Conversation Partners #5

     Ever since Deo and I started meeting, I have always meant to ask him about about food in Rwanda and what he thought about American food.  I finally got the perfect opportunity to do so in our meeting yesterday.  Deo called me and asked if we could meet at the BLUU because he was very hungry.  It took a while to find Deo because on the phone, he just kept telling me that he "was at the restaurant."  So thinking he was at the "restaurant," I first went to Chickfila.  After waiting there for a while, I called Deo back and realized at the BLUU.  In his defense, I guess the BLUU is in fact a restaurant, I have just never thought of it like that.

     I had already eaten lunch, so I grabbed a cup of water and followed Deo around as he got his food.  When my friends and I eat at the BLUU, we grab our plates, go to one specific line, and get some food.  The first observation that I made about Deo was that he did not do this.  He would start at the vegetarian line and walk through all of the lines and really think about what he wanted.  After he got all of his food, we sat down and began our conversation.

     Of course, the first thing I wanted to ask Deo was how long it took him to get accustomed to American food; his answer was quite amusing.  He told me that he still isn't used to the food here and that he really doesn't like it.  He said that in Rwanda, most of the food is baked and almost no oil is used in their cooking while in America, everything is cooked and covered in oil.

     We continued talking about this for a while until Deo realized that he really liked the rice that they were serving today, so he got up to get more.  At first, he took his plate which still had food on it with him to go get more.  I stopped him and told him that at restaurants like this, we have to go get a second, clean plate to go get more food.  He didn't quite understand why and thought it was wasteful, but he did it anyway.  Even I thought that this social norm was a little weird and wasteful when I learned about it as a kid.  Why do I have to go dirty another clean plate just to go get another piece of pizza?  I know it has to do with germs, but I still think it is a little silly. 

     Anyway, I got to finally learn what Deo thought about food here, and we had a great conversation about it.  I am looking forward to our last meeting later today!

Learning Experience #4

I relearned how to play the guitar this weekend.

It's not that I forgot how to play the instrument, I just forgot how to allow myself time to play.  For the past four years, guitar has been a very big part of my life.  Some people read or play video games to escape stressors and relax.  I have tried these and many other activities for leisure, but they have never been able to fill my needs.  Finally, I discovered the guitar.  I found myself being able to sit down and lose myself in the fretboard for hours instead of the five to ten minutes that I was able to read a book. 

Up until this semester, I was always willing and able to adjust my schedule to allow for this special time.  Whether I stayed up an hour later than I typically would or decided to wing a biology lab quiz, I understood the benefits of this alone time and made these sacrifices.  Unfortunately, in my attempt to take 17 hours this semester, I forgot to allow myself this time.  Each day, I would walk into my room and see my guitars on their stands and think to myself, "If only I had time." It had been so long.  I had not even had time to find new songs that I was interested in learning.

Finally, this past Sunday, I decided to make room.  I am a big Washington Wizards fan, so I was sitting in our living room watching the game on mute while filling out flashcards for my organic chemistry lab final.  At the half, I turned the TV off and really started to focus on these flashcards.  Then I thought to myself: if these professional athletes get a break, maybe I deserve one, too.  I went in my room, grabbed my guitar and tuner, and moved the flashcards off of the table.  It had been so long that my nice guitar, which can go several hours of playing while staying perfectly in tune, was a whole step (2 frets) flat.  I eventually got it sounding nice again and began picking.  The first thing that I noticed was that the calluses on my finger tips that develop after months of playing were completely gone; it felt as if my fingers had never touched the strings before.

I played for a while and then turned the TV back on because I thought that halftime would be over.  To my surprise, there were 2 minutes left in the third quarter.  I was finally able to lose myself in something again.  It felt so reinvigorating.

Uncontrollable Laughter #2

     I have a religion night class.  I hate night classes.  Fortunately, the professor is really laid back and the class is full of funny people.  Also, because it starts at 5:30, many students bring food with them to hold them over until a ridiculously late dinner.  This past week, one student, let's name him Josh, brought a banana in for his class.  Josh has also had the professor in some of the other classes that she teaches, so he in particular feels comfortable joking with the professor.  Upon finishing the banana, Josh thought it would be funny to attempt to throw the peel in the trash can.  As you can probably guess, he missed terribly.  What was funny about his miss was that it landed on the overhead projector in the corner of the room.  Also, the professor did not notice because she was focused on the lecture.  Josh crawled on his hands and knees up to the projector, reached up, grabbed the banana, and dropped it in the trashcan all without the professor noticing.  At this point, the entire class was laughing and the professor was so confused.

