Meeting with Khalifa #3

Our third meeting started off rather oddly. Khalifa called me about an hour before our arranged meeting and left a cryptic message in my voicemail. To this day I’m still not sure what he was trying to say. What I took from it was that he was in Nevada and would not be “there” for another two hours. I had absolutely no idea what that meant, so I ended up just chillin’ in the BLUU until he showed up. Apparently he was trying to convey that his car was in the shop because of a faulty accelerator and that he would be late. Regardless, eventually he showed up and we began talking right where we had left off.

One of the things that struck me the most about talking with Khalifa is how often he insisted that life in America and Saudi Arabia was the same. I have never been outside the continent of North America, but for some reason I have always thought that life had to be exceedingly different in other countries.  Nonetheless, whenever I would ask what types of indigenous foods or music he liked, Khalifa would always respond that his preferences were just the same as mine. We started talking about hobbies and soon stalled on the topic of cars. Khalifa was obsessed with them and pulled out his phone to show me some pictures he had taken of his family’s almost absurd number of vehicles. Back in Saudi Arabia, one of his favorite past times is to rush home from school early and drive around the country. Apparently, gas is dirt-cheap there and you can drive anywhere for next to nothing.

           Next, we started making comparisons between our homelands. The one aspect of America that Khalifa regularly admitted made him want to cry was the price of gas. The price in the states is exponentially greater then what he is used to paying. In Saudi Arabia, paying for transportation is often never a concern. According to him, people who can afford cars just drive wherever they want without concern for the price of fuel.  The part of Saudi Arabia where Khalifa resides is extremely developed compared to other portions of his nation, which is probably one of the main reasons he maintains that America is not so different from his home.

When I first learned that having a conversation partner was a requirement in this course, I was apprehensive, but excited by the idea that I would get to know someone so different from myself. At this point, I’ve come to the realization that Khalifa and I aren’t really that different. As a species, I believe we are all products of our environments. I convinced there are certain genetic predispositions that tend to direct our actions, but the compilation of our life experiences is integral in any attempt to explain behavior. This being said, listening to someone from an entirely different culture maintain that he and I are so similar was a truly eye-opening experience. I never would have expected myself to agree with him, but following our meetings I currently under the impression that I do. Keeping in mind that this is probably to complex a concept to concur with after six meetings, I agree with the idea that there are certain motifs that run consistent through the human race. Regardless of our environment and circumstance, we all tend to desire some form of purpose, self-approval, and progress. I think these concepts are all one in the same, but I can’t really find a good word to describe them all at once. Nonetheless, I think this is probably the most monumental lesson I’ve taken away from the service learning experience. 

The Sea Change - Reflection

After a superficial read of this short story, it was obvious the inevitable lead respondent presentation over this piece was not going to be an easy task. The previous presentations had all struggled with class participation and the context of the conflict of this text did not appear like it would lead to a stimulating discussion.

The Sea Change is a short story by Ernest Hemingway depicting a man and a woman’s temporary disagreements in a bar over sexual experimentation. The main characters are a man named Phil and a nameless woman. The aspect of the vast majority of Hemingway’s writing is the amount of depth he creates in so few words. He leaves out most explicit details and allows the reader to imply the sometimes not-so-obvious thematic elements he attempts to communicate. This unique style allows Hemingway to surreptitiously address controversial topics without openly offending his readers. 

In the time prior to the presentation, I read over this story a ridiculous number of times. Almost all of the text made sense, either concretely or metaphorically with the exception of one line. Phil and the woman are arguing about what to call her promiscuity when Phil calls it a “perversion”. The woman replies:

“We’re made up of all sorts of things. You’ve known that. You’ve used it well enough.”

This line really tripped me up, and even now I’m not quite sure what Hemingway’s purpose for it is. After a large amount if thought, I’ve decided that this is Hemingway’s antiquated version of vaguebooking. Vaguebooking is when someone posts an intentionally vague facebook post solely to elicit conversation. Everyone has done this, and I always seem to find it extremely annoying.  In the context of this story, I think that Hemingway has included this line to encourage debate over its actual meaning. Its ambiguity supports the idea that there probably is no single, absolute interpretation. Honestly, I still don’t really get this. In my mind, this portion of the text serves to blur the line between socially acceptable heterosexuality and taboo homosexuality. Sometimes it seems like all Hemingway wanted to do with his writing was to blur what most people consider black and white topics into an indecipherable cloud of gray.

          At first I struggled with how a story about sexual experimentation parallels the theme of coming-of-age. After a large amount of deliberation, I’ve decided that formulating one’s personal set of ethics is a form of maturity. The ability to look at a set of options and decide what is right and wrong shows growth in a person. I believe that one underlying theme in most of Hemingway’s writing is the idea that there is rarely a correct answer to any question of ethics.  Life isn’t simple enough to reduce its complexity to an elementary yes or no. 

