Uncontrollable Laughter #2

Today I walked into the basement lounge of Milton Daniel. It happens to be right next to my room, so I tend to visit the lounge frequently because people are always baking and I can smell what they are making due to my proximity to the room. My roommate and I were extremely bored between classes and smelled brownies being baked, so we decided to check it out and see if we could get some brownies while we waited for class to start. We entered the lounge to find our two friends, Ashley and Chris, baking the brownies. We kindly asked if we could have some of the brownies when they were done cooking and they were generous enough to give us some of the brownies. But now we were presented with a dilemma. We had 25 minutes before the brownies were done and of course they had to cool off for a little while after they came out of the oven. So, I decided to see what we around the room that we could play with for a little while. I found some extra eggs that Chris and Ashley hadn’t used in the batter for the brownies. Jackpot. At first, we just started throwing the eggs around at each other, kind of in a hot potato fashion. As we were playing “hot egg”, I had a revelation. My grand moment of clarity was to see if I could trick my roommate into thinking that you cannot break an egg if you press on the sides as hard as you can. Now, before you go ranking on my roommate for actually doing something this stupid and sketchy, there actually is some truth to it. If you take an egg and put the butt end and the pointy end in between your hands at the base of your palms, it is indeed impossible to break an egg. You can try it if you truly desire, I promise it will not break if you do it correctly. The problem is, not many people know the correct placement and technique when they press against the egg so it does not break. Usually what happens is that the egg will slide slightly from its original position, throwing the balance and distribution of the pressure off. This results in the egg breaking. Luckily, I know how to do it so that the egg will not break, even if I use all of what little strength I have to attempt to crush it in between my hands. So, I showed Hunter, my roommate, that it is in fact impossible to break the egg if it’s in this position. I told him that he needs to give it a try and at first he refused. But I used good old peer pressure to finally get the once reluctant roommate to agree to try it. The only condition he had was that he wanted to do it over the sink just in case something went wrong. I said that was perfectly fine. So, I handed him the egg and he proceeded to walk over to the sink. He positioned the egg in between his palms and my friend Chris got his video camera ready. Hunter began to press against the egg. At first, everything happened as it was supposed to. He couldn’t break the egg because he was timid about putting pressure on the egg because he didn’t want it to break all over him and the clothes he was wearing. To my delight, after seeing that it actually works he gained the confidence to try again, but this time giving it all of his strength. Going with my expectations perfectly, the excess force caused his hands to move slightly thus causing the egg to burst all over him, the sink, the cabinets above the sink, and the wall behind the sink. Chris and I broke into immediate uncontrollable laughter. Tears streaming down our face when he turned to us and his hair was drenched in egg, he stormed out of the room while uttering the words “I hate y’all”. Unfortunately, this seems to be a common exchange between my roommate and me because he seems to be the cause of my laughter quite often. He’s a good sport about it though and usually gets over what had happened within a few minutes. What caused me to laugh was a combination of laughing at his misfortune and the fact that what I thought was going to happen actually worked and went as planned. The astonishment of things actually going as planned was just an addition to my source of laughter. Was it the superiority theory? I think there was certainly an aspect of it. I felt that I had outsmarted him and tricked him into doing something that I had suspected would happen and it amused me that he was gullible enough to actually try it. Am I saying that I’m more intelligent than him? Of course not. But I certainly felt like I was for that short amount of time and it helped to contribute to my laughter in addition to laughing at his physical humor, thinking that I was glad it was not me. To make this story more visible, I will attempt to get the video posted on my blog as well, so that hopefully you all can share my laughter at this event. 

