Second River Reflection

As I sit on this bench with the semester closing, it feels nice to take a step back and reflect on not only this semester but my entire college experience. With finals about to start, it is nice to be out in nature without a care in the world. I can push school to the side and just appreciate this calm time. The weather has cooled off drastically from the start of the semester, so I am not profusely sweating as I write.

When I first got to TCU, I was a young eighteen year old boy who had never been away from my parents for longer than a few days. I did not know the ways of the world. I had jobs, but I had not had to balance any type of budget. My schedule was perfectly laid out for me. If I slept through an alarm, my mom would be there to wake me up. I was in an environment that felt completely natural. I grew up and lived in the same house my entire life. Now, here I was, living in a completely different city without the same support network. I had a roommate for the first time in my life. More time would need to be spent out of class than in class. There were no bells telling me when and where to go for class. The level of difficulty ramped up tremendously. If I had any questions, I had to be resourceful and find people to ask.

As semesters passed, however, I came to love this new found freedom. Sure, it had its consequences. If I stayed up late one night, I would be paying for it the next morning. How I was able to get to high school by 7:30 every day still amazes me. 8 AM classes seemed impossible to make. There was nobody reminding me of the homework that was due tomorrow. My professors didn't come and check on my progress. On the flip side, however, was the feeling that I had made it to adulthood. It may sound cheesy, but it was the greatest feeling. I made new friends from all over the world. I had the privilege to work with professors who have accomplished great things. I learned how to manage my money and prepare for the future. I excelled in my major and set myself up for medical school in the future.

Senior semester is coming to an end closer than I like to believe. I don't like to use the word "graduation" quite yet. In my house, there seemed to be an underlying "something" that all of us were experiencing. Certain things that normally we just let slide seemed to irritate us more. People's tempers seemed to flare up quicker. We came to the conclusion that it was the future. We have all grown so close, both within our house and with friends here, that we don't want to accept the inevitable. Some of us may end up in the same city, but we will all have "big boy" jobs now. We can't decide on a whim to go out a free Tuesday night. Fraternity chapter meetings that bring us all together will cease. Extra effort is going to have to be made to stay in contact. Sadly, there will be people who I likely won't see until college reunions.

Despite all this, I am ready to move forward. I have secured my spot in medical school. I have built lasting friendships that I know will endure. I have made connections with professors that I intend on keeping alive. I have prepared myself for the future and plan on attacking it head on. 

The Titanic

Hemingway is known for his Iceberg Technique in his writing. In this technique, he writes about 10% of the story and leaves the rest for the reader to interpret. The stories are complete, but many parts of the story are left unsaid. There is often not much history given, and the conclusion of the story is left up to the reader.

Initially, I was very excited to read Hemingway. He is a very well known American author, but I have very limited experience with his writing. I had been exposed to Huck Finn and Walden before, but I couldn't think of a time when I had read Hemingway. This initial excitement turned to dread, however, when I heard about the Iceberg Technique. I was not a big fan of trying to interpret what the author meant. It brought me back to high school English days. Teachers only accepted one interpretation for the literature we studied. If your interpretation deviated from the "correct" interpretation, you were wrong. Who cares if everyone has different backgrounds and experiences that may cause them to read literature differently? Clearly, the author only meant one thing when he wrote the literature. This thinking drove me nuts and led to many arguments with teachers.

Anyways, I promised myself I would at least give it an attempt. We started with Up In Michigan, and boy was I completely wrong. I did not expect what I read at all. It covered topics that I had never discussed in a academic setting. Honestly, I was completely shocked when I was done reading the story. After rereading the story, I came to appreciate the fact that details were left out. Hemingway did not need to spell everything out. Loose ends remained, and that was fine. Hemingway did not need to tell the reader how to think or how to interpret his stories; personal experiences and beliefs would handle that. Was it actually rape or not? Personally, I think it was. I drew that conclusion, however, from my belief system. Other people may see it differently, and that is completely alright. Most importantly, it got the class thinking. It was a touchy subject to discuss in class, but it was handled well.