Meeting with Khalifa #2

       While trying to set up our second meeting, it was obvious Khalifa and I were improving our communication skills. This time we both showed up in the same basic location and in the same hour; a drastic improvement from our first get-together. We started asking how each other’s weeks were going and eventually were drawn to the topic of each other’s families. He asked about mine and I described my parents as well as my two sisters. In turn, I asked about his family and can honestly say I had no idea what I was getting myself into.

Khalifa’s family is huge. The word almost doesn’t justify what I’m attempting to explain.  He and most of his direct family live in a compound that appears to be a giant mansion about the size of the TCU Commons. It was ridiculous. We spent most of this meeting looking through his phone at pictures of his cars, family, and other significant possessions. I honestly don’t remember the exact number of family members that lived with him, but I remember there being a lot. He continued on to start describing his uncles that lived in America. He has one that resides in California and one in Colorado. He also has quite a few cousins that are dispersed across the United States in various cities the names of which I can’t quite remember.

I knew the answer to my next question before I asked it, but I was curious as to how he would respond. I inquired if he missed his family. His mood turned a little more somber, and he replied with the obvious answer. He told me that he talked to his parents and sister on an almost daily basis and missed them terribly. He didn’t seem too broken up about it and quickly continued that he was having a great time in America. Thinking back on this conversation, I’m confident that I could live on a different continent than the majority of my family. At the same time, I’m not sure one can emotionally prepare for an experience like that. It would mean truly being on your own. I wanted to ask if Khalifa felt like he was maturing more in the states, but it didn’t feel like a good time to keep asking serious questions and I ended up making some dumb joke about an ocean.

Trying to experience humor in a different language was extremely intriguing and interesting, at least on my part.  There were multiple occasions when we would reach a point in conversation where it was blatantly obvious that neither of us knew what the other was talking about, and we would just bust out laughing. I feel bad admitting this, but there were several times during the middle of conversation that I would just start laughing to see if he would mirror my behavior. Most of the time he thought he had missed something and would start laughing with me. It fascinated me that humor was this sort of emotional eraser that seemed to be cross cultural, at least between Khlaifa and me.  No matter what we were talking about, any tension or awkwardness was immediately eliminated when one of us would start to laugh. We were not great at communicating with each other by any means, but the concept of humor was obviously prevalent in both our cultures, and it was an abstract form of common ground that we shared. It was one of those “circle of life” experiences where you realize that the world is a lot bigger than what you know, and that everyone on this planet is connected. We all experience similar emotions and have similar backgrounds. The environments in which we were raised are by no means the same, however, there are certain underlying themes that all run parallel regardless of geographical or cultural barriers.

Meeting with Kalifa #1

The ridiculous amount of missed calls and multiple failures in communication leading up to my first meeting with Khalifa was honestly kind of a disaster. At first I could not get a hold of him via email, and then I missed his call during the week of a Cell Biology and Organic Chemistry Test. Following that, it was probably another two weeks before I lost an unintentional game of phone tag and we finally met on the first floor of the BLUU. I had no idea what to expect. All I knew was that I really wanted to call the kid ‘Wiz’, like the rapper, but I doubted he would understand the pop culture reference and decided against it.

       I could tell from the concise emails and my experiences trying to decode his text messages that communicating with Khalifa was not going to be a simple task. He walked up to me while I was sitting in a chair in the BLUU and seemed amiable enough. We greeted each other and did the awkward guy handshake where you don’t really know whether to do a man-shake or try something cooler, so you end up with this hybrid handshake that you both are forced to just play cool and segue into conversation.  Khalifa is from a large town in Saudi Arabia. I know I should probably have remembered which city, but he spent at least twenty minutes of our first meeting teaching me how to count and say simple phrases in Arabic, and all of the phonetics have jumbled together in my head. Regardless, we started off with all the basics: “Where are you from?”, “What are you studying?”, et cetera. I found out that Khalifa is studying abroad and actually has a ton of family spread out all throughout the states. He is at TCU with his cousin and is here to improve his English. He wants to be an engineer, but he also explicitly exhibited his hatred of math. I asked him about this contradiction and he just started laughing. I’m not sure what that meant or if he truly understood what I was asking, but it was funny and we shared a great laugh.

        I have always heard that English is a miserable language to learn as a second language, so I asked Khalifa about it. He conveyed that for the most part the grammar isn’t too bad, except for the idiom. Khalifa hates idioms with a passion and I can see why. If you think about them concretely, they make absolutely no sense and sound ridiculous. I remember trying to learn idioms in Spanish during high school and hating every second of it. I can only imagine what Khalifa must be dealing with.