Conversation #1

Today I sat down with my conversation partner for the first time. The beginning was a little awkward because he wasn’t sure what he was supposed to do. He thought that he had to do work as well. When I informed him that he didn’t have to do anything, he seemed much more relieved and relaxed in our conversation. From there we started with the basics. His name is Gang Tian, but he likes to be called Tristan because that is what everyone calls him and that is what he is used to. When I asked him why, he said he didn’t know, but he liked it. It is a 20 hour flight from Dallas to Beijing, China, where Tristan lives. There are no direct flights to Dallas from his airport so he has to have a layover. He is majoring in piano performance, an instrument he has been playing since he was 6 years old. Our conversation jumped around through extremely diverse conversation topics, with no real order or pattern to the things we talked about. We would be talking about one thing, and then the next thing we know we’re on a completely different topic with no recollection of how we got there. I think that’s a good thing though. It shows that we had a lot to talk about and that the conversation was interesting and engaging. As it turns out, Tristan has been in many states. More than I have been. I questioned myself as to why that is, because it made me feel almost unpatriotic that I had to ask someone from a different country what California is like or what St. Louis is like. Going into the conversation I was certainly not expecting to be asking him what certain states in the US were like. He was in so many different states because he had to do a bunch of auditions for colleges and they were spread out across the country. He says that his favorite state is California because the people are really friendly and the weather is very nice. He actually got to stay in New York for a month, about 30-45 minutes from where I live, which was an instant connection and excitement for me because I got to ask him some questions about my home town. I asked him to compare New York City to Beijing, considering that they are both big, major cities. He said that New York had more freedom. Compared to Beijing it was extremely open and you had the liberty to do what you wanted. In Beijing, he says, you have certain roles and expectations that are associated with your age in society. At his age, you are expected to go to school and to study. You have to do it. But in New York, you don’t have to if you don’t want to. Although it is normal to do so, you are not forced by your government or by your society to do so. Now on that point I disagreed with him to some extent. I said that in America it’s true that education is not forced on you. But higher education degrees are getting so common that it is hard to find a job with a college degree. Therefore, if it is hard to find a job and you possess a college degree, which means almost everyone else has a college degree as well. So I said that if you really think about it, it’s almost like you are forced to get an education, otherwise it’s almost impossible to get a job. He said I talked too fast for him to understand all of what I was saying, so I just laughed it off and said let’s get back to New York. He went on to say that diversity is much more popular in New York City, to which I thought that it was a proper statement considering it is called the “melting pot”. Then he said something that surprised me. He said that not a lot of foreigners are welcome in Beijing. Beijing’s very historical and traditional compared to New York and because of that, the government and its citizens do not take well to foreigners. I asked why else he thinks that is the case, and he continued to surprise me with his answers. He said that the people in power are extremely selfish. They think that they deserve all of the resources in their country and the foreigners shouldn’t get any access to them because they do not live there or contribute to the making of the resources they have. The government is extremely restrictive of what its citizens can do. They can’t access facebook or youtube because the government feels that it will influence their thought patterns and make them realize that their country is not good. In turn, these thoughts will gain followers and there will be a rebellion among the people that want a new government. Tristan said that if someone wants to travel from Beijing to Hong Kong, they need to get permits and visas to do so. “What other country makes you get visas to visit a city in your own country?” he asks me, “It’s like you want to visit Fort Worth, but you need a permit and a visa to do so because you’re from New York”. I couldn’t believe what he was saying. I had always heard that we had freedom and we were lucky to live in such a great country, but had never realized it until talking to Tristan. I truly am blessed to live in a place where I can access facebook and youtube every day if I wanted to. Then I thought about what he had said about the rejection of foreigners in his country because I was thinking of the Olympics and how that had worked if they typically rejected foreigners. He said that it wasn’t a problem, and living there during the Olympics was crazy and terrific at the same time. He actually volunteered for the diving program at the Olympics and got to help athletes change their clothes or just be a tour guide for them. Sticking on the topic of foreigners, I asked him what it was like to come to a country like the United States, one with no definite culture and no official language, being an outsider. Was it hard to adapt? How did you find the different norms and values to be? He said that the transition wasn’t difficult at all. This really surprised me because I was expecting him to say that it wasn’t easy because it was so different. But he said that it is easy to adapt because the people are so nice in America. They welcome people from the outside. He said that his roommate is especially helpful because even though his English is broken, he still understands everything that he says and is willing to help. He loves the food here. He says that the food is also very easy to adapt to. Back home, he ate a lot of noodles and dishes that his mom would make. These dishes consisted of frying anything that she had lying around the house. They have a lot of fast food in China because it is so convenient and they don’t have time to cook. He said that the Chinese don’t eat very healthy and that he thinks American’s diets are much healthier. This shocked me. Americans are typically described as fat, lazy people by outsiders. But he believed that we eat healthier than most Chinese people in Beijing. What?! I asked him what he meant and why he thought that because I was so perplexed by his answer and he said that people never eat fruit where he is from and everyone loves to drink alcohol. There is no age limit where he lives so people consume mass amounts. They also smoke a lot. He thinks that people don’t care that they will get cancer and because that in Beijing people don’t typically exercise or work out very often, the health of his city is much worse than the health in the United States. We talked about much, much more but I will save the content for more write-ups because I can go on for quite some time about our conversation. After our conversation was over I found myself thinking about everything he had said to me. I just couldn’t believe life was so different for him. Could I have really been so ignorant to what his culture and everyday life was like? In a way, it made me question my own intelligence and realize that I wasn’t culturally aware what so ever. How could it be possible that I was so ignorant? I’m extremely happy to have this opportunity though, because it has exploited something about me that I need to develop and work on and I look forward to my other meetings with Tristan, to learn more about him, his family, and his culture. 