I enjoyed the other short stories, but The Old Man and the Sea stuck out to me. The book is commonly referred to in popular culture, but I had never read it. At just over a hundred pages, it was a relatively fast and easy read. That definitely earned it some points in my book. Regardless, I found the book to be relatable, even though it was written way before my time. Some of the sections while Santiago is out on the sea got a bit repetitive, but ultimately it was a pleasure to read. Coming from a religious background, it was easy to pick out a good portion of the religious imagery. The group presentations pointed out even more than I had seen. Everybody had those "marlin" they have chased; some have been successful and some haven't. Was Santiago successful? I believe so. He may have had the fish destroyed by sharks, but I don't think that was the ultimate prize. Manolin comes back to work with him. He earns the respect of some local fishermen. He proved to himself that he could catch the fish. Through it all, however, a sad realization struck me. Santiago brought himself to the brink of death to catch this fish. His prize was destroyed by sharks. He hangs the carcass up, yet passing tourists believe it to be a shark. They are completely oblivious to everything Santiago went through. The world kept ticking as Santiago was having the battle of his life. I think about that in present day. People may be "fighting their marlin" without anybody knowing. I think this is why the book struck a chord with me.

By the end of the Hemingway section, I had changed my views on this literary technique. I was no longer "the Titanic" being destroyed by an iceberg. I didn't mind using my experiences and knowledge to tie up loose ends. Sometimes, loose ends can remain loose. I was able to interpret the stories in ways that were applicable to my life. I didn't have to fit some grading rubric to earn maximum points.

Sixth Conversational Partner Meeting

Well, the end has finally come. From our initial meeting to now, much has changed. I could barely get in contact with Sari at first, and now we regularly email each other. Communication flows a lot smoother. I rarely have to stop and define a word for him. He has definitely grown in his mastery of the English language. We have learned each other's backgrounds, families, cultures, and day to day life. He has grown from a class assignment to a true friend.

With dead days about to start, we decided to meet for lunch at McAllister's Deli before we got into finals mode. Believe me, I am not ready for that at all. I had been inundated with tests and papers recently, so this was a very nice break from the hustle and bustle of school. It is always nice to just sit and talk with a friend for a break.

Sari had heard a lot about the TCU football success and asked me about it. I by no means am a football expert, but I tried my best to explain what I knew. I told him how we had a great season this year, beating highly ranked teams. I also told him about the new playoff system. Before this year, the BCS committee determined the rank of the teams. They put the top two teams, in their opinion, in a bowl game. The winner of that game was the "national champion." There had been a lot of resistance to that system. The criteria for deciding those teams was not always clear. Sometimes there were multiple teams who seemed good enough for the national championship game. The old system had no way to handle three or four really good yet equal teams.

The new system implemented a playoff system. Every week, a committee of around twelve people met to discuss the current state of college football. They looked at all results from the previous week, and they released the top ten teams. The top four would be the teams that would go to playoffs. TCU had gotten on that list, which was great. At the second to last ranking, TCU was ranked third. Everyone was for sure that we were going to the playoffs. On our last week of football, we defeated Iowa St. easily. Unfortunately, Iowa St. was not highly ranked. Ohio State and Alabama played well. It wasn't so much what we did but how well the other teams performed. We dropped from three to six, and subsequently we were out of the playoffs. Even worse, we were ranked behind Baylor. I explained that if we were a "bigger" program that was more well known, we probably would have stayed in the playoffs. Hopefully, our players use their frustration with the system to come back with a vengeance next year. We are playing a good team in the Peach Bowl, and we need to show how good we are.

Sari seemed to understand about 90% of what I said, which is pretty impressive. I told him that he for sure needed to go to a game before he left TCU. It is such an American sport that can only be understood by directly participating. He promised me he would, so I will have to check next year to see if he did.

Finally, we got to the worst part: the goodbyes. Never easy to say, I was dreading this part. We had grown close, and it would be weird for this to come to a close. We promised we would stay in contact. I told him if he ever needed anything, whether it be football knowledge or places to visit, to shoot me an email. I let him know that all financial questions will be sent to him. I truly learned a lot about his culture, and I am so glad I had this experience.

Fifth Conversational Partner Meeting

The weather has finally started to cool off here in Fort Worth. No more wearing shorts and a T-shirt to class. It is finally time to bundle up, but at least we won't be drenched in sweat by the time we get to class. Sari and I decided to switch it up and meet at Starbucks. He said it reminded him of the coffeehouses back in Saudi Arabia.

Both Sari and I had prior engagements that we had to take care of today, so we were not able to meet for a long time. After briefly catching up on what we had been up to this week, we slowly started talking about family. I realized this might be a sensitive subject with him being isolated from most of his family, but he seemed fine to talk about it.

