Don't judge a book by it's cover.....Norelly.

I walked in to Union Grounds a little ahead of time to make sure I didn’t miss Norelly and found myself a seat that would allow me to see everyone walking in. Since I didn’t have a huge idea about what the IEP was all about, I was expecting a college freshman Norelly.  I then take my phone out and text her saying that I was at the meeting spot and that I will wait for her and before I put my phone back in to my pocket, I hear another of the 9999973 pronunciations of my first name, dare they try my last. I turn around to see an older woman dressed in a white shirt and a pair of jeans waiting for me in a corner. We then go about introducing ourselves and I then go on additionally about how to pronounce my name right and how my last name is optional to try.

Norelly is from Venezuela and she owns a shipment store in her city.  She has a fourteen year old daughter whom she gives her life for and for whose benefit she’s taking the IEP program.  Norelly tells me that she never got to learn in school to be fluent in English and how that has restricted her from communicating and living a global lifestyle. She wants her daughter to have a chance to learn to read, write and talk in English so she has a better lifestyle later on. Norelly, enrolled in the IEP at TCU, even though she doesn’t really require English at her workplace, just so she can complement her daughter’s learning of the language.  This is a true motherly instinct according to me and I could feel its power, given the fact that IEP students get a good amount of homework, when she told me how much she hates to do homework.

We then went on to talk about our favorite things about TCU and the other fun things that we’ve done since school started and as it is obvious, anything about TCU must start with football. To not mention football here, is to have sinned as a horned frog and as a citizen of Fort Worth.  Norelly told me that she went for the season opener with Michael Zeiser and his conversational partner (Thanks for telling me Michael!). Her experience in the stadium came out as bitter sweet to me.  She seemed to have enjoyed the people around and the massiveness of the stadium. But however, she wasn’t so fond of the nucleus of the stadium; the football game itself. Norelly found it too physically aggressive and didn’t want to be around for a long time.  Adding to the hitting and pushing that she didn’t like, she found it hard to keep herself entertained because she really didn’t know what football was and in the eyes of a newbie, footballers look like a bunch of risen gladiators from ancient Rome; fighting to stay alive. As an international student, I could totally relate to it as I experienced the same things in my first game at Baylor last year.

A trend that I noticed with her, that she later accepted, was that she became freer in talking to me with time. She got a lot funnier, threw in a couple of simple jokes and made funny expressions and noises when she described some incident about her travels to Europe. Quickly, the talk on travels took us to my homeland; India.  She seemed to be pretty interested in India and her people.  Some of Norelly’s friends have told her about their travels to India and how they found Indians possessing inner peace and calm in all their daily chaos (If you say so!). That seemed to surprise Norelly as Venezuela is pretty chaotic too, but they still swear at one another when they jump a traffic light or when a pedestrian jaywalks.

She said something after this that made me laugh a bit. Norelly told me about her reaction when she first received my email and saw that I was from India.  She has a hard time comprehending the Indian accent and she was worried that she might not understand and comprehend what I would say in our meetings together. And like the previous 9999973 people that messed my name up and then went on to ask how I don’t have an accent, Norelly jumped into the bandwagon and asked me why I didn’t have a strong Indian accent.  And as I have answered to the past 9999973 people, I told her that I simply did not know.

Then, there was an awkward silence, an indicator of “We’ve officially run out of topics to talk about” which initiated a humble invitation from Norelly to join her and her family for a meal sometime.

As I escorted Norelly back to her car, I realized that she and I had so much in common by just being international students here. It tells me how a new culture can be thought of as a new sheet of paper where everyone starts afresh and makes his/her own roadmap. And in the hope of having more of such explorative conversations, I waved goodbye and walked back to my residence hall as the icy drops from the drizzle hit my face.

Kentucky Derby is a look at Organized Crime by Walter Mitty

Amidst a sea of red flasks with red culture medium, my red "The 50 Funniest American Writers" clearly didn't stand out for me to read it with great fervor.

To be honest, as a child, my favorite thing in my house was a 'Diwan'.  A Diwan is a cushion that is famously used in Indian living rooms because it makes sitting on the floor for family talks easy.  It however was my favorite because I could ride 'horsy' on it and compete against my brother who did the same thing on another Diwan.  We had our own derby and the winner (totally don't know how we figured which one of us it was) gets an extra piece of candy.  The first short story by Thompson actually tarnished my expectation and excitement towards horse racing. It wasn't funny in the sense that it was firstly too vulgar and pretty gross at that.  I didn't mind the plot including Playboy. What I did have a problem reading, and comprehending with all dignity, was the description the photographer gave about how he perceived the crowd to be in the fields the next day. It was a little awkward to picturize all of what he said.  He said, " That whole thing will be jammed with people; fifty thousand or so, and most of them staggering drunk.  It's a fantastic scene - thousands of people fainting, crying, copulating, trampling each other and fighting with broken whisky bottles.  We'll have to spend some time out there, but it's hard to move around, too many bodies." COPULATING? Really? Did it have another meaning in the past that I'm not aware of? Or am I thinking differently because I'm a Biology major?

Another place that totally struck to me as disgusting was when he described the scene in the box.  He said, " The aisles will be sick with vomit; people falling down and grabbing at your legs to keep from being stomped. Drunks pissing on themselves in the betting lines....". It was funny if you wanted to look at it from modern humor's perspective, but I don't know how funny it would have been back in 1970.

