Conversation Partner Blog 4

This morning I met with Carol for my fourth conversation partner breakfast.  Since it has been two weeks since we last saw each other, we started out by discussing how much colder the weather has gotten, something that neither of us likes very much.  Carol especially does not like the cold since it never snows or gets very cold in Brazil where she is from.

            After this, Carol and I spent most of the rest of our breakfast discussing college and how the American system differs from the Brazilian system.  Carol is interested in going into psychology to work as a counselor with teenagers.  She explained to me that the process is different there than the four years of undergraduate followed by two years of master that we do here.  In Brazil, students go straight into a five-year program for psychology and then can do additional years to get a masters degree, which is needed in order to specialize, as Carol wants to do.  Unlike here where it is quite easy to change your major as often as you want during the first couple years of college, in Brazil it is not common for people to change their minds because they would have to start over from the beginning in a different degree program.  Carol was interested to hear that the Brazilian college process was somewhat familiar to me because I have a friend who goes to medical school in England where the process sounds extremely similar.

            I think there are advantages and disadvantages to having a set-up like that of Brazil and England.  For students like me who have always known what career path they want to pursue, this is a good process because it cuts down on the amount of time students have to spend in college (eight years for a medical degree there vs. five years for a medical degree there).  However, a huge percentage of American college students change their majors several times before deciding what they want to do.  For these people, the American system is more effective because it allows for this indecision.  Another advantage I see in the American college system is that our education is more well rounded.  In Brazil and many other countries, college students only study material directly related to their majors.  Contrastingly, most American colleges have a core curriculum, which requires students to take classes in a variety of subject areas better preparing them for a multitude of situations and interactions with many types of people.  Overall, I see the advantages and disadvantages to both systems.  It is interesting to here about the different processes we use to achieve the same end result of education. 

Conversation Partner Blog 3

This morning, I met Carol for our third breakfast.  She noticed that there were many more people in the BLUU than there had been during our previous get-togethers and expressed that she thought this was because of the time change and people being more willing to get up early now that it is light outside.  I asked Carol if they have a time change in Brazil and she explained that they do, but it does not line up with ours since it is currently summer there.  As a result, the time difference between here and Sal Paulo can range anywhere from two to four hours making it difficult for her to keep up.

            Carol and I spent much of this meeting discussing sports.  Last Thursday, Carol attended her first TCU football game.  I asked her whether she had enjoyed it, and she said that she enjoyed the exciting experience, but did not understand much of the game and was surprised how long it lasted since each quarter is only fifteen minutes on the clock.  I was glad she made it to a game because I feel like her time at TCU and in the United States would not have been complete without getting to experience an American football game.  We also talked about the Olympics since the summer games will be held in Sal Paulo next year.  I was surprised to hear that Carol was not that excited about this and did not even have a good idea which sports are played at the Olympics.  My family enjoys watching a variety of sports during both the summer and the winter Olympics, so I would have thought it would be exciting for Carol to have the Olympics in her home town.  However, she expressed that, for her family, it was much more exciting to have the world cup there last year, an event that most Americans pay little attention to.

            Something that Carol does seem to find quite interesting is the idea of winter and the cold.  In Brazil, they never get snow, and it does not get nearly as cold as it gets in the United States.  She also, understandably, struggles to comprehend what the temperature will be like day to day since she is not familiar with the Fahrenheit system.  I explained to Carol that the weather varies a lot here during November and December and can be anywhere from the comfortable temperatures we are getting right now to below freezing with ice on the ground.  She seems apprehensive about the colder weather since she thought it was quite cold just over the past weekend when it was in the fifties.  This will be a new experience for her.

            I am really enjoying learning about Carol’s life in Brazil and the cultural differences between there and the United States.  Carol often surprises me when I assume that things like the Olympics are viewed the same way everywhere and then discover that Carol and I have vastly different outlooks on this event.  This goes to show that, while we are similar in many ways, we may also be different in several ways that I have not even yet realized.

Conversation Partner Blog 2

Today was my second meeting with my conversation partner.  We spent most of our time discussing the differences between American and Brazilian holidays.  This was an interesting topic of conversation since I did not know much about how our celebrations differ from those of other countries.

            With Halloween coming up this weekend, I asked Carol if she had any plans and how Halloween is celebrated in Brazil.  She expressed that it is a much bigger holiday here and, while growing in popularity, mostly involves partying in Brazil.  Since Carol lives with her aunt’s family, she looks forward to the new experience of passing out candy to trick-or-treaters. 

Carol also told me about an upcoming presentation she has on the differences between Easter in Brazil and America.  She asked how I celebrate Easter, and I told her about how my family focuses on the bunnies and Easter eggs part of the holiday despite its roots in Christianity. 