Sari is here at TCU with his younger sister. They are both enrolled in the IEP program at TCU. Before they are able to move forward with their CFA/CPA certifications, they must be certified in English. Sari did not seem too worried about passing the English exam, but he definitely was apprehensive about the CFA certification. From my understanding, it is a very rigorous exam for native English speakers. I can not even imagine the difficulty to a non-native speaker. As we had discussed earlier, his sister has had some initial difficulties with harassment. Sari actually went home and spoke with her about what we had discussed previously with the harassment. He said that it still happens rarely, but she handles it much better. I told him that he should bring her to one of our meetings. I would love to show her that the prejudices against foreigners are not wide spread. She made huge sacrifices to come to America and further her education. It would be terrible for her view to be tainted by a few jerks.

We also discussed Sari's previous marriage. He informed me that he had been married before, and he even had a boy who was ten. Unfortunately, the marriage was not working out when they got to the United States. They divorced, and she now lives in West Virginia with some family. I did not want to delve too deeply into that sensitive topic. Sari still gets to see his son occasionally, but you could definitely tell that he misses him. I can't imagine how hard it is to be that far away from your kid. As for the rest of his family, Sari's father died when he was young. He doesn't have very many memories of him. His mom is still alive, but she lives in Saudi Arabia. Communication is very difficult.

I told Sari about my younger sister. She is a sophomore at UNT in Denton, TX. She hopes to do commercial real estate, and Sari joked that he could help finance the purchases. Sari seems like a good guy to have on your investing team with all of his experience. I also described the city of Denton to him. With very limited travel inside Texas, Sari had no idea how different cities could be. I told him how different cities like Austin, Houston, and Fort Worth were. Each were known for different things and had completely different cultures.

I also talked to him about my parents. I described my home back in Houston. Both of my parents are from Michigan, so I have spent a lot of time in the north. He understand that culture a little due to his ex-wife and son. Sari was glad that he did not have to deal with all the snow down here. I wholeheartedly agreed. I let Sari know that this would be our second to last meeting. Both of our semesters were coming to a close, but we had both clearly taken away a lot from these meetings.

Fourth Conversational Partner Meeting

Last time Sari and I met, I felt like I was asking a lot of questions. I was very interested in what he had to say, but I felt like I asked the majority of the questions. I see these meetings as a way for both partners to learn about the other culture. Sari was getting the short end of the straw in my opinion. I felt like I was learning so much about his culture, yet he had barely scratched the surface of mine. Hoping to remedy this, I asked Sari to have some questions for me next time we met.

When we met up at Chick Fil A, Sari had informed me that he had "done his homework." He had thought about possible questions, and came up with "What is a typical week for you?" At first, I thought this was a pretty simple question. I follow a pretty set schedule every week. As I thought about it more, however, I realized it would truly reflect American culture. The ways in which I budgeted my time, the places I visited, and the people I hang out with reflect on me as a person.

I started off by telling him about my living situation. I currently live in a house near campus with four other roommates. We all met freshman year and have been great friends since. We may get in fights over who has to clean the house or do the dishes, but we ultimately get along very well. All of us have contributed furniture, electronics, silverware, etc to the house. We even decided to all pitch and buy a real Christmas tree this year. From finance to biology, we have a diverse set of majors that keeps conversations interesting. Sari joked that he would have loved to live like that when he was younger, but he didn't think he could handle it at his age now.

He already knew a lot about my school schedule, so I didn't spend too much time on that. I briefly mentioned research, and Sari's ears perked right up. I'm not quite sure if he was being polite or genuinely interested, but he seemed eager to hear about my research. I tried my best to describe working in a lab to a non-science major. I also don't know how well words like "pipette" and "growth medium" translate.

Finally, I talked to him about some extracurricular activities I am involved in. Explaining the concept of a fraternity to him was interesting. I told him how we hosted different events both on and off campus. We were involved in philanthropy and participated in many events with sororities. Sari likes to stay active, so we talked about the gym a bit. I told him that if he looks running or biking, the trails by the Trinity River offer a great view while you exercise. He seemed very interested in visiting.

After this meeting, I felt like we had evened out the playing field. Sari had asked questions about my culture. He seemed very engaged in the conversation. Hopefully, Sari took something from our meeting today. I can't wait to see what he has to say next time!

