Scary Family Vacation

With all the storms that have been coming through, I have been thinking back to when I was younger. Have I ever been in a tornado? Then I remembered one of the scariest family vacations that we were taking. Of all the vacations to write about, I would talk about one where I was completely scared during. Oh well, it’s really one of the most memorable trips that we undertook.

We lived in Michigan at the time, and for some reason, my parents thought it would be a good idea to take me, 4, and my brother, 9, on a road trip to visit our grandparents in Oklahoma. 18 hours in a car with two kids who fight all the time? Bad news.  And to top it all off, we were driving in storms. So, I only really remember the actual drive down to Oklahoma, and the rest of the trip… who knows how it went.

When we were on the road, driving and trying to beat the storm before it got too bad, there was a moment when the sky just went from the sun setting to completely dark and creepy colored. If I remember correctly, it seemed as though there was an orange-tint to it. We had the radio on and then of course the National Weather Alert came on saying that everyone needed to get off the roads immediately and find shelter. Being little, I was completely terrified when my parents started to sound worried when they pointed out the huge funnel cloud directly in front of us.

After that, I just remember us going to the closest hotel we could find and sitting in their lobby watching the news for any updates. I believe the tornado hit a few towns away, and I just recall being so afraid.  It’s funny because I can’t remember my birthday parties from when I was that young, or what TV shows I liked to watch, but I can remember some car ride. It’s strange how our memory is so vivid when we are terrified. 

The Happiest I Have Been (In a Long Time)

I have been out of town visiting my boyfriend since last Wednesday, and he has moved into a house with three of his fraternity brothers since the last time I saw him. It was an interesting weekend being around all these new people. One of the suggested blogging topics was about a time when you were especially happy. This weekend was probably the best weekend I have had in a long time. I’ve been extremely stressed out with school and my living situation that I just couldn’t handle being here any longer. I have been homesick and lonely, and I just needed to get out.

I had met one of the three roommates before, so I got to get to know all three of them very well. I loved being around all of them: they are so funny and carefree. Brandon, whom I have known for a while, is awesome. He and I became friends the last time I was down there, and we have tons of fun around each other. I had never hung out with Burnet and Cody before, but they ended up being just like Brandon and I are around each other. I was glad we all got along (and there was not much drama) because I did not need any more added stress to my life at the moment.

The whole weekend was absolutely amazing. I was visiting for Sigma Phi Epsilon’s Red Garter Formal, and at first, there were some issues with the planning committee and we were completely confused, but it ended up being extremely fun. The first night I got into town, we just hung out doing basically nothing. It was the most relaxing day I have had in such a long time. I got to play with Daniel’s puppy, Tex, and that’s basically all I did.

The next few nights were all apart of the formal. We were doing so many things, that there was no time to feel stressed out about anything. It was a much-needed “vacation”.  I met so many great friends, and I cannot wait to go back to visit them all again. Now that I am back at TCU, all I want to do is be done. It’s like I have this burden put back on me, and I can’t shake it. It’s not at all that I don’t like TCU (because I love it) but it is just the fact that I’m starting to get real burnt out of working and doing school stuff; I just want to be back home in Fresno with all of my friends and be able to not do anything all day long.

All I have to make it through is 4 days of finals, and then I will be done. Let the countdown begin…

The View from My Bedroom Window

Whenever I am at home, and I open my white-painted shutters (which I hate, by the way), I see a big beautiful palm tree that has finally passed up my window in height. I hate those shutters simply because they are such a pain compared to my last bedroom: which had curtains. I guess it really isn’t that much of a time-consumer, but I just hate opening those four separate shutters. Normally, my mom gets annoyed with me because sometimes—okay, most of the time—I just leave them closed all day.

Back to the view, up on the second floor my bedroom resides. I am in love with my palm tree. It is so huge and it just makes the world seem brighter to me. We have a little rolling hill in front of my house of freshly redone grass. (Seems like we have to fix our grass every other week due to the hot California sun killing it…) When the grass is green and the sun is shining, looking out my bedroom window makes me have a better day it seems like. I just love looking out and seeing the peacefulness of the world. The palm tree is just my favorite: it reminds me of where I am at—home. California is and will always be my home, and my palm tree reminds me of this.

