Macomber

Looking back over the stories we read this semester, my hands down favorite is “The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber.” I’ve always admired Hemingway for portraying his characters in a very realistic way, but this time he certainly mixed it up. While his other stories tend to be focused on dramatic things like abortion, rape, and questioning one’s sexuality, the character’s actions in dealing with these things are relatively normal. There are no huge fits of rage, passionate declarations, or anything like that. The American man and girl in “Hills Like White Elephants” hardly speak about it, much less have a screaming match. No one ends up weeping or leaving.

“The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber” begins with that similar pattern. There is a big problem the couple must overcome (in this case it is infidelity) and they go about it in a reasonable way until the end, which is when she shoots him! That action is exponentially more dramatic than any other one seen in Hemingway’s stories. The story begins with subtle (and explicit) cattiness and passive aggressiveness, like the way she calls him “darling” even after saying something terrible. I was shocked that Hemingway chose such an ending when all the other stories ended rather quietly.

I also thoroughly enjoyed the way Hemingway portrayed Mrs. Macomber. She was such a witch! It was as though she reveled in kicking her husband when he was down. I, personally, had a lot of sympathy for Francis. He seemed like he wanted to work things out, which made me hate Mrs. Macomber all the more.

Overall, the character development of Mrs. Macomber and her husband was fascinating. I enjoyed seeing them reverse roles as he took back control in the relationship, causing her to be the scared one. 

Kids? Probs Not.

I’ve come to somewhat terrifying realization: I may not want kids.

            I was at my sister’s house yesterday and my two-year old niece, Kylie, was sick. We were attempting to give her medicine and it was World War 3. My sister held Kylie while I tried to give her the liquid poison. Kylie’s entire body was tensed and she was stiff like a board. She screamed at the top of her lungs. I would hold her mouth open and put some medicine in, only to have it literally spit into my face. I finally stood up and declared, “I hate kids. I’m not doing this” and walked off.

            I went home sobbing because that wasn’t me being dramatic, (except for the hate part) that was me being honest. I’ve never liked kids. I’ve never been drawn to them, even when they are being adorable, like when Kylie sings “Jesus Loves Me.” I’m indifferent to children if not annoyed by them and have no desire to have one of my own, and that scared me. Most girls and women love children and are ecstatic about the thought of one day having their own. I felt like something was missing and that I was less of a woman for not having that same desire that bonds most women.

            However, this doesn’t mean I don’t plan on having a family. Once I decided kids may not be a part of my future, I immediately thought of other options. I do picture myself sitting down at dinner with my husband and kids. Lots of kids actually. So I’ve been thinking about the possibility of being a foster parent for older kids, or even adopting older kids. I know I’m still really young and have years to think about it, but it’s been an important discovery nonetheless. I may change my mind but it’s crucial that I understand this about myself: I don’t see myself having the stereotypical family with a husband and several biological children.

I still worry that if I tell people about my realization they will look at me like a freak of nature, or maybe guys wont want to date me because of it. But it’s quickly becoming a new part of my identity and one that I’m choosing to embrace. 

One Pup's Love

I’m sitting here staring at my dog. She is a solid white, one-eyed, shed machine, also known as a husky. For three years, she has been my baby, but all that is about to change. I have to find her a new home by May 8^th because I’m leaving for a three week long trip and then moving into a house that doesn’t allow pets. So for the next week, I’ll be reminiscing. I will start with a blog:

I bought her when she was just a puppy at eight weeks old. Basically she was an attempt to replace a lost love. My dad had passed away a month earlier, and I desperately needed something to love, that would love me back and distract me. They say the best way to move on from an old affection is to replace it with a new one. And she was an adorable affection. She looked like a kangaroo because her tail was too big for her body. It was the first time I had been allowed to get a puppy since I was five. I had searched the AKC website for four weeks, trying to find the perfect breeder and the perfect puppy.

When she finally came, I was so overjoyed. She hardly left my side for weeks. Luckily it was summer so we almost never had to be apart. If a friend was having a party or I was going to visit my grandparents, I would take her with me. We were a package deal. She slept in bed with me and for the first few weeks, I happily woke up every night at 3am to let her out. Trips to the dog park, the lake, and Petsmart were regular occurrences. If she got sick, I would stay up all night with

I think some dogs have intuitive knowledge of how you’re feeling, and Tori was definitely one of them. She would nuzzle up to my face when I would cry about my dad. She wasn’t intrusive, licking me excitedly. She wasn’t asleep and ignoring me. I could tell she trying to be close and loving. She can still tell when I’m upset. Normally she is a high energy pup, but when I’m upset she’ll just walk over and set her head on my leg, just like in the movies.