     The funniest part for me was that the professor never learned why the entire class suddenly burst into laughter.  Somehow the class kept it together and never spilled the beans.  She kept asking over and over again over the course of a few minutes.  After 5 minutes, the class finally calmed down enough to continue with the lecture.  I am just really glad the professor did not offer extra credit for anyone to tell her what was going on; that would have made for a much less exciting story.

 

Learning Experience #3

     I am a chronic procrastinator.  For some unknown reason, procrastinating has always worked for me.  I am not saying that I can sit down the night before an exam and be stress-free while looking over my notes- I am usually stressed to the max.  However, I am able to use this stress as motivation to study.  This works, but I know it isn't efficient or healthy for me.

     This is always the dilemma for me: it is hard for me to just casually do work because I need stress for motivation, but the stress is beginning to take its toll on me.  Recently, with the help of this class, it has been my goal to break this habit. The main reason I started this goal was because it would be impossible and incorrect to do 12 blog posts and 10 comments in a single night.  Because of this, I have forced myself to evenly distribute the posts throughout the semester.  Also, it would not be interesting to see my blog posts, which are supposed to be a representation of my growth throughout the semester, all clumped together in the last week of the semester.

     So how has this been working for me?  Well, I'm not going to lie, it was extremely difficult at first.  I would come up with excuses such as "well... I have a big test this week so there's no way I can do a post."  Eventually, I began to make progress.  The biggest thing that helped me break the cycle of procrastination was looking forward to finals week.  If I left a lot of my work in this class for that week along with 6 final exams, I would fail miserably.  I began to see it as the sooner I finish these things, the more time I'll have to study for my two big organic chemistry finals.

     All in all, I think I have taken a large dent out of my procrastination habit.  Last week, I even began to make study guides and note cards for my other exams (something that I usually wait until dead days to do).  I hope I can keep myself focused on this goal of mine. I have noticed that it leaves me more time to have fun, so I plan to use this as my motivation in the future.

Funny Situations

Learning Experience #2

     This past weekend, I went to New Orleans. Needless to say, I learned a lot on the trip. The first thing I learned is that I should no longer let a long drive keep me from going somewhere. I have passed up several opportunities to go on trips simply because I didn't want to drive too far away. Luckily on this trip, I was forced to put up with the drive. To my surprise, minus the idiot drivers in Baton Rouge, the drive wasn't too bad. Even if it was a pain, I would have been extremely disappointed if I missed out on the trip because of it.

     The next thing I learned on my trip is that there are certain times where I need to stop worrying about how much money I am spending and just concentrate on having fun. Yes, I went over the budget that I allowed myself, but I wouldn't have had half the fun if I was constantly worrying about this. On past vacations, I've spent a lot of time worrying about my budget, and now I feel like it really held me back from making the best of my trip. Trips like this are typically a rare thing for me, so I can justify splurging like this a couple times a year.

     The last major thing that I learned on this trip is to never let preconceptions from keeping me from trying something new. I went to Felix's, a famous oyster bar, and was physically forced to try a raw oyster. I'm not here to say that I loved it, but I did love the experience. My trip also included me doing something else that I never thought I would do. I won't say what it was on here, but I will say that it was completely legal, and I now have a small, permanent souvenir to commemorate the best trip of my life.

Conversation Partners #4

     Deo and I met again last Tuesday. This was a very important day for him (and all other Rwandas) because it was the twentieth anniversary of the start of the Rwandan Genocide. We began talking about our school work and Deo was worried because of how busy he was. He had two essays that were due the next day and he had to speak at TCU's commemoration that night. On top of this, he explained that this week is always a very hard and emotional week for him because he lost many family members in the genocide. This was the first time that Deo really opened up to me. It felt good to see how far we had come as friends and to see that Deo felt comfortable sharing such personal details with me, but I couldn't help but feel really bad for him. In Rwanda, everything is closed on this day, and here's Deo stressed out of his mind with schoolwork and trying to cope with the loss of loved ones. This just made me think of how often this must happen and how certain national holidays should be recognized out of respect for other cultures.

      After talking about this for a while, Deo told me that he recently bought his first laptop. He told me this because he was very confused once he opened it and realized that it didn't come with any software like Word. I told him that you have to buy that separately and he looked very confused. He didn't understand why he would have to make another purchase simply to write papers. This was another stressor that was really putting Deo down. However, this time I was able to help. My dad's office is constantly going through computers, so they have tons of access codes for Microsoft Office laying around. I called him and he said that he could get one for him within a week. Until then, I showed him Google Docs and gave him a quick tutorial. It felt good to be able to lift a little bit of weight off of Deo's shoulders. We said our goodbyes, and I let Deo get back to his busy schedule.