A time when I observed hateful injustice or prejudice...

            In high school, most of our All Student Body (ASB) executive team was made up of guys. You would get the occasional female on the team, but that was usually because she was extremely popular. It frustrated because a lot of my qualified female friends who had such big and great plans for the school would run, but would never be voted in. Most of them knew by running that they would not win because my class would only elect the funniest speech and everyone in my class believed that girls just simply are not funny. First of all, this whole process is ridiculous because we should not be voting in the funniest person, but we should be voting in the person who will put the most effort into their job. During my freshman year, we voted in Jason. Although I grew up with him and he is one of my good friends, his entire speech was on the downfalls of being Asian with “tiger parents.” Apparently, this kind of humor appealed to my predominately white class. I believe the Superiority Theory of humor was at work in this scenario. He had no plans for the future of our high school, but his self-deprecating humor landed him as the President of our entire high school. I wonder how he felt when he realized that he truly only got votes by making fun of his race, family, and heritage. Probably not too good. The fact that my class thought this was even remotely close to okay is beyond me. The second part of the ASB process that frustrated me was that all of the men in our class constantly commented on how females “just are not funny.” Excuse me! Amy Schumer, Amy Poehler, Sarah Siverman, Ellen DeGeneres, Mindy Kaling, Melissa McCarthy, and Kristen Wiig just to name a few of the thousands of funny and brilliant women that have blessed this world. A group of people judged someone on not being funny before they even got to the podium. If they were a female, they were automatically not funny and no one listened to what they had to say. The saddest part of all of this is that even some of my girlfriends fell into this mindset and would discount a female classmate because she just was not funny. I honestly felt like I would have been a good candidate, but I was too scared to run because I knew that people would only judge be based on my gender and ability to make people laugh. When did humor become about gender and why do we have the perception that men are funnier than women?

            We should never have to tear-ourselves a part or be a certain type of person to get people to laugh and like us. Humor should be about inclusiveness. Humor should be about bringing a large group of people together to relate to something. Humor should never be used to segregate. As much as my high school taught me and prepared me, it was a community of segregation. Boys were “popular” based on if they could make people laugh and girls were “popular” based on their looks. Humor is unique to the individual and thus should not be used to determine the status of one person to another. Men are often portrayed to be the “jokesters” of the class, but when did we stop telling girls that they cannot be funny too? Women have always been told to be polite and indirectly this has come out as us not speaking our minds and being funny will offend others. I often laugh more at females anyways because they often use humor and do not offend anyone in the process. This is why I respect female comedians because they have penetrated a world where they are not theoretically meant to be funny. From now on, can we please just tell our daughters that they have every right and the ability to be just as funny as the boy sitting next to them in class? 

Uncontrollable Laughter 2

I found Literature and Civilization II extremely interesting because we focused on something that we took for granted every day. Laughter is a huge part of my life and honestly, I find that a person’s sense of humor directly relates to their personality. However, I never gave much thought to why I laugh at specific things when other people do not find them funny. I just assumed it was some random function of the brain and too complex for me to understand. The class taught me that humor truly is complex because so much of it depends on culture and our perceptions of the world, but there are basic reasons or theories as to why humans laugh. Now that I have taken the class, whenever I laugh I always try to relate it back to some theory or try to figure out why I actually think that it is funny. I have realized that I laugh at some things because others are laughing, but I do not truly think they are funny. I have also grown to truly appreciate some of the things that I think are extremely funny. One of those things would the television show The Office. When I kept trying to find a time that I laughed uncontrollably, my mind kept going back to any time I watched an episode of The Office, so I decided to cave and write about why I think The Office is my favorite TV show. 

If you know me well, you would probably know that I hold a deep obsession for The Office. I started watching the television show in middle school and I have probably seen every episode at least four times. Keep in mind that there are 201 episodes of the office. That is roughly 308 hours of my life dedicated to this show. It is the only show that I can re-watch episodes and still laugh out loud and the only show where I balled like a baby during the finale. Now that I have established my obsession of the show in it, let me tell you what this class has taught me about my love for an office with just fifteen main characters.