Are Women Actually Equal To Men?

While sitting in sociology class (I have come to realize that this class makes me think about things more than I ever have before) we were talking about gender roles and socialization in society. Don't worry, you don't have to know anything about socialization to understand what I'm about to rant about. So we were sitting in class talking about gender roles in our society and people were arguing that the roles of men and women have changed so that women were equal with men in our society. I couldn’t help but argue with their views. I promise I’m not saying that women’s roles in society haven’t increased in reputation; there is no doubt in my mind that women have made big advancements in society. My argument is that women are still perceived as inferior to men.

Even from when children are first born, boys and girls are treated differently from one another. Boys are automatically associated with blue and girls are associated with pink. If a couple walks down their street with a boy dressed in pink, I’m sure that people who stop to see the baby will be extremely perplexed and even think of the couple as weird. This is because the couple would be breaking the social norm that blue is for boys and pink is for girls. Even as the kids continue to grow they are treated differently. The games boys and girls play are different. Have you ever heard of a group of boys playing house? Not likely, because girls are supposed to be playing house and other games that focus on group work, nurturing, and communication. Society expects girls to act this way. Boys are supposed to play cops and robbers or superheroes. Games that involve competition and fighting bad guys, games that have a winner and a looser, are reserved for boys.

Besides the fact that boys and girls are raised differently, in adulthood I believe that women are still treated as inferior to men. I think two things that advocate for this view are salaries and jokes. Women get paid less than men do for doing the same work. What sense does that make? If two people do the same thing, it would be logical to assume that they receive the same compensation for their work. But that just isn’t the case. Getting paid less for the same job is just reinforcing the fact that women are inferior to men. Another way women are reminded they are inferior to men is in the popular jokes in our society and culture. People constantly joke about women not being able to drive like men, that women only belong in the kitchen, or women, especially blonde women, are less intelligent than men. It is the consistency and normality of these jokes that is the problem. The fact that people don’t see anything wrong with them proves that our society truly believes women are inferior to men, because if it didn’t the majority of people would take offense to these jokes, even if they were told to men. We have become desensitized to the issue of gender in our society because of the role that these types of jokes play. They enable degrading comments about women to become a normalcy in our society.

Another way to look at the inequality between men and women would be through sports. There’s a reason that women professional sports’ ticket sales are so much lower than male professional sports’ ticket sales. People don’t have an interest in women’s sports, furthermore reinforcing the fact that men are superior to women. The WNBA doesn’t even get all of its games televised. In fact, during the summer, which is the offseason for the NBA and the in-season for the WNBA, the NBA still gets more coverage than the WNBA on ESPN. How is that possible? The NBA doesn’t even have any games going on. Just out of curiosity, I asked 10 people that were passing by me in my dorm if they knew when the WBNA season was in season. 1 out of 10 actually knew. The other responses? A mix of “I have absolutely no idea”, “come on, nobody actually watches that”, and “why are you asking me about a women’s sport”. One of the people I asked actually told me an interesting statistic, I’m not sure if it’s true, but he told me that around 80% of people would rather receive 5 dollars than have their WNBA team win the finals. Now, this could be entirely false, but it wouldn’t surprise me if it were true.

Are women actually equal to men? I believe that society reinforces everyday that they still have yet to reach this feat. Is their standing in society getting better? Yes it is. But if society’s norms towards women continue the way they are now, it may be some time before women are actually considered fully equal to men. 

