Conversation Partner 5

Tien and I met yesterday at the library for a brief time. Our schedules are so busy this time of year that she only wanted to meet for a short period. She told me about how she did her first ropes course over the weekend which I thought was really cool. I had to do those all of the time when I was younger and went to camp. I shared some of my experiences with ropes courses and team building exercises that go along with them. She seemed really stressed with her final tests coming up. She is ready to complete this year and enjoy the summer. She is worried about the weather being too hot for her though. I told her I don't think I am ready for it either. Tien and I have had such a great time meeting and it truly has been a great experience. I used this as my final presentation topic because I know it is something that will stick with me for a long time. I will always remember this assignment as one of my favorites. We talked briefly about our weeks and plans for dead days and finals, which involves a lot of writing and studying. We are both excited to finish out this semester. We plan on meeting at some point this weekend as a study break, so hopefully we can talk longer. I want to try this bubble tea place she keeps talking about. It is one of her favorite places here at TCU. She had to go back to doing homework, so we cut the meeting off early and I let her get back to her studies. Crazy to think my last meeting with her will be this weekend, but this semester has flown by and I can't believe it.

Learning Experiences 3

This semester is winding down with only 3 short weeks left. However, the work load is increasing. The stress is starting to pile up with group projects and tests. I almost can't wait till finals week because it is one of my easier weeks. I am continuing to develop better and better time management skills. My sleep schedule is getting to be nonexistent. This year has taught me a lot of new things. Not only in the classroom, but at work, social events, and other various activities. We are constantly learning and developing as humans, but sometimes we move so fast that we don't notice it. Our lives are so scheduled and busy that most days I move from place to place or meeting to meeting and forget to take a second to breathe. Sometimes I wish I could go back in time to the days when I didn't have to do crap. I could play call of duty and eat oreos all day with no real life cares or worries. I do not have that luxury now with school and work. I then have to think about how fortunate I am to go to this school. There are people out there that go to bed hungry, and we complain about the BLUU. There are people who can't afford cars and we whine about the parking spots. Some people can't afford new clothes and we complain about having to get dressed up. Sometimes all it takes is looking around campus and seeing how fortunate we all are that we get to go here. That is something I have learned to appreciate. I thank my parents all of the time for paying my tuition to go to such a great school. Granted, they will be expecting some sort of refund from me in the future, but I will cross that bridge when I get there. TCU has been the best decision I have made in my life and I find myself extremely happy here. I never want to leave. It's that feeling of appreciation that allows me to push through my toughest days here in college. I know that the stress will eventually fade and I will be free from school. I wouldn't want to attend school anywhere else. I can't believe I am about to be a junior in college. I remember thinking it was crazy to be a junior in high school. The jump from high school to college is not anywhere near as scary as the jump from college to the real world. This school prepares us so well with what comes next that those nerves and fears simply fade away. 70 years down the road, when I am old and crusty, I hope to see TCU continuing to thrive as a great institution. I would love for my kids to attend here, as long as they are on scholarship… Anyways, I am constantly learning and developing, but sometimes I need to slow down and appreciate all of the little things around me and the great school I get to go to.

Conversation Partner #4

I ran into Tien today for the first time on campus without having a meeting scheduled. We passed by each other outside the library. I said hello and she asked if we could chat for a bit. We sat down on the benches outside and talked for a couple minutes. I asked how her debate went. She said it went very well, but she had to practice a lot the night before. She had just visited a business class and was heading to the library to study for a little bit. It was nice to see her outside of our regular meetings. Our friendship is to the point now where I don't see it as a required event for a class, but as an old friend that I could talk to any day. She was in a much better mood today and was feeling less stressed. We decided that next time we meet we will go to get coffee or a smoothie instead of meeting at the library. We discussed again how strange it is that the year is almost over. With only a couple weeks left, both of our classes are picking up and group projects are taking up a lot of our days. She talked about how she is so excited to move on to the business school. We talked about the cold weather that occurred this morning and she made fun of our dumb fluctuations of weather in the US. She said it doesn't rain as much here though as it does in Vietnam. Tien said her house hunt is getting close to over, because she found a house that might fit her needs. I'm happy for her. She is excited to move off campus and is hopeful that she gets the desk assistant job too. She finished her application and is pretty nervous for her interview. I think she will do fine. We continued talking about random topics for about 5 more minutes, then decided it was too cold to keep sitting outside. We said goodbye and parted ways after setting up our next meeting time. She told me she was going to send me a link to a funny video she watched today so she said she'd send it on Facebook. She always sends me funny videos. I have realized we have similar senses of humor because of the videos we laugh at. It's funny to think that someone from the other side of the world would have a similar sense of humor as me. I look forward to our next meeting and hope to see her around campus more often.