I will surely miss her. 

Sailing

Well class,

I was sick with food poisoning today so in case you wanted to hear my brilliant remarks on Billy Collins's poems I have posted them here:

Consolation (47-48)

            Traveling is an activity that almost every person places in high regard. In college, people tell me that if I don’t travel abroad, I will regret it for the rest of my life. While I agree that it is important to see other cultures at some point, I agree with Collins premise that getting to truly know your home can be even more important. I was pleased with the idea of “grasping the meaning of every road sign and billboard” (47). Fort Worth may not have “crumbling frescoes or famous domes,” but it is my home, and in many ways, that is enough for me.

Piano Lessons  (76-77)

            When I was younger, I was obsessed with the piano. For years I wanted to take lessons, but my family couldn’t afford the piano itself. Finally, our church gave me a piano and I began taking lessons. Piano Lessons shows how beautiful the piano is through its words. I loved the imager of each key being a different room that the player, a blind man, must learn to walk through. When Collins describes his fingers as climbing down the ladder of notes and coming back down without turning around, I remembered the days when I practiced my scales as well. It all made me very nostalgic. Collins also made a very clever point about the left hand and how difficult it can be. “I have to drag him into the music like a difficult and neglected child. This is the revenge of the one who never gets to hold the pen or wave good-bye, and now, who never gets to play the melody. He is drawing my attention to something so obvious, but that I’ve never really thought about before.

Another Reason Why I Don’t Keep a Gun in the House (3)

            I immediately started laughing at this poem because recently there has been a bird that has made its perch underneath my window. Everyday he begins chirping between 7am and 8am. Most days, I’m not too annoyed because I’m waking up around that time regardless, but on Saturdays and Sundays, I feel like shooting him. Many times I have thrown rocks at him and I have even requested my mother bring me a BB gun so that I might shoot him. I currently have the black BB gun sitting by my bedside, waiting for the morning when his incessant chirping gives me enough courage to do what I am currently too much of a pansy to do.

Forgetfulness (29)

            I might be too young to be complaining about forgetfulness but I will anyways. The first stanza immediately caught my attention because Collins was speaking about forgetting about a book you’ve read. One of my biggest frustrations in life is not remembering the amazing books I read. I remember I loved A Tale of Two Cities. It was easily my favorite book, but now, I have a hard time recalling it completely, which is upsetting. I read The Bell Jar several years ago and can now hardly remember the plot. I used to know the quadratic equation and the order of the planets, but not anymore. It was all very relatable. I especially loved how he wrote, “whose name begins with an L as far as you can recall.” That is such a common problem: knowing the first letter of something you are trying to remember but not being able to grasp the full word or thought.

Nostalgia (42-43)

            As I move on to a new phase in my life, I can’t help but be nostalgic for the old one. I could see myself editing Collin’s stanzas to fit my life. It almost made me sad, remembering. However, the end woke me up a little, because he hardly mentions the present, and when he does, it seems negative. It helped remind me that sometimes too much time is spend longing for the past and dreaming of the future and not enough time it spent enjoying the present moments.

Budapest (69)

            I LOVE the imagery in this poem. Looking at a pen as the snout of an animal, rooting around, just makes me smile. What I imagined was adorable; like an ant eater for a pen.

           

            

PREGNANT girl singing GERMAN OPERA while serving APPLE STRUDEL

Cross Country Snow seems like a typical Hemingway story. I don’t mean that in a negative way though. I’m not bored of his stories. I actually quite enjoy them. I love how he always hints at the nature of men and women. In Cross Country Snow, he portrays two men enjoying a physical activity together and having little to no conversation. This seems so typical of guys. I can just picture two friends out skiing or fishing or hunting, going about their day in almost total silence, but content nonetheless. After I read the story, I thought to myself what it would be like had Hemingway wrote a more strong female character into the story. I can imagine all the talking she would be doing, trying to stir up conversations about how great the skiing was. I can picture George saying that skiing is “too swell to talk about” and her just continuing on anyways.

