Final Meeting with Tatiana

          Tatiana and I met for one final time a few days ago.  This semester went by so quickly, and I am saddened that I will not see Tatiana as much anymore.  While we still plan to meet up next semester, Tatiana is a busy person so we will not be able to see each other too much.  I am so thankful to have met Tatiana, as I have learned a great deal from her throughout the semester.

            For our final meeting, I asked Tatiana some general questions about how she is liking her life at TCU.  Tatiana said she loves absolutely everything about TCU, especially her professors and the architecture.  She claims that everyone here is welcoming, and she appreciates how people go out of their way to be kind to each other.  One of the main reasons why I decided to come to TCU is the kindness of the student body.  Students here look out for one another, and often think of each other as family.  I am glad Tatiana notices this trait as well.  

When I asked Tatiana if there was anything she would like to change about TCU, she said she would not change a single thing.  The only things I would change about TCU are the parking and the food.  I love all the people here, and the only things that could make this school better are offering additional parking and improving the cafeteria food.

            I also discussed the Intensive English Program with Tatiana.  She said she loves the interaction the teachers have with the students, and especially likes all the new friends she has made.  I think it is neat how the IEP brings together many different cultures and ways of life.  Tatiana stated that the IEP is perfect to her, and she would not change a thing about it. 

            When I asked Tatiana about what she loved most about America, she responded that she appreciates how people here value respect and commitment.  Apparently, people in Brazil don’t value these concepts as much, and Tatiana went as far to say that these two words are “abolished” from the Brazilian dictionary.  If there was anything Tatiana could change about America, it would have to be the food.  Unfortunately, she has not yet found any restaurants that are as good as her home-cooked Brazilian food.

            Overall, it was a pleasure getting to know Tatiana better and learning about Brazilian culture.  I had not known much at all about Brazil until I met Tatiana, and she opened my eyes to this amazing culture.  Not only did I get to learn more about Brazil, but I was able to learn about cultures from all over the world.  Through speaking with Tatiana’s friends and attending the IEP events, I met people from all different walks of life.  Listening to different people’s stories was fascinating.  While the IEP students come from all different cultures, they all share a couple of characteristics in common:  courage and determination.  While I have said this countless times, I truly am impressed with the students’ ability to leave their native countries and come to a small school in Texas without knowing a single soul in America.  If someone asked me to accomplish this same task, there is no way I would be able to do it.  I am inspired by how passionate the IEP students are about learning the English language.

             While I am sad that Literature and Civilization II is coming to an end, I am so fortunate for all the opportunities it has blessed me with.  If I had not taken this class, I would never have been introduced to the IEP, and I would never have met Tatiana.  I am glad I was able to learn about multiple new cultures and make some new friends from all over the world.

Final Learning Experiences of the Semester

            For my final blog on my learning experiences, I thought I would reflect on what I learned this semester as a whole.  To be honest, coming into this semester, I knew the names of the classes I was taking, but I didn’t exactly know what I would learn in each of them.  Especially with Lit and Civ II, I had no idea what to expect.  I had talked to former students of the class and heard that it focused on the idea of “humor,” so I was looking forward to learning more about this topic.  When I showed up on the first day of this class and found out that we would actually be learning about the theme of water, I’m not going to lie, I was a little disappointed.  I was confused as to how we could spend a whole semester learning about a topic that I thought was so simple.

            After a few days of this class, I realized how wrong I was.  While I thought I knew everything there was to know about water, it turns out I actually didn’t know the first thing about water’s importance to society.  I was literally the stereotypical American who took water for granted and didn’t think that taking ridiculously long showers and consistently drinking bottled water over tap because it “tastes better” would have such a huge impact on the environment.  I was naïve enough to be oblivious to the fact that the world is currently in a huge water crisis.  I am glad that this class has opened my eyes to such an important issue in the world, and it has made me more conscious of how much water I waste on a daily basis.

            I also was hesitant when I saw how many books we were assigned to read in this class.  Not just any books, but novels including Huckleberry Finn and Walden, the two novels I despised the most when I read them in high school.  Much to my surprise, I ended up liking Huckleberry Finn and some of Thoreau’s writing the second time around.  This class proved to me that just because I don’t like something the first time does not mean I should judge it so harshly.  It is important to give things another try before deciding that you completely despise them.  I also am glad that I was introduced to a couple movies I have never heard of before, and some of Hemingway’s writing.  The literature component of this course proved to be much more exciting and insightful than I had initially thought it would be.

            Some of my favorite experiences of this class were when we went on field trips to places such as the Amon G. Carter Art Museum and the Fort Worth Water Gardens.  None of my other college classes have taken me on field trips before, and I love how experiential learning was such a huge component of this course.