            
Most television shows include people with extravagant and complex lives that as an ordinary person, I find really hard to relate to. The Office, however, is a show that documents the lives of about fifteen ordinary people who work in a paper distributor office. It cannot get more ordinary than that. The Office’s premise is the sarcasm of ordinary life. It takes people with basic lives, but with weird quirks and exaggerates how people live ordinarily. Although I have never worked in an office, I still found a lot of the sarcasm hilarious and relateable. A lot of the people think Michael Scott, the boss of the office, has very sexist and racist jokes. I agree that his jokes definitely have that undertone, but that The Office executes them in a way that sarcastically pokes fun at idiot people who make those jokes in real life because we all know someone who finds offensive things funny. No one in the office agrees with Michael’s jokes and in fact most of jokes offend someone in the office, so by exaggerating his actions they sarcastically portray a person people often hate being around.

 Ask me who my favorite character in The Office is and I will probably never give you a straight answer because I would honestly feel bad for not naming one of the characters as my favorite. If my life depended on who my favorite character is, however, I would have to choose Jim. Out of everyone in the office, Jim would probably be the most normal. He is the one who falls for the receptionist, Pam, plays constant pranks on his desk mate, Dwight, and is known as the “attractive” one in the office with nothing going for him. Jim’s normalcy makes everyone else seem like a complete wackjob in The Office. He is what you would call a fish out of water. By being the normal person in The Office who always tries to do the right thing, everyone’s quirks and annoyances are highlighted and even more humorous. Jim is known for that stare into the camera with a little shake of his head when someone does something ridiculous making the ridiculous thing even way funnier. When his eccentric coworkers put him into uncomfortable situations, his reactions and how he deals with them make the show because we can all relate to being the normal one, even if we are the eccentric one. Overall, The Office is a show that makes you fall in love with every character no matter how annoying they can be. I followed their lives to the end and saw a piece of myself in every single one of them. Yes, I cry at the last scene where they all come back to The Office for one final time, but that is because every character taught me some sort of lesson during the 201 episodes. It will forever be favorite show.

Learning Experience 4

            I often think one of the most fascinating parts of humor and comedy is the paradox behind them. Some of the most brilliant comedians often deal with intense depression. Although we often view laughter as being happy, laughter often comes from a much darker place. One of the more recent examples would be Robin Williams. He was a heart-warming man who knew how to make every generation laugh and smile. Unfortunately, he committed suicide just over a year ago. When I first heard the devastating news, I questioned how someone with so much liveliness on film could be so torn apart inside. Now I am not naïve to think that people’s characters on television directly relate to their personal lives, but I would think that a person who has a job specifically to bring people joy would be joyful as well. I believe the Relief Theory plays a large role in why comedians often deal with depression. The Relief Theory states that people use humor as a means to relieve tension. Comedians can use humor as a means to deal with their internal struggles, however humor does not truly fix the issue. The comedian may go up on stage or on film for an immediate relief, but after the audience laughs and they leave, their problems still exist. In order to truly fix depression, one needs intimate human contact. Although an audience might seem like a form of human contact, an audience is only a façade. An audience only sees an actor on stage and does not understand the internal struggles of the person standing in front of them. Audiences go to shows or watch movies for a laugh, not to uncover someone’s personal problems. The removal of the audience from the performer is the reason why so many people were shocked when Robin Williams passed away. On film, people perceived him as a happy and lively man, but never understood his deeper pain. Although comedians may use the Relief Theory to drive their comedy, they only experience a limited form of relief and do not find a long term solution to their pain.