I will take a moment here to say that I’m not a fan of these reading quizzes. I feel like they are so specific that at this point I’m not even reading the story, I’m merely jotting down details. I focus so much on the fact that they at APPLE strudel and the waitress was singing GERMAN OPERA that I sometimes miss the big picture. I’m less focused on the meaning of the story and more focused on looking up the definition for funicular and undulation. I understand the need for reading closely but the quizzes cause me to focus on minor details sometimes so the point of the story escapes me. Typically reading the story a second time around right before class solves this, but nonetheless, I felt like my blog was the perfect place to air this small grievance.

And I want to take this moment to tell whoever is reading this to go youtube Rusted Root’s On My Way for old time’s sake.

Moving on to Ten Indians. I absolutely loved the jesting that the boys were doing in the beginning. Once again, Hemingway wrote about a situation that is so true to boys’ nature. It is sometimes shocking how easily I can see my friends in that same situation; one guy giving his friend a hard time about the girl he is dating and then getting shut up because he can’t get a girl to start with. It’s sad when he discovers she’s doing whatever it is that she’s doing with another guy. I’m still not entirely sure what to make of this story (probably because I’m brain dead) so I’m going to wait and read it again tomorrow.

Holidays in America

Today was all about holidays. I’m really excited that I finally found a way to maintain steady conversation and teach her about American culture at the same time. It was so strange to think that not everyone celebrates Easter or Halloween or Thanksgiving. But it was fun explaining it to her!

        We started with Mardi Gras. I asked her if she did anything for Mardi Gras and she just gave me this puzzled look and repeated the phrase. I got out my laptop and tried to begin explaining what this big festival was all about. I showed her a map of the United States and pointed out Louisiana and New Orleans, telling her that this is where the main festival is held. We then googled pictures of the Mardi Gras floats which she found endlessly fascinating. I showed her the Mardi Gras beads and she had an “ah hah!” moment. She had seen people around campus wearing beads but was clueless to their meaning.

        After giving her some information about Mardi Gras, I thought it might be helpful for her to know about Ash Wednesday. I went to a private Christian high school with almost no practicing Catholics, so when I came to TCU, I was shocked by this practice. I remember walking through the BLUU last year on Ash Wednesday and seeing so many people with the ash on their foreheads. So I wanted to fill her in on the practice. I began telling her about the black on people’s foreheads and she immediately starting smiling and nodding and patting my arm. She kept repeating, “I thought it mistake!” I told her that it was intentional and that throughout the day she will see increasingly more people with the ash on their forehead. Once again, google images proved to be a wonderful tool.

I’m not sure how much of my explanation she understood. She had no idea what a Catholic was so I tried my best to tell her about different types of Christianity and why Catholics were different from what she believed. She is a Christian but more specifically, attends a Bible Church and had no idea there were other sects of Christianity. It’s really hard to explain the idea of the Pope to someone who doesn’t speak English and knows nothing about Catholicism. I was pretty shocked that she didn’t know who the Pope was. I always knew that Asia had it’s own religious beliefs but I didn’t realize it was so far removed from the West that they didn’t even study it.

Eventually we moved to talking about Easter. I explained to her that kids have an Easter egg hunt completely with baskets and candy. We were both sad that we are too old to participate. ☹

After Easter came Thanksgiving. She was in the United States for Thanksgiving this year and from what she told me it sounded traditional. She said they ate lots of food and had a turkey. It was nice bringing this up because I forget sometimes that America is the only country that celebrates Thanksgiving!

Lastly was Halloween. We looked on google at a huge selection of costumes and she was really excited. We laughed at the different costumes people put their dogs in and smiled at baby costumes. It was interesting seeing what characters she recognized, like Scream. We ended our day looking at my facebook pictures from my Halloween.

This was probably my favorite meeting with Shinhye. For the first time, there were no awkward pauses and we even shared a lot of laughs. It also wasn’t artificial conversation, but instead flowed naturally. I feel like I actually bonded with her. This time it was less of homework and more like just hanging out with a friend, and that’s a big deal for me. My main complaint about this assignment is that if I’m going to devote an hour of my week every week to have a conversation with someone, there are so many people I’d love to do it with. At this point, I talk to Shinhye more than I talk to some of my closest friends, and that has always bothered me. But with this last meeting, I didn’t feel that, so things must be on track.

