and she admitted that she liked being with her husband. She jokes now, that her class is ahead of his and he always asks for her help on assignments.

Near the end of our conversation I asked Alya what she wanted to see most about America and without hesitating she said snow. This made me smile because it seems like such a small thing, but for someone who has never seen snow, other than in pictures, it can be breathtaking. She said that next winter she hopes to be stay in America to be able to see some snow, because this year she was home visiting family in Saudi when Texas got a white Christmas. Being a lover of snow myself, I hope that one day she is able to see snow!

As this next week is spring break and I am going out of town, I know that I will not see Alya for a week and was a little sad about this. Even though we have not known each other for a while, I have come to enjoy our weekly meetings and even text her throughout the week. 

You Had to be There

Humorous Blog 2

For this to make sense the first thing you need to know is that my roommate is exceedingly studious. She is the person who wakes up early to get her work done and then stays up late triple checking everything making sure it is done correctly. She never thinks that her work is good enough and is never “done”. But me, I really enjoy sleeping. I have never been able to wake up early to study or finish homework; it is just not in my genes. (I took one 8 am class. Never again.)

So last night, we were making dinner and talking about our plans for tomorrow and what all we needed to get done. Having been really busy this past week with papers, tests, and reading assignments, I was planning on catching up on some much needed sleep tomorrow morning. My roommate on the other hand said she had work to do and desperately needed to get to the library so she would be able to concentrate.

Keep in mind that while we were having this conversation she is yawning and has been saying how tired she is all night. So, after a few moments I turned to her and asked if she is going to sleep in tomorrow. She looks at me with a bewildered look on her face and says “Sleep in?” The tone in her voice was perfect. It was as if she thought I was crazy for even mentioning it! Instantly I burst out laughing. The way she spoke combined with the tone of her voice as if I was acting absurd was hilarious. She too quickly joined in on the laugh realizing how she had said that. This was the definition of my roommate. Maybe this is one of those occasions where you had to be there to find it funny, or maybe you just need to know my roommate but it was really funny.

Something to Laugh About

Andy Borowitz must have an unusual sense of humor. All of the stories I have read so far in his books are diverse. Some are classics and obviously humorous, such as Vacation ’58, while other are awkward and lack the normal view of what one considers funny, such as The Waltz and A Few Words about Breast. And then comes this weeks reading. They are funny because of the serious tone that each implores. As I have read these stories the past few weeks I have become more adept at identifying what I find humorous and what I most certainly do not.

Tips for Women: How to Have A Relationship with a Guy is one of the funnies pieces I have read. The vast amount of techniques he utilizes to make his point that guys do not think like women made me laugh one more than a few occasions. Right off the bat, Dave Barry uses an oldie but a goody in terms of humor devices-cognitive shift. His first line says “it’s fairly easy to develop a long term…relationship with a guy” and ends with revealing this male must be a dog. Ultimately this must bring a smile to your face. You cannot help but think this Barry’s opening line is clever. He hooks you in thinking he is going to reveal one of life’s oldest mysteries (how do men think) only to take that hope away and replace it with the common conception that dogs can be better for women than a man can be.

One of the best parts of this story was the author’s fictional interpretation of how different a man and women think when it comes to their private thoughts. This woman, Elaine, is so serious with every word she chooses and thinks about every detail of Roger’s inflection and face twitch, while Roger is merely thinking about his car. His narration of the women is down pat in my opinion. It is a stereotypical view of a woman’s thoughts, but it is so true and so inline with the typical woman that you cannot help but laugh. The humor of this dialogue back and forth between Roger and Elaine is not in the actual words that they exchange, but in Barry’s description of their thought processes. Roger is “glad to finally know the correct answer” to one of Elaine’s questions. I found this amusing because in most situations when a woman is crying for no apparent reason there is no correct answer a man can give and Barry picks up on that fact and uses it to further point out the differences between their thought processes.

I really rather enjoyed this piece of writing. Another quote that I could not help but smile at was in regard to why men are afraid of committing-“The fear that if you get attached to a woman, some unattached guy, somewhere, will be having more fun that you.” The fact that he boils the answer down to its most basic form is witty. Not to mention that logic, at least to women, is absurd. Women cannot comprehend this type of logic in their mind, but seeing it spelled out in black and white makes it genius in my mind and truly funny. This entire piece of literature was truly funny in my opinion and Barry is the only writer in the book so far that I have found to be truly worthy of being deemed one of the 50 best American writers.