      As I mentioned earlier, Khalifa seemed to really enjoy teaching me words in Arabic, or at least listening to me butcher simple phrases. Either way, I found it incredibly difficult to replicate certain sounds he would make, and, whenever he would congratulate me on saying something correctly, I knew there was an extremely real chance that I would not be able to replicate that phrase if my life depended on it. Counting was easier, but still a ton harder than I expected.  I had never really thought how difficult it must be for people who do not speak the native language to live in a foreign country for an extended period of time until that moment. Khalifa could speak fairly well, but at the same time it was obvious that at certain points he had no idea what I was saying and was just mirroring my emotions. It was an interesting example of communication. We both were looking for the easiest set of words or phrases to convey what we were trying to say so that the other would understand. It was a unique and enlightening experience. Despite our increasingly permeable communication barrier, I had a great first meeting with Khalifa and looked forward to meeting with him again.

To Kill A Mockingbird - Reflection

       To Kill A Mockingbird is easily my favorite read from this class thus far. I have read this novel twice before, and each time I read it I discover details that I previously over read, or was not mature enough to fully grasp. The main concept that struck me this time was how thematically relevant this novel is to different cultures and age groups. Despite being written in 1960, this novel remains inexplicably applicable to many different readers.

       When I was in eighth grade, this novel was the first novel I ever had to attempt a literary analysis on. At the time, I was convinced these 268 pages would be the death of me. Now, those sentiments just seem silly. Another interesting result of this read was that my favorite section of the book has shifted. When I was in eighth grade and freshman year of high school, I always remember enjoying the part one of the novel, and treating part two like it was the bane of my existence. Oddly enough, I think I’ve recently decided that I’m more partial to the second portion of the novel. I haven’t quite decided if the reason for this shift is my own maturity or my ability to now read a three hundred page book without becoming bored, but either was I still find this alteration curious. Back to my original point, I believe that this story has so many different conjoining thematic threads that almost anyone can find a connection to the piece. It seems to me like younger readers more easily connect with the characterization of Scout and her friends, while the more mature readers would see more significance in the cultural effects of Atticus’ life decisions and the evident sociocultural conflict of that time period.  I think that the author does a brilliant job of meshing elementary lessons to take from the book while at the same time implying certain concepts that, if mentioned explicitly, would raise a momentous amount of criticism.

       In comparison, I think that To Kill A Mockingbird is everything that Huck Finn is not, at least in the context of making a statement against racism. The main reason I refuse to write a blog post on Huck Finn is because I feel Mark Twain was a coward when it came to the conclusion of his novel. If I have to read four hundred pages to discover that you almost entirely contradict the thematic elements leading up to what seems like it should be a socially risqué conclusion, of course I’m going to be upset. Racism is arguably the darkest part of American history, and to think that a national figure of his time didn’t make a statement that truly needed to be made somewhat infuriates me. At the same time, I can also see why Twain did what he did. Maybe it was too early, and it does seem like the social effects of such a novel might be too controversial. Either way, I find To Kill A Mockingbird to be a much better read.

       This is also the first time that I have liked Jem as a character. During my previous reads of this novel I always thought of him as the lame older brother. In addition, I always remember liking Jem less and less as the novel proceeded.  Taking time to look back on these thoughts, I think I felt this way because I had a difficult time connecting with Jem’s coming-of-age. As a freshman in high school, the last thing I wanted to do was grow up and worry about the future. My central concerns consisted of which friends I was going to hang out with and trying not to miss the bus to football practice.  With high school behind me, it makes sense that I would have more respect for Jem’s character. The more I think about it, the more connections I see between Jem’s life and my own. I also have a younger sister who quite often bothers me with her ignorance and naive nature. It’s kind of ironic.

       It’s intriguing how malleable a concrete set of words can be during different portions of one’s life. Perception really is everything.

       

The House on Mango Street - Reflection

      At first, I completely despised this novel. I thought that the structure of this piece created a disjointed mood that failed to reflect the plot and distracted from the overall fluidity of the novel. The lack of character development predetermined any possible connection that I might have had with the protagonist to be nonexistent. This may sound harsh, but my favorite part of the novel was its brevity in length.  Despite my obvious dislike for the structure and characterization, there were a few intriguing characteristics that I enjoyed.