            Although comedy can be entertaining, the comedian will always sacrifice a part of themselves to be at the service of other’s joy. Comedy then becomes extremely dangerous for the comedian because the audience will only see the “actor” or the fake self and the comedian becomes stuck in a world that does not know his or her true self. When Robin Williams died, President Obama sent his condolences to the Williams family by saying:

“Robin Williams was an airman, a doctor, a genie, a nanny, a president, a professor, a bangarang Peter Pan, and everything in between. But he was one of a kind. He arrived in our lives as an alien – but he ended up touching every element of the human spirit. He made us laugh. He made us cry. He gave his immeasurable talent freely and generously to those who needed it most – from our troops stationed abroad to the marginalized on our own streets.”

Although I understand where Obama was coming from by making this statement, it is important to remember that Robin Williams was never just a character. Williams was a misunderstood man who dealt with real human problems and depression. I believe that people’s purpose in life should never just be for the entertainment of others. Individual needs should always come first, and unfortunately we only chose to perceive Williams as the characters he performed and not the actual man himself. Comedy is a gift and enjoyable, but we must remember that the person performing is more than the character on stage. Robin Williams sacrificed a vital part of himself, his happiness, in order to make the rest of the world happy. As noble as that sound, it should never come to that point. 

The view from my bedroom window...

            My bedroom view required me to cover it with curtains. During my sophomore year of high school, my family moved to a different house in Portland that was in an extremely wooded neighborhood. In fact, it did not really seem like a neighborhood at all, but rather our house isolated in the middle of a dark, creepy, and wet wooded area. To make, matters even more depressing, my room was alone in the basement looking out into a forest. Now it may seem like I am setting this up to be a horror story, and that is true because this is a horror story. At first, I honestly thought I lucked out on getting the room in the basement because of more privacy that would allow me to play loud music, but three months into living in the house, I realized that I made a mistake that would haunt me for the next three years. One day, a friend of mine from the area was talking to me about how a man was found dead in the woods right outside my room. At first, I totally thought he was joking because this friend typically messed with me. When I asked his father, however, he confirmed that a neighborhood kid actually found the dead man and had to go to counseling for years to get over the incident. Still in disbelief that I was living in a house potentially haunted by a dead man that died right outside my room, I decided to do more reach. Unfortunately, the internet only confirmed what I did not want to be true. A man was found dead right by my room, but even creepier, he was found dead with no lacerations or any kind proof of murder or suicide. It was as if he just went, laid down, and died there. Although he most likely overdosed on something, I still think it is the creepiest thing ever. For fear of seeing his ghost outside my window, I closed my curtains and never once opened them again for the rest of the three years I lived in that house.  

            Actually, I think once during senior I opened the curtains because I wanted some sunshine, but then quickly closed them when the menacing woods reminded me of what happened. I have always been one to let my imagination get the best of me. I know deep down that his ghost would never have greeted me at the window, but I processed the actually quite sad event as fear. I let a man’s unfortunate ending that happened years ago escalate in my mind and keep me isolated in a dark room for years. Now that I am living in Texas, a place without towering pine trees and deep forests, all I want is the view from my old bedroom. To be honest, I truly do not even know what it looks like, but I imagine it all the time. My family recently moved to Idaho, but when we visited Portland over Thanksgiving, we drove through my old neighborhood. All I could think about was how I shut myself out from such beauty for so many years. I realized that I let a nonexistent fear control my life. Part of growing up is differentiating between real and non-real fear. Although it took me awhile to realize how childish I had been in that house, I now know to evaluate the fears that I have. Fear often disguises itself as something that does not exist. I try not to waste my life on fake fear now, but I still run into it from time to time. 