First Bout of Uncontrollable Laughter

Last night, or I should say this morning I guess, at around 1:30 in the morning one of my roommates excused himself to use the restroom. As the room was already dark, I saw this as an amazing opportunity to scare him when he came back. I warned my other roommate, who was laying in his bed, about my plan and began executing it. I shut off the rest of the lights. I assumed my roommate would think nothing of it because it was late and I thought that he would think my other roommate and I went to sleep. I then hid in the closet that is closest to the door into our room. As I was anticipating my roommate’s return from the bathroom, my other roommate and I began to laugh uncontrollably. I could envision what was about to take place and my roommate’s reaction to being scared and I just began to shake with uncontrollable laughter. At this point my other roommate, the one lying in his bed (I know it gets a little confusing trying to follow which roommate is which, sorry about that), looked at me laughing uncontrollably and began to laugh himself. We were both picturing the events that were about to unfold in front of us. After we regained composure, the door opened and the light from the hallway made its way into our room. I began to shake with laughter once again and almost blew the whole operation but thankfully someone in the hallway called my roommate’s name and he had to go back outside. I finally collected myself once again. The door opened. I prepared myself for what was about to happen and waited a few seconds. I wanted my roommate to take a couple steps in the room so he could be aware of his surroundings before I scared him because I find that sometimes if people are confused, the effect of them being scared isn't as great as it can be. I also wanted to give the door a chance to close as much as possible, so it was as dark as possible. I finally jumped out of the closet and screamed as my roommate was walking by. His reaction was priceless. He reacted by dropping his jaw wider than anyone I have ever seen, bulging his eyes, raising his hands, and screaming at the top of his lungs. It had never occurred to me before this point that I might actually be putting myself in danger by doing this to him. When he raised his hands, I thought that he actually might hit me. I hadn't thought about that possibility before I thought of the plan. But, needless to say I laughed uncontrollably for about 3 minutes straight otherwise I wouldn't be writing this blog. Once I stopped laughing, I thought about his reaction and began to laugh uncontrollably once again. My roommate that was lying in bed also laughed uncontrollably as well at his reaction. The roommate that was scared, however, did not find this even to be particularly funny. I had expected him to act this way because we were gaining pleasure at his expense. He actually at one point told me he hated me. So, how were we each affected by this experience? Well the roommate that was lying in his bed and I got a great abs workout and the victim of my prank got the scare of his life time and was probably unable to fall asleep for a while because his body was pumping with adrenaline from his flight-or-fight response. So, it had a positive effect on two of us and a negative effect on one. And I guess it was only really humorous to my one roommate and me because we were not the victim of the prank. This makes me think that humor has to be something positive to be considered humor to people because my roommate who was scared certainly doesn’t think that the situation was humorous. I personally also think that humor can be used in negative ways to hurt people’s feelings or make them feel bad about themselves. But I think that in this situation, it is only perceived as humor to the people that are benefiting at the expense of the victim of the cruel humor. The victim certainly won’t find their version of humor funny. So I think that humor needs to be perceived as positive in order to be considered humor. Was this prank a bad thing to do? Was it cruel? I think that if I didn’t know my roommates as well as I do it would be a different story but because we are so close, I don’t think that this necessarily makes me a bad person. Of course, you are all entitled to your own opinions of whether this prank was a bad or good idea on my part.