         I found the motif of names extremely interesting. This is probably because the concept of identity and search for self-definition are thematically more universal than “Hair” or provocative shoes.  The coming-of-age theme is prevalent in this aspect of the novel.  Esperanza is an adolescent girl trapped in the struggle between defining herself as a woman or a girl.  She is conflicted by her desire for the conceptual nature of womanhood, while not fully understanding that she is unprepared for the psychological and physical ramifications inherent in this maturation.  This burden is thrust upon after she is sexually assaulted, and consequently she suddenly resents all women for idealizing sex. She is upset with other females for not educating her on what sex is really like and causing her to create unrealistic expectations that ultimately do nothing but let her down. The aspect of this that interests me the most is how spontaneous this transition from adolescence to womanhood seems to be. While the author uses this sexual encounter as a hallmark of maturation, I think that there are many different events that could act as similar catalyst for this personal growth. However, I agree with the spontaneity of this personal change. I don’t believe that one can just wake up one day and decide that they have matured from adolescence to a man or woman. This maturation is a result of many different experiences and how one chooses to act in these given situations. One prevalent issue in today’s society is how much incongruence lies in what most adolescents expect their future to hold and what actually takes place. Society and social media has for a long time been the source of unheralded and unrealistic expectations of life in general. We live in a culture that relies on miracles and dreams in order to maintain hope in our futures. Contrary to this idea, when a family turns on the 10 ‘o clock news, there are never specials on the man who didn’t win the lottery, the woman who didn’t get the promotion, or the boy who hasn’t woken up from a coma. Regardless, I feel this sentiment is exhibited by Esperanza following her sexual assault.

       Oddly enough, I found the chapter “Four Skinny Trees” particularly inspiring. Esperanza found a personal connection with the four skinny trees that should not have grown or exist where they do, but live on regardless of their unfavorable circumstance. This symbol fuels her dreams and gives her hope.

       I also found the criticism of this novel quite interesting; particularly the remarks that called the novel a betrayal of the “barrio”. I would agree that for a large portion of the novel the protagonists’ main agenda is to leave the barrio and there are symbols, such as the four skinny trees that support this. However, the conversation Esperanza has at the end of the novel with the elderly aunts seems to contradict this idea. The aunts remind Esperanza to come back to the barrio after she leaves. It seems to me like life in a Latin based neighborhood is not a favorable one, and the only way to both maintain the cultural aspects of the barrio and improve its infrastructure would be to bring outside education back to the barrio. My point of view is probably ignorant, but it is difficult for me to see any merit in continuing a way of life that is obviously degrading in at least an economical sense. I can understand wanting to maintain one’s cultural roots, but not in a way that leaves a community with no future but to become a relic.

      This novel seems like a cultural statement that was made without fully thinking through the concepts inherent in the piece. There are a couple chapters I feel are completely irrelevant and useless. Despite my discontent with the novel, the cultural ramifications of the story and certain motifs made reading this narrative at least somewhat interesting. 

Library Day 4/16 - 50/60s Article

     I believe that there are certain personal conflicts that run parallel throughout all human life that each of us experience at different times and in different ways. I am convinced that one of these is the maturation of a personal belief system that, while being a product of one’s environment, is formulated independently of the beliefs of others. As I was flipping through old issues of Time Magazine in the library looking for articles that would fit this assignment, I realized that there were defined ideological threads that connected many of the articles to the previous statement concerning belief systems. What interested me the most was that many of these articles were not specifically about people, yet I still felt that the “coming of age” motif was a prevalent aspect of these pieces.

     One of these articles was about the U.S. uranium industry and a study this operation had done in 1960 on the correlation between working in uranium mines and the prevalence of lung cancer.  The results were that lung cancer was almost five times higher in U.S. uranium miners than in American men in general. The article goes on to talk about meetings of rich, important people who talked of changes to alleviate this problem and then failed to implement these changes to their full extent while making sure they did just enough to look better than other nations. Admittedly, my tone concerning this article is meant to be bitter. Personally, I feel that the people in charge failed to protect their employees from a known carcinogen in order to satiate their personal material cravings. Comparatively, it seems like the U.S. uranium industry did attempt to do more than other countries in the context of this dilemma, which I do believe is a sign of maturation for our nation. Despite this, a lesson I learned as a child was that doing the right thing tends to only matter if you do all of it. It does not seem like the executives did the right thing, but then again, there is probably a lot more to this story than what a magazine writer could fit into three pages.

     I realize that trying to express the “coming of age” motif in the context of ideas, and other inanimate or abiotic constructs, is abstract and probably a stretch. It’s true that human life only loosely connects to the everyday problems of nations, or the nebulous line between right and wrong. The conflicts and environments of a nation or company, as opposed to a human, are uniquely different, but both continue to grow and decay – rise and fall – have good days and bad ones – live and die.  I guess what I’m trying to say is that life will happen regardless of our personal agenda, and the decisions we make when faced with a conflict determine the progression or regression of our lives either in our eyes or the eyes of those around us. It seems to me that most aspects of life contain conflict, and resolving conflict leads to growth and maturation. The growth, or “coming of age”, of nations and companies could be seen as the maturation of humans as a species, rather than as individuals. This is a concept I believe is fully evidenced by the presence of more humane systems of government and the spread of equality. I think that “coming of age” is present in all of these places and ideas because when it comes down to it, depending on your religious beliefs, everything is a direct or indirect construct of the human mind. If maturation of ideas and one’s beliefs is a prevalent conflict in our minds, why shouldn’t that be seen in what our minds create?