Learning Experience 3

            One of my favorite projects during the year was the presentation we had to do on humor in different countries. I not only enjoyed researching my own assigned country, the Czech Republic, but also listening to different presentations. The fact that humor differs so vastly between countries surprised me. I have become so accustomed to American humor that, I forget different kinds of humor exist. I love to travel because it forces me to remember that the world is a huge place with an infinite amount of perspectives. When our groups came up with different countries for the presentations, I knew right away that I wanted to do mine on the Czech Republic because I had traveled to Prague during the summer. I have been fortunate to travel to many places and to experience all sorts of cultures, but the humor in the Czech Republic differed by far the most from American humor. Before the week spent in Prague, we were in Budapest which is ranked as one of the friendliest cities in the world. In fact, most of the Eastern European countries had extremely friendly cultures, so I had expected the same from Prague. I was dead wrong. Almost immediately after stepping off the train, our tour guide warned us that if someone offended us not to take it personally because Czech people are known for being rude and upfront. Her heeding proved to be correct as the first Czech person I greeted and smiled at gave me a funny look and totally blew me off.

            Throughout the week there, however, I began to learn why the people of the Czech Republic have such frank attitudes and I began to grow an immense appreciation for the culture. When someone mentions the Czech Republic in America, most people think of a small country in Eastern Europe that does not offer much. I can assume this, because I thought the exact same thing before my trip. I now like to think of Prague as the hidden gem of Europe, but in reality it is a country that has been controlled, bullied, and put through the wringer. Intersected in both World Wars, the people of the Czech have been controlled by both Nazi and Communist regimes. These long periods of despair have left the Czech people with distrusting and pessimistic attitudes. From these attitudes, however, emerged a nation of sarcasm. The Czech people have used their humor as a defense mechanism against disappointment. Hanka, our tour guide, told us that the people do not engage in small talk or smile back because even those gestures push them to expect too much out of the world and others. Upon first glance, many people may think the hard shell of the Czech people is a depressing result of a violent history, but I grew to believe that they their pessimistic attitudes has allowed them a more realistic view of the world. Many of the people there have embraced a unique sense of individualism because they can truly only rely on themselves. This can be seen in their distaste for any form of government, the John Lennon wall used for the freedom of expression, and many of David Cerny’s sarcastic statues. The John Lennon wall is much more than a spot to take Instagram phots. It is a place where the people of Prague regained their freedom of expression. They spray painted hidden messages during times of oppression and today it is used as a place for people to come spray paint whatever they feel like. The Czech people are not afraid to say exactly what is on their mind which is why a lot of their humor has offended many cultures. However, their sarcastic humor has also protected them during times of despair. Being cynical about everything and keeping expectations low is not the Czechs being negative, but instead preventing disappointment. 

Cultural Conversation 2

Unfortunately, Debora, my conversation partner from Brazil did not respond to my requests to grab a second lunch. Fortunately, I have had many humorous and not so humorous experiences with people whose first language is not English. For the rest of my five blogs on my conversation partner, I will instead be writing about other conversations I have had with people of different backgrounds and cultures. For my first experience I am going to talk about my interactions with a young woman named Olga. Okay, from first glance, you are probably picturing Olga with blond braids and dressed in lederhosen. However, Olga is not from an isolated town in the mountains of Germany, she is from Mumbai, India, a city with over twelve million people. Olga, a name chosen upon her arrival to the United States, grew up in India and moved to Fort Worth for the TCU Masters of Business Administration program. I first met Olga at a speaker event on campus and she immediately introduced herself. I talked with her for a second time two months later. I was with my dad at a football game when I heard her thick Indian accent over the crowd. This time, I immediately turned around to greet her and sure enough she remembered me.

Even though I have only had minimal interaction with Olga, I would like to say that I have developed a connection with her. At first it was easy because many of my friends growing up were from India due to Intel and Nike hiring their Indian parents. I experienced a lot with the culture and even went to many of my friends Hindu celebrations. Within in Olga’s and mine first conversation, I probably asked fifty questions trying to find ways to relate to her. She loved that my favorite food is the yellow curry my friend’s mom makes and that I had worn a sari for a celebration. We talked about how Northern India is completely different from Southern India and how I see big differences between the North and South of the United States. We laughed that the major differences rarely seem to be between the East and the West. We opened up about moving to a place where we knew no one and how much we miss our families. I expressed jealousy over how large her family is back home while mine is extremely small. We both believe we are from the most beautiful places in the world, so we decided that she has to go to Oregon one day and that I have to go to India. She asked about sororities and laughed when I tried to explain them because she thought they sounded ridiculous, but a lot of fun at the same time. I am starting to question sororities myself because every foreign person I explain them to thinks they are the most bizarre concepts. Even though we grew up in different worlds, we share many similarities. We are both Christian women interested in business for similar reasons. We both somehow ended up in Texas and we both truly have no idea what we are doing with our lives even though we like to seem as if we have it all together.