Old Times

            After LITERALLY forty minutes of searching, I have found an extremely old copy of Time Magazine. The library data system is so bad at telling you where things are. I searched the basement of the library for a solid half hour before I gave up. It was only once I was on my way through the main floor that I started to see the bound periodicals that I had been looking for. I still can’t find Vogue and Vanity Fair only goes back to the 1990’s so I guess I wont be writing anything about fashion as I had hoped. Oh well. So a helpful tip for anyone who manages to read my blog before starting on their own, stay on the main floor, quiet section!

            I managed to find a Time Magazine published on my exact birthday, although obviously not the same year. The Time I’m reading was published August 29, 1932. I’m a little confused already because there doesn’t appear to be a cover. I’m not sure if maybe that’s how they did things back in the 30’s or if there is a page missing. The most obvious difference between this Time and Times that are more current would be color. It is strange seeing everything in black and white. It makes it feel much more like a newspaper instead of a magazine.

The first three pages are solid advertisements. They are extremely strange though because they come off as actually articles in the magazine. They are set up with a few pictures and an informative story about the product underneath. It is nothing like the full-page picture advertisements we see today.  In addition to the unusual set-up, the ads are for unusual things as well. There was an ad for Tomato juice (Heinz of course), gas heating equipment, and life insurance. The life insurance ad might not seem too out of place except that it is a picture of several men pulling what one can assume is a dead body out of a car while two other people comfort a crying woman. You certainly wouldn’t see that depicted today. 

The articles are almost solid text, which bores me. It’s so much like an actual newspaper that I’m really just shocked right now. They have these extremely concrete categories that I’m not used to seeing like “Education, National Affairs, Foreign Affairs, and Science.” The advertisements look like modern day magazine articles and the articles look like modern day newspaper articles. It’s crazy!

The use of language was very entertaining. One sentence began with “For nine days last fortnight…” It is just interesting to see the old-fashioned words like fortnight being used in the popular press. I also got a kick out of a quote used in the one ad that read. “I never owned, hired, or saw a truck so good.” I can’t help put laugh at that grammar.

Ultimately, I don’t think I would be a fan of going through old magazines. Maybe I would’ve found the Vogue more interesting, who knows? I just hated the layout: It was so bland and boring. One day I’ll come back and make the librarian take me to the Vogue section. I honestly would really enjoy seeing those fashion ads!

            

Oh, to be an artist.

Disclaimer: I’m aware of how subjective art and beauty is and only claim the following as my opinions, not facts.           

It amazes me what some people are willing to call “art”. I admit that defining something as “art” is completely subjective but sometimes I think “artists” are really trying to see just how far people will take it.

According to dictionary.com, art can be defined in the following ways: 1. The production of something beautiful or extraordinary 2. Paintings, drawings, sculptures, etc. 3. Skill; ability

As I was looking around the Modern Art Museum, I saw things that fit the first, second, and third definitions of art and also some things that only fit the second definition. If it were not for that second definition of it being any painting, drawing, or sculpture, there are some pieces I would argue were not at all art. I really would like to look up the definition of those as well but I will refrain for now.

There were two pieces in particular that made me want to throw my hands in the air and say “REALLY?!” I regret that I didn’t write down the artist’s names and names of the pieces but if you have been to the museum recently, you’ll probably remember them.

One was a large square canvas and it was split down the middle forming two rectangles. My memory is fuzzy, but I think the top rectangle was orange and the bottom one was gray. I was completely and utterly puzzled as to why that would be art. It was not beautiful. It was not skillful. I saw no depth. I mean there are some paintings I could easily replicate but at least those have the credit of being too original for me to have thought of them in the first place. This painting consisted of two rectangles of color. Nothing more, nothing less.

The second was a canvas that had a more unique shape to it with curves and such but it was all painted the same blue/gray color. That literally made me consider going out, making a diamond shaped canvas, painting it some purple/plum color, and selling it to the Fort Worth Museum of Modern Art. I mean, maybe I have life all wrong, forget being a lawyer or a doctor or teacher, I should just be an artist!

Paintings such as these do make me wish I could go inside the mind of an artist. I would love to know what the artists were thinking when they created their works because maybe then I could understand them. Now that I have had my fun mocking some of the “art” I saw, I will spend some time praising the beautiful and creative work. I am glad that there was infinitely more inspiring art than boring, bland art.

My hands-down favorite part of the museum was the Robert Lazzarini exhibit. The illusionistic distortion of the guns and the metal safe caused me to spend the largest portion of my time. I loved that you could stare at them from almost any angle and they seemed two-dimensional. It was only once you got about a foot away that you realized they were three-dimensional objects. This to me is the epitome of art. It is mysterious and thought provoking, not to mention unbelievably creative. I didn’t even need to know the depth of his thinking to be intrigued because what it says on the surface speaks to me.

