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.