            Overall, this was the hardest semester I have had yet, and I have grown a lot more as a person throughout it.  I have become much better at time management skills, and have learned the importance of not procrastinating.  Especially when I had three tests on one day, I learned to start studying for the tests further in advance because it was impossible to cram for them all the night before.  In various group projects and in leadership roles, I have become better at delegating.  I have realized that I can’t do everything on my own, and everyone is better off if we all do an equal share of the work.  I have learned the importance of confronting my problems instead of avoiding them or pretending like nothing happened.  I have also worked to become better at finding the positives in situations, even situations that seem to have no bright side.  I have learned a great deal from all of my classes this semester, and I have ultimately grown as a person as well, and I can’t wait to see what else the future holds.

English vs. Portuguese Writing

            Up until a few days ago, I had never considered the idea that writing styles within various languages differ.  While I knew that grammar differed across foreign languages, I did not realize how drastically different essay and literature writing styles were.    

A couple days ago, I met up with Tatiana again.  Tatiana had a huge paper due that day, and wanted me to read over it and tell her what I thought of it.  She explained to me that writing a paper in English took a lot of work for her, because she first had to think through the paper in her language of Portuguese, and then translate her ideas and thoughts into English as she was writing.  In addition to this, Tatiana told me about the many differences between English and Portuguese writing.  In her native country of Brazil, Tatiana said people prefer to write long, detailed stories.  In America, especially in the corporate world, this is not the case.  We would much rather read something that cuts right to the point over something that includes too many details.  We are more familiar with Hemingway’s “iceberg theory,” and strive to tell our stories as concisely as possible.  These differences in writing styles, along with complicated grammar rules, make it difficult for an individual to write an essay in his or her nonnative language.

Tatiana’s paper was an argumentative essay about the importance of communication and healthy conflict in the workplace.  One of the first things I noticed about the paper was that a majority of the words were underlined in red.  Because Tatiana’s computer is set to her native language of Portuguese, she is unable to use spellcheck when writing her English papers.  This makes the whole writing process much more difficult, as spellcheck helps me immensely with typos and other grammatical errors when I write my papers.  I was so impressed with Tatiana’s ability to write an entire five- page paper without needing spellcheck.

Overall, Tatiana did an amazing job with her paper.  Her English grammar was basically flawless, and she did a great job outlining the thesis and the main points in her paper.  If I had read the paper without knowing who wrote it, I would definitely not have been able to tell that the writer’s native language was not English.  Tatiana was worried about the quality of her paper as she has not had much prior experience with English essay writing, but I assured her that she did an incredible job and created a well-written paper.

I helped Tatiana fix some of the grammatical errors in her paper (there weren’t many), and then after that she told me how stressed she was for finals.  The IEP students take their finals one week earlier than all the other students.  Tatiana explained that the studying process takes much longer for her classes here than in Brazil, because when she takes classes in English, she has to translate words as she is studying.  Instead of just initially learning things in her native language of Portuguese, she has to first translate the English notes she was given and her English texts into Portuguese, and then study them.  This really elongates the studying process, and makes it much more difficult to study for finals.

As stressed as I am about finals, I cannot imagine having to take my finals in a nonnative language.  Studying is a long and difficult enough process as it is, and having to translate everything while I am studying would frustrate and discourage me from wanting to learn and succeed.  I give a lot of credit to the IEP students for being willing to take on and accomplish this difficult task. 

As always, I enjoyed being able to sit down with Tatiana and further learn about her and her culture, and I am fortunate to be able to participate in the conversation partner program.

Holidays in Brazil

          I recently had the pleasure of attending the IEP Game Day social.  At this event, the IEP students and some of the conversation partners played many different American board games, including Jenga, Connect Four, and Monopoly.  There were also some food and drinks from various cultures, including Saudi Arabian tea, Brazilian coffee, and pumpkin cookies.  Everyone who attended this event socialized with people from all different cultures, and we had a great time getting to know more about one another.

            Tatiana said she did not play many board games growing up, and she wanted me to teach her how to play some of the different games.  One of her favorites was Jenga, and she proved to be quite good at it.  After playing games for a little while, Tatiana and I sat down and caught up, since we had not seen each other in a little while.

            Recently, Tatiana moved to Fort Worth.  She used to make a four-hour commute to school everyday, and said she is happy that she is now within walking distance of the campus.  Fort Worth is much different from the town Tatiana used to live in, and after visiting the stockyards she decided that it is more “Texan” than she expected it to be.  We agreed that we should go exploring the city of Fort Worth together more, and I told her how I wanted to introduce her to many of the amazing Tex-Mex restaurants, as she hasn’t experienced any yet.