I am so thankful that Olga came up and introduced herself. Sometimes bravery is key to creating relationships you can truly learn from. I have the tendency to go talk to people who I know that I will feel comfortable with, but those people almost never teach me as much as people who I would not talk to on a normal day. I probably would not have thought to sit next to her during the event if she had not come up to me. We have to take chances to meet different kinds of people and we will discover more about ourselves that way. I learned a lot about a place I have never been and a lifestyle I am not used to in just a little over a half an hour of talking. I feel like I am always reminding myself that the world is huge, so why limit myself with who I interact with? I did not only get a new LinkedIn friend (she added me) out of Olga, but also a chance to learn just a little bit more about the world. Okay, this might all sound a little Eat Love Pray, but I believe stepping out of your comfort zone will bring you more knowledge, laughter, and a desire to want more. 

Learning Experience 2

              One of my favorite days this year was when we had two members of Senseless Acts of Comedy come in. I have only seen the improv show twice, but each time I am falling out of my seat in laughter. I am amazed about how my peers can be so funny and creative at the drop of a hat. I have been to a few professional improv shows, and the shows SAC puts on were way better than any of those shows. Although that probably has a lot to do with the members of SAC being my age and using references only TCU students would understand, I still believe the students are much funnier than many professionals. The fact that both of the students had different paths of developing their skills fascinated me. They said that anyone can be funny and partake in improv, but it takes the specific ability of letting go of fears and reservations to be good at improv. I believe every word of that. In middle school, I took an improv class. I would like you to imagine me at the peak of my awkward stage getting up on a stage in front of classmates I was trying to impress and doing improv. It was not pretty. I hated every second of that class. I dreaded being called on to perform and I would stand there shaking as I tried to come up with the most generic scenes so I would not make a complete fool of myself. Sort of to how Michael Scott always commits to being a double agent with a gun during his improv class in The Office, I always committed to petting or walking a dog because everyone likes dogs.  

            Although I have not performed improv sense the dreadful years of middle school, I would like to believe I would be much better at improv today. It took me pretty much all of high school and parts of freshman year to feel fully comfortable in my skin and to let go of constantly trying  not to make myself look ridiculous. Even though I am nowhere near as insecure as I was seven years ago, I still struggle with insecurities every day. I truly admire people like the two SAC students and how they can just let go of their insecurities on stage. That is a skill that takes dedication to develop. Throughout this year we have talked about benefits of humor and I think an important one is the ability to laugh at yourself. People who are so kept up in maintaining an appearance cannot let go and embrace their true selves. For those out there who transitioned from a period of insecurity to an era of unwavering self-assurance, is being confident not the most freeing feeling? We all must learn at one point to just sit down and laugh at natural human stupidity. The first time I learned to laugh at myself, I realized that I am a human, just like every other human on this earth. I also discovered that I do a lot of good things too because I stopped getting so caught up on all of my mistakes. I know we all sort of hated on the superiority theory in class, and for the most part I am not a fan of the theory, but the theory holds some truth. When we laugh at others for silly errors, we must learn to laugh at ourselves as well. I laugh at a guy slipping on ice in a Speedo not only because I am happy that is not me, but also because I realize that I could probably do something just as idiotic. We all have our little flaws and instead of letting them hold us back, we should just laugh and move on. Finding my humor shaped who I am today and allowed me to be a much more confident person. Now if only I could turn back time, and brave the middle school improv class today.