Now, my dorm window… Not something I enjoy looking outside at. I look outside only to see sidewalk and road, and usually brown grass. There’s nothing pretty to look at, and it just makes me miss my bedroom back in Fresno. The sun never shines towards my window it seems: never enough sunshine. I love the sun and how bright it makes the world. Being in an 11x15 room all year with no sunlight makes me feel claustrophobic, and I just want to be back in my room. I think this is what has made me become so homesick this year. I miss my view from my bedroom window.

The thing is, at home, I don’t appreciate that view. I don’t open my white shutters with the paint peeled off from a poster that had been taped onto it, I don’t look outside to see the white petals falling off a tree, making it look like it’s snowing on a 115 degree day. It seems that now that I am gone, I miss it. It truly reminds me that you don’t know what you have until it is gone.

Cultural Differences!

Today, Gabriela and I met once again. She was extremely exhausted from her week of writing papers and doing speeches. Apparently for the Intensive English Program here at TCU, each student must present a speech every week, and they have papers due each Friday. This blew me away; I can’t imagine having to do a paper every week. She told me that it is much harder for her to do this than for an English native. She said she gets points knocked off for grammar and such, just because she doesn’t speak the same as an American would. She seemed pretty frustrated by this, and I felt her pain: when I was younger, writing essays were the worst, because I didn’t know all the grammar rules. I don’t know how she does it: speaking Spanish her whole life and then all of a sudden trying to speak and write English fluently—it is crazy! We decided to keep our meeting short and sweet so she could go back to her dorm and rest.

We went to Smoothie King together, and were talking for a while, and then some of her friends came in. They were two boys from Guatemala. When they saw her they came to her and greeted her with a kiss on the cheek, and she kissed back (like it was straight out of a movie!). I will admit, I was a bit uncomfortable sitting there. I felt awkward because I didn’t know whether to introduce myself or let them go on their way. I decided the latter would be the least awkward. I actually didn’t realize that there were so many cultures that greet each other with a kiss on the cheek; I thought it was just a European thing. It’s funny how such a small gesture can make someone feel so uncomfortable, just because we are from a different culture.

As we were leaving, she saw my phone light up when I pressed for the time. She saw that the picture on the background was of a dog, and she said, “Is that a husky?!” She seemed excited and I told her that my boyfriend just got a puppy a few weeks ago and it is half husky/half wolf. She was a little freaked out by the whole wolf thing—believe me, I am too—but she told me that she had a husky back home that she loves dearly. She said she missed her dog so much, and I thought it was cool because they named her dog after a myth-type thing, and it basically means love. I have no idea how to pronounce it, and I won’t try to spell it, but you can just believe me on this one. It was cool to find something so simple to talk about that we both love: dogs! :) I had a great time meeting with Gabriela today!

The Sea Change

This story confused me a bit. I thought I understood what was going on. But then I realized the man told his girlfriend that he would “kill her”—not his girlfriend, but some other girl. This really threw me off. What could his girlfriend have done that would make him want to kill some other girl. Then I realized, and I was kind of disturbed. It’s not that I am homophobic, it was just that I would never in a million years have expected that to be a topic in Hemingway’s writing.

Homosexuality must have been a hugely controversial topic for him to write about at that time, because even now it is a hard topic to discuss publically. I personally was a little bit disturbed, just because it was so uncommon back then to discuss. I personally just really don’t enjoy discussing topics like that anyway.  However, I do like the writing style that Hemingway uses. He doesn’t just describe what happened, but instead he uses the character’s dialogue to convey whatever conflict they were going through. I feel that he has a much better way of describing the plot than other writers. I would rather hear the problem firsthand from the character it is happening to, rather than the third person narrator who has no part in the story.

I don’t think the girl should have apologized like she did. She kept saying she was so sorry that she did it, and that she really did love him; he wouldn’t even give her a chance to explain, he just told her to leave and she could explain when she comes running back to him. He, in my opinion, is just as bad as she is. He just ignored the situation, even when she was trying to explain herself. I personally dislike people that cannot acknowledge a problem. So I do not really blame her at all; I think that their relationship probably wasn’t strong before any of this happened. Another thing, I didn’t understand why the man at the end kept saying that he was a different man. Why, all of a sudden, after breaking off his relationship, did he think that he was such a different man? I was annoyed how he kept repeating it, like he was trying to reassure himself or something. I just really found myself getting angrier as I read more about him.  This was a very different story than what we have read. I enjoyed being able to have something different to read about!