              Tatiana and I also discussed the differences in holidays between Brazilian and American cultures.  In Brazil, Tatiana said they don’t celebrate Halloween, which I was surprised to find out since it is such a well-known holiday in American culture.  Brazilians value the holiday season, but apparently it is during the peak of their summer, so the festivities differ greatly from typical American celebrations.  Brazilians are unable to ice-skate, go sledding, or drink hot chocolate during the holiday season.  Being from Chicago, I have a hard time imagining celebrating a Christmas with no snow.  Tatiana said that they still decorate Christmas trees though, and fireworks are one of the main ways Brazilians celebrate the holidays.

            The most popular and important holiday for Brazilians is called Carnival.  This holiday takes place during the week before Ash Wednesday, and both schools and work are put on hold for this celebration.  People celebrate with multiple parades and firework shows, and everyone dresses up in colorful costumes.  Tatiana said that music is also important to the Brazilian culture, and this holiday features many different concerts and live music.  Tatiana raved about Carnival, and told me that I have to experience it at some point in my life.  I hope to be able to see the festivities first-hand at some point in the near future.

            My conversation partner was also excited about the fact that the IEP recently gained a few new students from all different countries.  She said that she felt so fortunate to be able to go to a school and not only receive an excellent education, but learn more about different cultures and make lifelong friends from all over the world.  Apparently, many of Tatiana’s friends went to college outside of Brazil.  I was surprised by this fact, as I don’t have a single friend who went abroad for college.  While there are programs in place where students can study abroad for a semester or a few weeks during the summer, I believe that these students aren’t as fully immersed into the foreign country’s culture as the IEP students are.  It takes so much courage to leave one’s home country and attend school where you don’t know a soul and are unable to fluently communicate with many of the students.  I do not think I would be brave enough to do such a thing, and I greatly respect all the IEP students for doing so.  Not only do they receive an excellent education and learn a new language, they are also exposed to so many new cultures and learn more about the world as a whole.  I am constantly impressed with the TCU IEP program and feel fortunate to have been introduced to the amazing students in the program.

Learning Experiences: Part Three

            These past few weeks have gone by so quickly, and I have learned much in the process.  Two weeks ago was perhaps the hardest week of my college career, with four major tests and two group projects due all within the time span of a few days.  During that week, I got much better about budgeting my time, and I learned how to study more efficiently.  Luckily, I should not have that many tests and homework due all at once again until finals hit.

            One of the classes I have found to be fascinating this semester is my Literature and Civilization II class.  I love how in this class, we do a great deal of experiential learning, and are not forced to memorize loads of information or take tedious tests.  This class is discussion based, and it is interesting to hear so many differing opinions within the class, with everyone remaining respectful of one another’s opinions.  We recently read some quotes from Thoreau and a few different Hemingway short stories.  I vaguely remember reading a book by Thoreau during my freshman year of high school, and the main thing I remember about it is how much I disliked it.  Reading Thoreau for a second time, this was no longer the case.  My professor did an awesome job of assigning us the most meaningful and thought-provoking Thoreau pieces, and I was actually intrigued after reading them.  Our class was able to have some great discussion on what Thoreau was trying to say through his writing, and whether or not his ideas are still relevant today.  While I don’t think I will be rushing to the bookstore to buy Walden, I did truly enjoy the Thoreau unit and am glad I learned more about his life and his values.

            The Hemingway short stories were much darker than I had originally anticipated.  This was my first experience reading Hemingway’s work, and while the stories were often gloomy, they were interesting and brought to light many controversial topics.  Hemingway utilized an “iceberg theory” when writing his stories, through which he deleted the unimportant details of the story and did not explicitly discuss underlying themes.  This technique enables the reader to come to his or her own conclusions and generate unique interpretations of what the story is attempting to demonstrate.  I find this theory to be powerful, as it enables me to finish reading an entire story in a few short minutes, and then generate my own opinions as to what the author was attempting to infer.  I will definitely be reading more Hemingway stories in the future, and am thankful that I was introduced to his writing style.

            On a completely different note, another important lesson I learned a couple of days ago was to always back up my computer.  I had thought that my computer backed up its files on its own, but I learned the hard way that this is not the case.  Two days ago, my hard drive completely failed and erased everything.  Every document I have ever created in my college career is now gone forever, and this unfortunately included a few blogs that I had not yet uploaded and will now have to rewrite.  So if you are reading this and realizing that you have not backed up your computer, I recommend doing this immediately, so you do not have to learn the hard way as I did.

            Overall, I have learned a great deal throughout these past few weeks, and I am looking forward to seeing what else I will learn during the rest of the semester.