There are other pieces of art that confuse me greatly but I enjoy them simply because they are aesthetically pleasing, such as Jackson Pollock’s Masqued Image. I don’t understand it but the colors and shapes draw me in. I also very much enjoyed Richard Hamilton’s Swingeing London, mainly because I could not for the life of me figure out what technique he used to get the black shadowing the way he did. I was completely in love with the painting in the great room (the room with the book with wings). It was the painting that had a giant sunflower going down the middle of it; a real sunflower that had been dried out. Something about it was totally awe-inspiring. I was glad it was one of the few rooms with a bench because all I wanted to do was sit there and contemplate that painting. It also really meant something to me that it was made with earth. It said under the description that it was made with earth. I felt something very symbolic in that though I can’t quite pinpoint what.

Overall, going to the Museum of Modern Art was great fun. It is a unique experience for every person because the feelings art evokes are individual, not collective and that is special to me.

Food, Money, and Fashion

            Shinhye and Yosep brought me a surprise today, and I love surprises. They brought me a box of the popular South Korean snack “homerun balls.” This was both exciting and frightening. I mean, of course it was really thoughtful of them to bring me some Korean food. I am very happy that they want to share their culture with me. But at the same time, they were asking me to try foreign nastiness. These “homerun balls” were basically like tiny Twinkies balls. I don’t typically eat such over-processed foods and it was extremely daunting. Another problem: they were banana flavored. I hate bananas. I’m aware of how weird that it, but its true, I do not like bananas or banana flavored foods. Of course, in order to be polite, I ate a few. They were strange. And banana. Shinhye would not be satisfied until I ate almost half of them and I couldn’t say no. I spent the rest of the day burping banana. Gross.

            Once I got passed the force-feeding, things got strangely interesting. I suppose I didn’t teach them well enough about manners last week because Yosep came to me with a list of questions about money. “What is the most expensive thing you own?” “What is the last thing you bought?” “How much money do you spend every month?” “How much money do you want to make at work?” The questions were very personal and I couldn’t help but hesitate and blush a little. My parents taught me to avoid discussing money and especially talking about how much money I spend! I was totally caught off guard and I didn’t even know how to react. I knew they didn’t have bad intentions but I was uncomfortable answering the questions nonetheless. It didn’t help when I answered that the most expensive thing I owned was my car and they proceeded to ask me how much THAT cost too. The worst of it all is that I think it legitimately changed their opinion of me. For the first time, I saw Yosep and Shinhye both get slightly snobby and say “Oh, you are rich.” WHAT DO YOU SAY TO THAT?!?! “Oh yeah, I’m loaded” (I’m not actually and that is totally subjective anyways). I just said that my parents are the only reason I have anything. I was afraid they would change from “Oh, you are rich” to “Oh, you are spoiled.” Money is such a touchy subject, so I escorted us to a new one: fashion.

            Balenciaga, Bottega Veneta, Givenchy, Chanel, Gucci, Alexander McQueen, and more. We googled pictures of dresses, shoes, and handbags and drooled over them. This was much more up my alley than being audited. Yosep and Shinhye have switched tradition male/female roles when it comes to fashion. Yosep is a fashion design major and wants to build a fashion empire so he really knew what he was talking about. Shinhye on the other hand, was quite clueless. She didn’t know the names of any major designers and didn’t seem to care. Yosep completely called out TCU students from all dressing alike. Nike shorts, t-shirts, Sperry’s, “Easter shorts,” and polos are what the majority of TCU students wear. Yosep and Shinhye find it shocking. In Korea, people “dress nice” for classes. I tried to not take offense to that. I told them that we are all about comfortability. I mean, have you ever tried on Sperry’s? They are like wearing clouds on your feet! I was pleased that the took this as a legitimate reason for wearing these clothes.

            Hopefully next week won’t be filled with as much potential for offense as this week was and no more Korean Twinkies balls. 

The Art of "American Polite"

Talking to Shinhye and her brother Yosep (just learned how to spell it finally) is becoming more of a joy. We met on Wednesday and the conversation flowed naturally for the first time.