ConversationPartner #3

Tien and I met again in the library today to talk about our spring break trips and various other topics. We had trouble finding a time to meet until today, so I was pleased when she finally told me she had time. She showed up a little late and seemed pretty stressed. She has a big debate tomorrow for school. The topic is gay marriage. It was interesting to hear her perspective on this topic and I found it strange for that topic to be chosen for debate in a classroom setting. She said she had to practice a ton more for it and only wanted to sleep. Tien had a fun spring break while visiting Los Angeles with her brother. She loved seeing the beach and enjoyed the nice weather. She said she wasn't allowed to swim because of the green stuff in the water. I discussed my adventures in New York and she asked a ton of questions. It was fun exchanging stories and talking about our experiences. I'm sure she loved getting to see the west coast. We talked about how busy our semesters are getting and how badly we want summer to come. The school work for both of us is starting to pile up. She talked about how she and her friends are trying to find a house to live in for next year. She is applying for a desk assistant job as well, so she was wondering how the interview process will go. I think she will do a great job and I gave her a few pointers that I have learned in the business school about interviews. I truly hope she gets the job. We began discussing food because of how hungry we both were. She said her home is now getting their first McDonalds. I was excited to hear that because I have always loved McDonalds. She said how it is such a huge deal when her home gets big chains like McDonalds and Starbucks. That was funny to me because here in America, you cannot drive 2 minutes without seeing one of those chains. No matter how stressed Tien is, she always makes our conversations welcoming and fluent. Our conversations drift to strange topics, but that's what makes it so interesting to me. She had forgot her TCU ID back in her room, so she had to go back and get it when we were finished. She doesn't like being on campus without any documentation. Tien is getting excited to graduate from IP and begin taking courses for her major. She said she sat in on a foundations in business class and she really enjoyed it. She is ready to start taking these classes that interest her instead of the IP classes. Tien said she has 27 transfer credit hours, which I was amazed by. I came in with only a few. She seems like she will be able to advance quickly into her new role at TCU. I am happy for her. She had to cut the meeting off to go prepare for the debate that she has tomorrow. I wished her luck. I then thought about what it would be like for me to debate in a different language than my first known language. I have participated in a formal debate and thought it was extremely challenging. I cannot imagine doing it in a foreign language. She impresses me every time I meet with her. We decided to set up our next meeting through text, so I will wait to hear from her regarding this. I would say it was another successful meeting.

Uncontrollable Laughter 2

Yesterday, my girlfriend and I were talking about funny memories from back when we were in high school. This one situation that comes up every once in a while in our conversations always causes us to break out into uncontrollable laughter. Everyone that has heard the story and knows the priest who is in the story always laughs along with us, including our parents. The story goes like this:


 Emily and I went to the same school our entire life, Casady, which is a small private school in OKC. Our school attended chapel every day for 25 minutes in the morning where our priest would give a sermon or we would have guest speakers and do school announcements. We had done this every day since kindergarten at Casady. When we were growing up we had an old priest by the name of Father Marlin. He was a crazy old man with a rambling problem and never quite seemed to know what was going on in life. He had since retired for a few years when I begin this story. I was a 17 year old junior and Emily was an 18 year old senior and we had to attend an afternoon event on school campus. Emily also had to babysit that day. A cute little 3 year old girl named Addelaide. She had blonde hair, blue eyes and couldn't seem to form her sentences together well. But she was a cute little girl. Emily thought it would be fun to bring her to the event and let her play on the playground, because after all it was an outside event. I met Emily and Addelaide there outside the middle school where the event was being held. Emily was carrying an extremely heavy bag on her shoulder, so I offered to carry it for her. It was a colorful bag with bright designs on it, obviously it was Addelaide's bag. There we were, just walking around the event saying hi to parents and friends while watching over this little girl. We come across old Father Marlin in the middle of the lawn as we made our walk through the event. He was standing there in his classic button down shirt, Casady letterman's jacket, and khaki pants pulled up to his chin it seemed like. He greeted me with a friendly "Hello Mac, How are you?" and I kindly replied, surprised he still remembered my name. I turned towards Emily to acknowledge her. He politely said, "Hello Emily, how are you?" This is when it got weird. His eyes quickly moved to the cute little 3 year old in Emily's arms. His eyes got real big. He then muttered out like the crazy old man he is, "Oh, this must be your Baby-Boo. A little young to have a child don't you think?" I was so caught off guard that I was speechless. Emily gave me the most horrified look I had ever seen. Then I quickly responded, "NO NO Father Marlin, this is Addelaide a little girl that Emily is babysitting, Not our child!" He just stood there puzzled, giving me his 1,000 mile stare of confusion. I was mortified, but determined to convince this loony tune that this was not our child. I continued talking to him for about 5 minutes and sort of brushed Emily away hoping he would forget what had just happened. He did. Thank goodness his craziness side tracked him all of the time. For a short time, however, he thought that Emily and I had a 3 year old daughter. Which would have meant I was14 at the time of conception. I just hope this incident doesn't pop back into his head someday to where the next time he sees me, he asks how my daughter is doing. That wouldn't be good. Anyways, that is the story of our crazy old priest who thought I was a 17 year old father of a 3 year old girl.

Emily and I still crack up to this day thinking about that awkward moment. Even our parents get a great kick out of that story. It's funny how awkward situations can be laughed at down the road, however, when you are in one it is hard to react in the best way possible. We moved on from that day and learned from it. I have yet to accompany Emily on her babysitting duties in public since then to avoid the obvious confusion that our crazy old priest had when we saw him that day.