Third Conversational Partner Meeting

When we last left off, Sari and I had planned out a list of things that he could try around the DFW area. He was interested in all that Fort Worth had to offer, and I tried to point him in the way of some cool attractions. Unfortunately, he was not able to attend the football game. It was a very rowdy crowd, so it might have been a huge culture shock for him. Hopefully he is able to attend some games in the future. I really think he would enjoy it.

I must have been feeling extra hungry during our meeting, because our conversation started to gravitate towards food. Maybe, though, food is just a universal language that brings people from all cultures together. It doesn't matter your background; everybody can enjoy great food. In many ways, food is an art form. Food is not just about the physical food. It is going to hole-in-the-wall restaurants to try a brand new cuisine. It is the preparation, cooking, and presentation.

Anyways, I started asking Sari about Saudi Arabian cuisine. I don't have much experience with Middle Eastern food, so I was interested in what he had to say. The two main dishes that characterize this culture are falafel and shawarma. Falafel is made from deep fried chickpeas or fava beans. They are ground up and made into balls. They can be served in a pita or flatbread. Falafel can also be glazed with different toppings. Shawarma is a way to prepare different meats, including chicken, turkey, beef, and lamb. It is cooked on a vertical stick over a grill for up to a day. The meat is shaved off this giant block and added to a sandwich or wrap. Different toppings, like tabbouleh or hummus, can be added.

Saudi Arabia is also known for its coffee houses. Sari told me that it was standard to offer guests coffee. It was a sign of generosity. He said that coffeehouse were ubiquitous across Saudi Arabia. Fast food is also gaining traction in Saudi Arabia. They have many of the classics that we have here in America.

Finally, Sari told me that he did not eat any pork. As we discussed earlier, he also does not drink alcoholic drinks. Both of these are due to his religion. I told him we would get along well, because I can't stand most pork dishes. He thought it was funny when I told him he wasn't missing out on much.

With all this talk about his cuisine, I felt I needed to share what I considered to be the most Texan cuisine, BBQ. He had not had BBQ here in Fort Worth, so I pointed him in the direction of Railhead and Angelo's. I explained to him how they slow cook the meat all day in giant smokers. They use different types of woods to flavor the meat. The final topping, the sauce, either makes or breaks the meal. I also explained the typical sides are usually beans, potato salad, and cole slaw. As long as he stayed clear of the pork ribs and sausage, he would easily be able to find BBQ he could enjoy.

I left this meeting hungrier than usual, but I left wanting to try new foods. I will need to find a good Middle Eastern restaurant around Fort Worth. It was awesome watching food bridge the gap between two completely different cultures. Hopefully Sari is able to try some BBQ. I really think he would enjoy it.

First River Reflection

As I sit by the Trinity River, I remember back to my time working with LEAPS. LEAPS is a community outreach program that TCU sponsors. There are two events every year, one per semester. Before each event, you get to pick the area that interests you the most. They usually have around 10-12 activities, ranging from volunteering at a school to picking up trash. Last year, I decided to plant trees along the Trinity River.

Waking up at 7 AM on a Saturday is no easy task. With long, busy weeks full of exams and papers, signing up to plant trees on a Saturday morning did not sound very appealing. My entire lab had decided to participate in this activity, so I felt like I should contribute as well. Once we arrived in the commons, we were placed in our respective buses to go to our sites. We drove around for 45 minutes, hopelessly lost. Our guide had no idea where we were supposed to be. This did little to ease the morning grogginess. We finally arrived at our site, and one of the park workers taught us how to plant trees. All of us paired up, picked up our tools, and got to work.

Initial reluctance to waking up early on a Saturday turned into enjoyment with each tree planted. I felt alert and awake. My mind felt clear. The sun had just rose, painting its light across the park. The air felt clean and wasn't too hot. It was a perfect morning.

Planting the trees reminded me of growing up back home. My dad and I would often wake up on weekend morning and work on the lawn. He would teach me how to use all the various tools. We would dig up old trees and plant new flowers. As I got older, I was allowed to use the power tools such as the lawn mower or hedge trimmers. I'm sure my dad was a lot happier than I was when I could finally mow the lawn. After we finished our work, we always got to jump in the pool. I will forever remember those mornings. I honestly believed this is what contributed to my enjoyment of the Trinity River tree planting. It brought me back to careless mornings with my dad.

With a stressful week behind me, this river reflection was just what I needed. It gave me time to recollect my thoughts and prepare for the upcoming week. Although I found it kind of strange initially, I am glad I spent the quiet time just looking at the river. I can not wait until my next river reflection.