Garbage Men and Doctors

We were sitting in Introduction to Sociology on Wednesday and my professor started to talk about the Conflict Theory. The conflict theory suggests that certain sociologists look at society through a lens that emphasizes the tensions within society. So, instead of looking at things with a positive outlook or figuring out the different parts of society and what make them work, Conflict Theorists focus on the tensions between groups in society. They see some groups taking advantage of and benefiting at the expense of other groups. While talking about the Conflict Theory, my professor brought up communism. I must admit that I began to tune out the lecture on focus on things I deemed more important because communism has never been an interesting topic in my opinion. Then my professor said something that caught my attention and made me think. He started talking about a garbage man and a doctor and asked why we pay doctors more. I began to think. Why do we pay doctors more? Sure, they have much more schooling and education compared to a garbage man. But which one do you depend on more from a day to day basis? Do you see your doctor every day? I would hope not. But your garbage man comes by almost every day and cleans up after you. Looking at it from this perspective, you depend on a garbage man much more than a doctor on a day to day basis. But yet, a doctor has much more respect and authority than a garbage man does. Which do you need more? Yes, there are multiple cases where doctors are needed to save lives, but you can also say the same for garbage men believe it or not. What would happen if they never came to pick up your trash every morning? Where would it go? Trash would build up in the cities, the streets, and in people’s homes. Conditions would become unsanitary. Diseases would be able to thrive and flourish and then you would depend on your doctor on a daily basis. Now do garbage men actually save lives? Probably not, that’s a hard argument to fight. But they certainly do you a favor by making your living conditions sanitary and habitable. Getting back to their respective salaries, why do doctors get paid so much more? Yes, they have longer hours and much more education. And in many people’s eyes the doctor’s job is much more important. I’m not saying that doctor’s don’t deserve the respect and the salaries that they get; I’m just saying that I think you should reconsider some other people’s worth. Maybe we should lower doctor’s salaries a little bit so people like garbage men get some more money for doing a job that we depend on much more frequently than a doctor. Is there another interest being served here? There is certainly more money to be made in the medicinal industry in comparison to the sanitary department. From a Conflict Theorist’s perspective, it would seem as if one group is taking advantage of and benefiting at the expense of another group. Whose interest is truly being served? Is it for the greater good of the public? Does it benefit us? I’m not sure. For one thing, I’ll tell you that I’m extremely grateful to be seen by a good doctor when I become ill or when I am in need of health services. But I can also say that I need a garbage man much more frequently than I need a doctor. I think that both jobs are extremely important. In some circumstances, one seems to be much more important than the other. So I think that they both have their moments of benefiting society. But are the doctor’s moments of glory and aid really that much better than a garbage man’s? Whoever is reading this probably thinks that I’m crazy. I assure you that I am quite sane. I also can assure you that I am not a communist. These are just some thoughts that popped into my head during class while thinking about the issues we were discussing at the time. You don’t have to agree with everything or anything I’m saying, but I think it would be worthwhile if you took some time and thought about some of these ideas as well. 

What Is Literature?

The other day in class we were discussing the meaning of literature and trying to categorize different books, maps, brochures, etc. into what we thought was literature and what we thought didn’t make the cut. After, we went around the class and attempted to define what we thought literature was, only to find that it was quite subjective and not really something that everyone can agree on. So, after class I was thinking about our discussion and people’s opinions on what they thought literature was and I started to come up with my own definition. While I think it is impossible to put an objective definition to something subjective, this is what I came up with. I think that literature is like music. In music, technically, in order to be called music it needs to be intended to be heard as music by its composer and also needs to be perceived as music by its audience. For example, there is a piece of music called 4’33” (4 Minutes 33 Seconds) which consists of a pianist walking out on stage, starting a stop watch, flipping the pages of the score at directed times, getting up and taking a bow, and waking off the stage. The pianist never plays a note. Most people wouldn’t consider this music. But, composer John Cage intended it to be music. The music, he claims, is the sounds of the pianist’s footsteps across the stage, the sound of the stopwatch, the coughing from the audience, and the hum of the air conditioner in the background. What makes it music is that people in the audience actually perceived it as music and, while at first they were skeptical, eventually people began to applaud John Cage for his work of music. I believe that this also refers to literature as well. Just as we all have different favorite music artists, we also all have different favorite authors. I actually believe that literature and music can be very similar in their subjective definitions. An older person probably doesn’t consider screamo music to actually be categorized as music. This is because they do not perceive it as music. But there are plenty of teens around the country and the world that perceive it as music and listen to it on a daily basis. “50 Shades of Gray” is a popular book that many people perceive as literature. My roommate doesn’t perceive it that way. My roommate believes that it is “fan-fiction” and doesn’t deserve to be called literature. There are plenty of people who read “50 Shades of Gray” and believe it to be a captivating piece of literature that they enjoyed reading. What I’m saying is that music and literature are similar because they are perceived differently by different people. The perception of both literature and music vary with generation, age, gender, and race. It’s not a coincidence that Twilight appeals to many girls and does not appeal to a majority of guys. It is because Twilight was perceived as literature much more commonly in girls. Another example would be Moby Dick or Grapes of Wrath. People of older generations and age will consider these two novels to be literature. But people of my generation and age group, including teens in high school, would dread reading both novels because they are long and considered to be a dry read by most people of that sociodemographic. That particular sociodemographic is more likely to consider texting and digital messages like e-mails as literature. My point is I believe that literature is something that needs to be intended to be literature by its author and perceived to be literature by an audience. That is what makes something literature. There is no concrete definition that will be able to sort a collection of words into piles of ‘literature’ and ‘not literature’. Everybody’s pile is different.