The second short story by Woody Allen on the contrary was quite funny.  It was funny in that it gave a commoner's tone to an organized crime group.  Just imagining them sharing space with the Fred Persky Dance Studio for their headquarters which houses three rooms and one secretary who does all the typing came out as really funny to me. The mob structure defined at the very end was pretty funny too. The punishment described by "Failure to do so means instant death." carries a lot more humor in context than it seems out of context because who they're referring to here is the capo di tutti capo, or the boss of all bosses.  It almost shows how mindless these groups are to kill their boss if he doesn't provide them with cold cuts and ice cubes. Lastly, when the author mentioned about the initiation process of an organized crime group, I was hoping for something more serious; something that involves the recruit doing some crime Oceans 11 style.  Apparently, according to the author, all it takes to become a part of this organized crime group is to say "Good. I like oats on my head" when they put oats on your head and hop around saying "Toodles! Toodles!". Again, as an Indian, I don't get why there is so much hate towards chutneys.

The last work by Thurber on The Secret Life of Walter Mitty was my favorite reading.  It shows how life goes a full circle.  Some of those things that Mitty imagined doing are what I would have imagined when I was a kid; playing the captain of a military jet, operating on a patient and rallying for my case in a court. It shows in a funny way how old people might go through the same feelings a small child might and how they keep themeselves happy.  It was rather funny when his old wife thought he was sick when he told her what he thought. Another thing that is really funny now more than ever is when Mitty, says to the sargeant " We only live once, Sargeant!".  What we're seeing here is the prototype of the today's YOLO!  This goes on to show that Humor is timeless and self-propogating.

These readings were funny and I enjoyed each of them in different ways.  The first reading wasn't funny in any dignity but being a college kid, I had a smile or two when random abuses were thrown around for no reason as I experience it every Saturday night walking by the GrandMarc Apartments. The second reading was especially funny to me because it was obnoxious humor like Monty Python, The Onion or The Annoying Orange.  They are funny because they are irritating and that's as simple as it can get. The last reading was more relatable than funny because at different points in my life, I've seen elderly people entertaining themselves and this story made a lot of sense in both, looking back at my childhood and in expectance of my elder self.

Three, Such a Beautifully Short Number

It surprised me when I first saw Comic Relief.  The book by itself was so bible looking with its black leather like book cover. It demanded an aura of respect and solemnness when I looked at it.  So I went on ahead to open the book and get preached upon on humor and it’s details and the first thing I see is two fiery orange Orangutans, one holding the L from the word ‘relief’, laughing away to glory. Now I’m thinking that’s weird but, I’m also laughing at how this book built my expectation of it to be a solemn book but shattered it with the Orangutans at the very opening page.

There were many things in this book that could have gone right and did and there were the few other things that didn’t go so well. Being an optimist, I tend to take the positives out of this reading and I’ve written down three of the most significant things that I got out of this book.

Cognitive Shift, the Incongruity Theory

Morreall starts of the book by stating the three theories of humor; the superiority, the incongruity and the relief theories. The superiority theory didn’t seem to make much sense to me because sometimes, we laugh without having any ego.  For example, when we share a goofy moment with our friends about something we did in high school, we aren’t inflating our ego nor are deflating someone else’s.  It is simply a fun moment. The incongruity theory however made perfect sense in that it is so prevalent even today and even now as I’m writing this paper an hour before class.  We expect something and when it doesn’t go as per our mental scheme, we are amused by it. This amusement, according to the relief theory is what gives rise to laughter as we want to relieve the tension built up by this unsatisfied expectation. This, if we put in context, will fall into place almost in every situation.  For example, when I read my twitter feed this morning (because it is more important than reading early morning for my O-Chem test), I came across this joke:

“Two fish in a tank.

One turns to the other and says: “Do you know how to drive this?”

Laughter is a word; Humor is the language – as a play signal that gives rise to the bazillion benefits of humor.

Have we ever yelled, frowned or ignored a smiling, playful kid? Now that would just be really cruel right. What the child is trying to say is that she/he trusts us and that she/he wants us to play with her/him (did you notice that I’m pushing for gender equality too?). This is a play signal which Morreall thinks is what gave rise to laughter.  This is an assurance, from the person you’re communicating with, which makes both the parties feel safe and happy engaging in a conversation.  When I walk to the BLUU every day, I look and smile at at least four people.  This immediately gives them a sense of safety; a sense that I mean no harm and that safety leads to laughter. To me, laughter is just a word in the language called Humor.

Mind Your Language

Morreall takes us on this hot air balloon ride and shows us the different fields, mountains and lakes of humor; aesthetic, pleasant and beautiful.  But he also takes us over to this school in Idaho and shows us their tormenting blue football field, and points out to us that places like these can exist too. There are these places that are meant to be played in but very cautiously. Morreall, in essence, tells us that humor can also be hurting.  Humor suddenly, in light of the negative aspect, becomes irresponsible and blocks compassion.  It strikes bells for me too.  If we laugh at someone when they fall or get hurt, much like what we do when we watch TV programs like ‘Wipeout’, we are losing that human value of compassion.  Our hearts become callous in situations like this and that is not the intention of humor and laughter.

Another thing that he doesn’t directly mention but implies by talking about the negative aspects of humor is the principle of Schadenfreude.  We laugh at things in a relief that it wasn’t us in that awkward, funny or maybe even embarrassing moment.

Comic relief was a good book in its entirety.  It was informative and funny but still covered some ground on the course.