Confusion!

I met with Gabriela again yesterday. This has been the first time that we have had a bigger miscommunication about where we were supposed to meet. I had never really experienced this confusion before. I had texted her, asking her if it was alright if we met at Union Grounds at one o’clock. She responded with: Sure! So I thought, Great, that works out perfectly. So at one o’clock I arrived at Union Grounds; however, I get a text that says: I’m in the entrance of the bluu. And then I was like, uh oh, she thought I meant Market Square. So I texted her about where I was, and she had told me she thought we were going to eat in the BLUU. Finally it all worked out and we met up for a little while.

After our little miscommunication, we got together and we talked about spring break. She had been out of town for a week before spring break, so she basically got an extra long break. Needless to say, I was jealous. She told me for the first week she went to Vale, Colorado to go skiing with her family. She said it was perfect weather: not too hot and not too cold. I wish I had been there. Man, I went to back to California and it was freezing: 40s-50s every day with a lot of rain. Ugh, I thought It’s Always Sunny in California… right?  Then we talked about her second spring break, where she went back with her family to Panama. So jealous. She said it was hot and perfect beach weather there. I miss that.

While we were sitting at Union Grounds, the Greek Week Kanstruction build was going on, and so we stopped talking for a little while to observe. She was very confused about what was happening and why they were doing this. I tried to tell her the Greek system was competing against each other in Olympic-type games and this was one of the events. She still didn’t get it, so I told her this one was representative of Hunger Week, and they were building constructions out of cans. She seemed to get it, and we moved on to the Greek system in general. She wondered if it was really true that about 80% of students at TCU are involved in Greek life. I told her that it was true, and she seemed to be amazed. Being a ESL student only, and not an actual student here, she cannot join Greek life just yet.

However, she did tell me that she was accepted into all of the schools that she has applied to for enrollment in the Fall. She said that there was one left that she was waiting to hear from: Georgetown. Her dad really wants her to go there, and she said a part of her was hoping she would get rejected, just because she knew she would have to go there if she got in. I can totally relate to that pressure that she feels from her father. It was very hard to ignore my parent’s wishes for me on where I should go to school.

I think Gabriela and I are becoming much more relaxed around each other, simply because everything we talk about seems much more laid back. Can’t wait to see her again!

Fathers and Sons

Ernest Hemingway. In my high school it seemed that I was the only one that liked him after reading The Old Man and the Sea. Everyone else said Hemingway was so boring. Now I agree. These stories we have been reading, although they are short, have been killer for me to be interested in (and get through). The short dialogue and non-necessary descriptions are really starting to get to me. “Fathers and Sons” was not as bad as the other ones we have been reading this past week, but it still will not going to be on my top reads list.

In this story I feel like we got to see a different side of Nick. Normally, he is very short and we don’t really get to see his feelings, except for the occasional cry. In “Fathers and Sons” he is very reflective, and he tends to show more of what he is thinking. First, they were driving along the roads, and while his son was sleeping he was thinking of how beautiful the town was, even though it wasn’t originally the town he called home. He actually seemed interested in something for once. Since we have started reading about Nick Adams, I always felt like he was distant to everything and everyone: like he really did not care about anything. This story seems to show that Nicholas has indeed grown up quite a bit since his days with Prudence.

When Nick begins reflecting on hunting and his father, it reveals another side to their relationship. In the other stories, Nick always seemed to be torn down by his father, or his dad would do something that was not ethical. It seemed like he didn’t really care about his dad that much. However, he starts thinking about his father, and how he was a great hunter: the best he had ever known. I think he actually was closer to his dad than he made it seem.

Now what really got me in this story that I was completely confused on was Billy and Trudy. Why did he bring that up and why did he tell of all the things they did together? I feel like that was a very random and awkward memory to put into this story that is supposedly all about fathers and their sons. I mean, I get that Billy was Nick’s hunting partner when they were younger, but why add in the part about Trudy? I don’t think it really added anything to the story.

I liked the way that Nick’s son asked him questions in the end. It seemed like a very real situation to me. He is just a curious little boy. However, the ending was a little tense for me. I don’t understand why Nick would not want to go take his son to the grave where his own father is buried. I just feel like that is something that should not even need to be asked about. But it took Nick quite some time to even say maybe. Overall, the story was not my favorite by any means, but it was better than the others that we have been reading.