Comic Relief Take Aways

First off, some good old honors college humor, because to ease the stresses of reading Morreall, everybody needs a good hearty laugh.

Now sadly, the serious stuff. Overall, I despised Comic Relief and had to fight through every page. However, Morreall did manage to present a few valid points.

1. The biggest take away that I got out of reading Comic Relief is that humor is good for your health. For years, people have told me that I don’t take life seriously and that life isn't one big joke and my rebuttal would be “well at least I won’t have ulcers when I’m older.” As it turns out, I just might have been right. From now on, I will be sure to use Morreall to validate my ever present sense of humor. After all, “the playful, imaginative attitude fostered by comedy not only feels better, but makes us healthier psychologically and physically.”  Laughter causes a reduction in “stress chemicals…muscle tension, blood pressure, and heart rate.” So, instead of taking a variety of pills to combat heart issues, just take a few minutes to joke around with friends or peruse funny pictures on the internet. After all, it’s good for your health!
2. The second take away that I got from Morreall is the concept of joke versus wit (this is one of the very few arguments that I agree with him 100% on). How many times have you heard an entire room get silent to listen to a joke and then, once the joke teller finishes, everyone looks at each other for a second and the room is overcome with awkward silence? On the other hand, how many times have you been out to dinner with friends where everyone is having a great conversation and then one of the friends responds to a question with an answer full of sarcasm or irony and the entire table bursts into laughter? This is the number one reason why I agree with Morreall on the issue of joke versus wit. “Joke telling interrupts a conversation” while wit enhances it. Instead of having to halt the conversation to listen to a joke that 95% of the time isn't funny, wit fits right in with the conversation and often enhances it.
3. The third take away that I got from Comic Relief, and probably the most pertinent to the class, is the idea of the cognitive shift. “A cognitive shift involves a set-up and a punch…which is what causes our thoughts and attitudes to change quickly.” I feel like a large majority of humor, whether it’s skits, jokes, movies, or online videos, utilizes the cognitive shift. When I think of humor, the first thing that comes to mind is stand-up comedians and they use this approach all the time. They always tell stories that they lead you to believe are going to end one way, and then at the very last second they hit you with an ending that you would have never expected. Sometimes, even if the outcome isn’t funny, you laugh purely because the outcome was so unexpected. Comedians and comic writers are true masters of the cognitive shift. I believe that the cognitive shift, the element of surprise, will be very helpful in providing insight as to what truly makes people laugh.

Even though I didn’t enjoy Morreall and felt like ever page was an absolute beating, there are clearly a few aspects that have some value and will be frequently applied to our exploration of what makes people laugh.

My Reaction to "Tips for Women" by Dave Barry

This piece was extremely witty, extremely amusing, extremely funny, and…extremely true. Honestly, I think Barry could have been going many different directions with this piece; he could have been satirizing women’s views of men or men’s views of women, he could have been satirizing what women want out of relationships or what men want out of relationships, he could have been satirizing relationships in general, or he could have been giving an honest male view of relationships in an extremely amusing and funny way. I interpreted his intent as the later. (And like Barry, I will give moderately satirical but very honest insight into a guys’ reaction to Barry’s piece).

Immediately, from the very first paragraph, I can tell that this is going to be a good read. I completely agree that the only “long-term, stable, intimate, and mutually fulfilling relationship” that a women will be able to easily develop is with a dog. However, I feel like it’s a two way street and a guys’ perfect vision of a long-term relationship can also only be fulfilled by a dog. Think about it, guys want a relationship where they are worshipped and seen as king of land. They want a relationship where they can sit down and do things that they like to do with their significant other like watch sports, eat, and sleep. They want a relationship where things they say are taken at face value and not analyzed to death.

A dog will worship you, he’ll watch sports with you, eat with you, take a nap with you, or even sleep next to you. He will give you alone time when you need it and when you’re out with friends, he won’t constantly call and text you wondering what stupid thing you’re going to do next. When you say “walk” or “treat” he will want a walk or a treat, he’s not going to analyze what you might subconsciously mean by these words. But regardless, there’s one thing that’s 100% certain- he will be there waiting for you at the door when you get home letting you know that he has missed you tremendously and that his world is nothing without you. And likewise, as you are often forced to realize when you have to turn this long-term relationship into a long-distance relationship (aka going off to college) you realize that there is nobody that makes you happier than your dog.

Anyways, that’s enough about dogs being the ideal relationship partner. As Barry progresses, he talks about how women do the exact opposite of everything that I just said men love in a dog. They overthink everything, they never take anything at face value, and they always think you mean something more than what you do. When a boyfriend responds to “how’s your day been?” with “it’s been fine” that simply means his day has been fine. It doesn’t mean that he’s secretly mad at you for some outlandish reason and it surely doesn’t mean that he’s getting bored with your relationship. It simply means that he’s had on okay day.