Yosep had prepared a presentation for me on South Korea since I know absolutely nothing about it besides the fact that is it under North Korea. He was very disappointed when his computer wouldn’t work so he ended up having to save it for another day. But it was still interesting to see a Korean computer. The keyboard was both qwerty and Korean. All the files were named with Korean letters. I feel like sometimes American’s think that everything is in English and I’m guilty of getting caught up in that so it was nice reminder that people who speak other languages don’t have to learn English just to have a computer.

Shinhye asked me to explain “American polite” to her. I have never truly thought about the customs that we have in America, or even Texas to be more specific, and how they are radically different from those in other countries. Yosep made a comment that everyone here is so kind to him. I told him that we like to call that “Southern Charm.” In South Korea, if you bump in to someone you continue walking so Yosep said that he was extremely caught off guard when he bumped into someone on campus and they stopped and said they were sorry. I tried to give him some lessons on how to be a gentleman. We practiced saying that word, “gentleman,” together. In South Korea, every person opens the door for his or her self. I told him that in some areas of America, that is also the custom, but in the South especially, boys should hold the door open for girls. This he had already learned though. He was surprised when I told him that the same concept works for the elevator. You press the buttons and offer to press buttons for everyone else. It was heartwarming how thankful he was that I was letting him in on these “secrets.” He wants so badly to fit in to American culture and needs to be taught to do the things that we don’t even recognize we do.

Some principles are more universal than others. For instance, Shinhye already knew that when you eat, you chew with your mouth closed but she didn’t realize that eating with your hands was considered somewhat primitive. I tried not to get overly formal with her but she was eager to know everything I had to offer. I told her that when she eats with a friend or friends, she should not begin eating until everyone has their food, and never rush a meal along by eating quickly. Dining with people is about being social, no satisfying hunger. Yosep pointed out that in South Korea, when you are walking down the street and you see someone you know, you keep walking. I find that so odd. I told him that in America, if you do not say hello to someone you know, even if it is just in passing, you will be considered very rude. I personally would be offended or think someone was mad at me if they did not say hello. It feels awkward to me to just walk right by someone I know without smiling or saying a word. That was the advice they found most helpful.

Yosep and Shinhye are growing on me. They text me everyday and tell me to have a good day and that they pray for me. I see a level of eagerness and sincerity that I don’t see in a lot of other people. 

Conversation Numero Dos

Shinhye loves to text me. At least once a day I have a conversation with her via text. She’s really quite thoughtful. All week she asked if I was getting rest and taking care of myself.

We met again this Monday. I was perkier this time but also still extremely sick. She must think I am a sickly, fragile person. She is really convinced that I don’t get enough rest even though I told her I had slept 10-12 hours every night the previous week thanks to the snow days.

This time, she came prepared. She brought me a paragraph she had written on the importance of learning about a culture as you learn the corresponding language. She wanted to spend some of our time reading through it so that I could correct her grammar mistakes. I’ve noticed from my limited study of other languages that lots of other languages don’t have articles. That was her biggest problem. She left out a number of a’s, an’s, and the’s. I did my best to really correct her and show her what a native speaker would’ve written. But at the same time I didn’t want to discourage her by marking up her paper so I really hyped up her flawless sentences.

Shortly after we finished looking over her paper, her brother, Joseph, came to meet us. I had told her he was welcome to come “hang out” with us because he did not have a language partner. I hoped that more people would mean less awkward silences. I was right to an extent. I talked with her brother about how he wants to study fashion and design. His goal is to finish learning English at TCU, then move to New York City and attend Parsons. That’s a lofty goal. I told him I had been to New York City and promptly pulled my computer out to show him all the pictures. I tried to ask them if they had ever been to a big city like Tokoyo but I’m still not completely clear on their answer to that one. They constantly smile and say yes so it can be very misleading and confusing.

The conversation still felt contrived. We all shared our birthdays and interestingly enough, Shinhye and I share a birthday. The exact same day and year: August 29, 1991. Now that was quite the coincidence.

Finally things began to flow more naturally. We talked about marriage. My sister is 21 and married with two kids so Shinhye asked if I too wanted to marry young. I replied that it depended on her definition of young. I can’t really see myself getting married before I’m out of college and she agreed with my stance. Apparently in South Korea most people don’t get married until they are 29 or 30. I’m not sure about her brother’s answer. He said something about only having five years in the USA and immigration. Maybe he wants to marry so he can stay here? I have no clue.

Once again, as we said goodbye, Shinhye hugged me awkwardly with one arm and told me to get rest and take vitamins. As always, I assured her I would and went home to nap.