Additionally, Carol asked me about my family’s Christmas traditions.  This sparked a conversation about how our school years differ.  In Brazil, the seasons are opposite of ours since this country is in the southern hemisphere.  As a result, they begin their school year in January instead of August and end in November only getting a few weeks off in July.  This way, the main holiday still occurs during the summer with a shorter break in the winter similar to Christmas break in the United States.  I am so used to the northern hemisphere school schedule that it was strange for me to think about having breaks at a different time of year.  I also think it would be weird to have Christmas during the summer as they do in Brazil.  Despite the fact that we do not get much of a true winter here in Texas, so much of the Christmas spirit in the United States is associated with the cold and snow.  For example, the majority of the secular songs we sing around the holidays are about snowmen, sleighs, and reindeers and Christmas lights help to brighten the dark winter nights.  Our traditions and celebrations would be completely different if we associated Christmas with summer rather than winter. 

Overall I am really enjoying my conversations with Carol.  I am always curious to hear about how things are different in Brazil and sometimes surprised to hear about things that are the same.  I also find it interesting to hear about Carol’s views and opinions of the United States and her time here.  I am happy to hear that she is enjoying her experience here despite the challenge of not knowing the language very well, which she expresses is her biggest struggle.  I look forward to continuing to learn about Carol’s culture and sharing with her my experiences as well.

Learning Experience 4: Excusercising

This semester as part of my major requirements, I am taking Exercise Psychology.  This is a course that focuses on why people exercise and what keeps people exercising.  The professor of the class is a particularly strong believer that everyone has time to exercise, and that, if people claim not to have time to exercise, they need to improve their time management skills so that they can schedule this important activity into their day.  She calls the list of excuses that people use to get out of exercising “excusercising.”  I find this to be an extremely interesting concept particularly because it is not necessarily an idea I believe in. 

As someone who is involved in several organizations on campus and taking 17 hours this semester, I often rush from activities to classes to meetings from 8:00am or even before until at least 8:00 at night.  After the long day is over, I still have homework to do and assignments to complete.  I definitely do not have the time or energy to stay up even later in order to exercise.  I also do not believe that better time management would solve this problem.  I have a “Type A” personality, which means I am ultra organized and have my days scheduled down to the minute.  There is no way I could work in an extra hour for exercising without taking away from my sleep.

Through my experience in this class, I have learned to agree to disagree with my professor.  It is challenging to motivate myself to learn about a subject that I do not care about and frequently do not even agree with.  Excusercising is only one of the many topics we have covered that I question the validity of.  In addition, I also find the textbook for this class to be biased towards certain groups and populations. Yet, if I want to graduate as a kinesiology major, I must study this material well enough to make good grades in the class. 

As a result, I am learning to make the class worthwhile despite my lack of interest.  I find myself using various strategies to help myself remain attentive such as amusing myself with the many typos throughout the textbook and contemplating the multiple statements made that I do not agree with.  Even if I am not exactly following along with the learning goals of the class as stated in the syllabus, I have managed to find my own value in the time this class requires of me.  It is almost impossible to stay dedicated to a class that I am not interested in, but with a little bit of effort and creativity, any class can be personalized to a form that is meaningful and worthwhile for each individual student.

Conversation Partner Blog 1

This morning I finally met my conversation partner, Carol, for the 1^st time after having many struggles finding a time that would work for both of us.  Carol is from Brazil and has been in the United States since July.  She expressed that she was not too nervous when she first arrived here as she has visited many times before to see her aunt who she is now living with.  Carol and I discussed each of our plans for the future and why we chose to come to TCU.  While she is here to improve her English, Carol’s ultimate plan is to study psychology possibly returning to Brazil to do so. 

One part of our conversation that I think we both found particularly interesting was a discussion about learning new languages.  I told her that, while my mom was born in the Czech Republic and speaks three languages, I have never enjoyed learning new languages and stopped as soon as I could in high school.  Carol found it fascinating that my mom knows so many languages and yet my sister and I only know English.  She also described to me how, having attended an English school in Brazil, she assumed that she would arrive here being able to understand the language fairly well.  However, this was not the case.  She realized pretty quickly that her proficiency in reading English and speaking it with Brazilians did not translate well to speaking it with native speakers.  I was able to connect to this story since I have watched my mom speak German and Czech fluently to her parents for my whole life, but also seen her struggle when strangers attempt to speak these languages with her.

In addition, Carol talked about how different it is to speak English with people from other countries and those who are used to talking with non-native speakers like the Intensive English Program (IEP) students and teachers than it is to speak with other native English Speakers.  Since Carol lives with her Brazilian aunt and is otherwise always around IEP students, she says that she has had little opportunity to interact with other TCU students.  In a way, I feel like IEP keeps her from being exposed to American culture in the same way that international students not in IEP are.  She said that she has never been to a football game and did not seem to be aware of many of the other sporting and social events that TCU offers.  This was surprising to me because my experience with international students in the past has always been that there are too many opportunities for them to get involved rather than not enough.  They are invited to events constantly and find themselves exhausted from the many new experiences.  The fact that Carol does not live close to TCU and lives with family causes her to miss out on many of these fun events.

Overall, I found our time together to be quite informative.  While we had a few moments of awkward silence, Carol and I always managed to quickly find new things to talk about that kept us learning from each other.  I think we both appreciated the opportunity to meet someone with a new and different life experience from our own.