On page 327 when Barry says that after a confusing conversation, a girl goes home and cries and talks to her friends and a guy “opens a bag of Doritos, turns on the TV, and immediately becomes deeply involved in a rerun of a tennis match between two Czechoslovakians he has never heard of” he is 100% spot on (except maybe substitute video games for the tennis match but you get the point). There is nothing more spot on in this entire piece than when Barry states, “We’re not talking about different wavelengths here. We’re talking about different planets, in completely different solar systems.” I think both guys and girls can agree with this statement. Guys and girls simply communicate differently and desire very different things in a relationship. It might seem rather harsh, but I believe that Barry’s ant analogy on page 328 pretty much sums up how guys view relationships and oftentimes this is what gets them in the most trouble. How many times have you heard about a girl being really mad at a guy and the guy has no idea what he did wrong?! Thousands if not millions.

Finally, Barry gets to my absolute favorite part of the piece, the three tips that every women should remember if she wants to have a successful relationship with a guy. Number one-“never assume that the guy understands that you and he have a relationship”- is completely true. Even if you have been casually seeing each other for months and the girl thinks it is understood that you’re mutually exclusive…it’s not! Why do you think it’s always the girls making a relationship FBO and guys are so hesitant to accept the request? It’s because it is truly a shock to the guy that he could ever be in a relationship.

Then, there is number two which is the truest of all- “Do not expect a guy to make a hasty commitment.” He then states “by hasty I mean within your lifetime.” This is also 100% true and his KC Royals example really brings the point home. As a huge hockey fan, am completely devoted to the Dallas Stars. Regardless of how many of my favorite players they trade away, regardless of how many games they lose or playoffs they miss, or how much they disappoint me, I am completely devoted to them. Devotion to women will never rival a man’s lifelong commitment to a sports team. Women absolutely hate this and it drives them nuts but don’t stress about it because you’re not going to change it. Period. Barry’s main point for number two is something that not many guys are brave enough to say but every guy, in a relationship or not, knows is true; guys are scared of commitment because they are scared of missing out. It might seem like a stretch that every guy’s greatest fear regarding commitment is that he’s going to miss out on joining several naked international fashion models in a hot tub but, this exact fear is present in a vast majority of guys.  

And finally number three- “don’t make the guy feel threatened.” Basically anything will make a guy feel threated, especially a sense of obligation, so just leave us to our sports and dogs and the world will be a much less confusing place.

First Meeting with Khalifa

On Friday, I had my first meeting with Khalifa. Right off of the bat, I could tell we were about the same age so we shook hands and introduced ourselves. He is 19 years old and from Saudi Arabia. He is here with his sister and cousin. In the ESL program, he is a level 4 in speaking and a level 1 in writing. I was really curious about this huge discrepancy and he explained that writing in English is so much harder than other languages because things aren’t written how they sound. I jokingly responded, “that’s why we have autocorrect” and we both shared a brief laugh.

He then went on to say that he has only been here for going on 9 months and I was shocked because I thought his English was rather impressive for being here for less than a year. However, he was much harder on himself. He really wants to be able to speak English like native English speakers. The one thing that he said that I think shocked me the most is that he really wants a job, not for the money, but because having a job would force him to communicate with people and help him learn the language. He’s extremely frustrated by the job market in Fort Worth. He is also having a very hard time getting a SSN and said that if he were to get a job, he would be given one which is another incentive for him to find work. Since he was having such a hard time, I told him that I would look into it and see if I could find any possibilities for him before we meet next. 

The other thing that really shocked me is that he’s lost weight since coming here. Usually you hear about people coming to America and gaining tons of weight and this was definitely not the case for Khalifa. He showed me a picture of him when he first got here almost 9 months ago and it was one of the times that we really had a good laugh during our conversation. 

He really seems to be embracing the American culture and really wants to master the language so that he can fit in better. He went to the Blake Shelton concert and had a great time. He loved all of the girls in dresses and cowboy boots (this was another topic that we had a good laugh about). He has taken a liking to country music but said that they talk so fast that he can only comprehend about half of what they are saying. But regardless, it was definitely a good experience. He was also extremely excited for our first football game.

He isn’t allowed to have a girlfriend while he’s here and if he does, his sister will tell his mom and he will have to come home. Right now he is much more interested in just making friends and learning how to communicate. 

I asked him if he had been back to Saudi Arabia yet and he said no. He doesn’t really have a desire to go home especially since the flight takes 21 hours. After he is here for nine months, the Saudi Arabian government will pay for his plane ticket home. They also pay for him to come here and learn English which I found odd just because anytime American students study oversees we have to pay a majority of the costs. If anything, our universities help us out, not our government. 

One other thing he really disliked about TCU is the parking situation and I told him that he definitely wasn’t alone in that regard. He said that parking is very confusing and he has already gotten three parking tickets. I told him not to worry; he probably follows the parking rules better than people who have lived here their entire lives. 

Overall, I had a very good first meeting with Khalifa. He expressed a strong desire to meet again sometime soon and wants me to come over to his house sometime to try Arabic food. The meeting really showed me that there is a lot for both of us to learn from meeting together. One of the things that I am most interested in observing throughout our meetings is if there are large discrepancies between the English that he is taught in class and conversational English that he will hear most of the students in the area use.