While not quite up to par with David Barry on the humor level, The Onion is still a funny piece of literature. I think I like this genre of humor writing because it takes a serious tone about a non-serious issue. Similar to Barry’s story the humor is in the truth. Countries that do not use many vowels in their words are extremely difficult for Americans to pronounce, and adding vowels would be beneficial for our sake. Exaggeration is used often because the author uses names that do not use any vowels at all, but his point is made and in a comical way. The last paragraph in the story is humorous because the author is playing with the initial notion of delivering vowels but now insists on delivering consonants. The tone of the entire piece makes us laugh because he sounds serious but what he is describing is the furthest thing from serious.  Tone carries a lot of weight in this piece of literature and really brings the humor to light.

Round Two

Second Meeting With Alya:

I am not really a fan of Mondays. They come right after the weekend and on top of that are my longest days. But the past two Mondays have been better than normal because I have been able to meet with Alya. It is such a treat getting to meet with someone who has been to Saudi and knows what it is like. She is the only other person I know, besides my parents, who has been there. We are able to talk about experiences we have had without having to describe what something is, so the conversations are much more free flowing compared to just questions and answers. It really is great! I try to talk to my friends about the weather in Saudi, but if you have never lived through that summer you can’t really feel the heat. Alya knows and can relate to those horrendous months.

We began our conversation right where we left off last time or how two friends would begin. She told me about the busy weekend she had about going to Dallas three times! Apparently she has a friend there who she enjoys spending time with. Also, there are parks there that her kids can run around in and play. She says that she loves how America is so friendly to kids! Her husband wants to tire the kids out before they go to a restaurant-which they always do in Dallas.

Along that same note, Alya talks to me in way as if I am in on the joke when describing her culture and their customs. Not to mean that her culture or customs are a joke by any means, I just don’t know how to explain it in another manner. Some of the stories or examples she describes to me make me feel like I am in on her culture. For instance, today she was talking about a friend of hers who did not understand Arab food traditions. In Saudi, and other Arab nations, the host provides many courses of food whenever someone comes over. If you were coming for tea, it would include about 8 different food courses along with the tea. Alya told me about how her friend kept saying she was full and did not want to eat anymore, but Alya kept giving her food. Her friend finally insisted on not eating more and pushed her plate away. Alya laughed and said that Arabs have to keep giving food and giving food even when people say no. It was funny for me to hear this because she is very right! All of the times I have had meals with Arab families they serve so much food and keep putting it on my plate even when I do not want to eat anymore. It is just a completely different culture from ours here in America.

Papers. The dread of every college student. That goes for Alya too! She had a paper due today that was all about references. She told me that she is not proud of her English speaking, but writing and grammar comes more naturally to her. Even with the self esteem builder of liking her writing she was really nervous to turn in her essay. It is comforting to see how similar all people are regardless of their background. Turning in research papers still makes people queasy.

Today, Alya shared a few personal things with me regarding her family. She said that her children do not have many friends to play with outside of school. I was shocked to hear this because I could not imagine not playing with other children on the weekends or after school. But she told me that she lives in apartments off campus that are mostly for students, and none of them have children so there was no way for her children to play with other kids. I mentioned sleepovers with kids from school and she looked confused. She admitted that she did not know that word, and looked a little embarrassed to admit that. I tried to reassure her that it was completely all right if she didn’t one word, and explained what I meant. As I tried my best to explain what I was talking about she told me that they do not have those in Saudi! I was shocked! No sleepovers? I think of this as a right of passage for children-spending their first night away from mom and dad or grandparents. She asked several more questions on this topic and said that she would give it a try with her child’s friend from school. I was so happy that I was able to share something with her that might be able to help her kids. 

My meetings with Alya continue to be a blast! I am so excited that she is my conversation partner and feel like we never have enough time to talk before one of us has to leave. There are so many things I want to know about her experiences and so many things I want to ask about being a woman in Saudi, especially now that she has experienced the freedoms of America.