Conversation Numero Uno

This one didn’t seem to post last week so here it is a week later:

Today (Monday Jan. 31), I met my conversation partner, Shinhye. We had been communicating via text trying to decide what day and time to meet up. I had been swamped all day and I felt a cold coming on, so I was a little less than enthusiastic about giving an hour of my time to a complete stranger. All I wanted to do was go home and nap but I couldn’t bring myself to reschedule when we were only an hour away from meeting. When I saw her she jumped up and hugged me. Shinhye appeared extremely perky and told me over and over how excited she was to meet with me. I wish so badly that I would have been capable of having that same attitude, but it just wasn’t happening that day. I told her I was under the weather and tried to put a genuine smile on my face. I really wanted to be engaging and lively but after four hours of class and a three-hour lecture movie thing, my brain was mush.

Shinhye is from South Korea and has come to TCU to study English and advertisement. I assumed she would know more languages because people always say that America is the only country where people know just one language. Contrary to my assumption, she knows about as much Japan as I know Spanish (about 6 words). I consider her blessed because her stepbrother, also 19, is also studying at TCU. I told her I thought she was very brave to come to America but also very smart for bringing her brother with her. I told her of my family and she told me of hers. I couldn’t imagine being so far from home with no one. I’m having a hard time deciding to study abroad for five weeks and she wont see her family for at least six months!

There were terribly awkward silences but I was too dead to really care to fix them. I must’ve seemed like a horrible language partner. The communication was difficult, especially since she would never stop me if she didn’t understand. It took me a while to pick up on that. I thought if she didn’t know what I was saying she would at least get a confused look on her face but she would just sit there nodding and smiling. There were several times when we were forced to give up on a topic because one of us couldn’t make the other understand what we were saying. Eventually we both just sat there staring at one another. She laughed because she felt uncomfortable. I smiled but I wasn’t uncomfortable. I was brain-dead so it was time to say goodbye. She told me to see a doctor and get medicine because she worries for my health. I thought that was really sweet considering she just met me. She told me to get plenty of rest and I assured her I would. We said our goodbyes and I went home to nap. 

Reading Reflection- Learning to Read

          I’ve never been the best at capturing meaning in a story. That is unless it’s obvious. I’m not one of those people who can read between the lines. Symbolism seems to go right over my head. This makes me especially bad at understanding poetry. I read poems by these Modernist writers and have no clue what it is about. After reading “The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock,” I was no closer to understanding what it was about than before I read it. It is so frustrating. I know that Prufrock is a bad example because even people with English degrees debate it’s meaning. But I’m like that with almost all reading. Today, while reading “The Wilde Swans at Coole,” I could see what was happening on the surface but nothing else. And I KNOW there is more to the poem than what the words literally mean. That is what makes it a modern poem. It’s meaning is supposed to be allusive. I have in my notes that there were 59 swans, it was October, and it had been 19 years since he first came to count the swans. There is more meaning to it but I wasn’t able to see it until I googled “The Wilde Swans at Coole analysis.” I don’t see symbolism and I’m not sure if that is because that is just who I am and how my brain works or if I have never been taught how to see it. I remember reading Hemingway’s “Hills Like White Elephants” and being completely clueless. Once it is pointed out to me, I can understand. When someone said it was likely about abortion, I immediately saw the symbols. But coming to a conclusion like that on my own has yet to happen.

            These days the only books that get read are textbooks and it is no secret that those are straightforward. There is no symbolism in a textbook. I can read a textbook and soak up a wealth of knowledge. But hand me a poem and I’m stumped. So I feel as thought I’m learning how to read. Reading intensively as Dr. Williams would say. I’ve already picked up a few tricks thanks to his craft quizzes. I’m taking notes of the things I notice when I read and looking up words that I don’t know the exact meaning of like “sensual.” Right now, I’m reading “Sailing to Byzantium” and the line

Caught in that sensual music all neglect

Monuments of unageing intellect.

I know there is some meaning in that. I’m sitting here thinking of what it could be. I’ve been wondering for about five minutes now and I’m growing frustrated with my inability to figure it out. I know that (after looking it up) sensual can be defined as: “occupied with gratification of the senses” or basically all about pleasing your senses. And intellect is being neglected. But what does it all mean! Maybe I’m overanalyzing it. I guess I won’t find out until I google it.

            I hope something clicks over this semester.