Meeting with Vera #6 - A Final Farewell

After several months of meeting with Vera Wang and discussing life, it was finally time to see one another for the last time. We had never gotten the opportunity to go to the TCU Recreation Center like I had hoped, and it felt like just yesterday that we emailed one another for the first time. But as they say, all good things must come to an end.

Vera and I had planned to meet on Friday during dead days to cap off our semester, but it ended up being too icy for either of us to really want to make the trek to Union Grounds. Instead, we waited until Saturday when people finally stopped using leaf blowers on the ice, and actually made some real progress. When I first saw Vera, she looked incredibly flustered. With a large scarf wrapped around her neck and layers upon layers of sweaters and jackets, I knew she had never experienced icy conditions before. She probably looked at me with my light jacket and sneakers like a complete fool, but that’s okay.

Immediately after sitting down to begin our last conversation, she declared that she loved the snow, but hated the ice. We laughed and agreed that the ice was crazy outside, and how it seemed impossible to go anywhere without slipping and sliding around. Vera told me that while she had seen snow before, she had never really had to deal with it for more than a few hours until it melted. She did say that her roommate and friends decided to go and play in the snow/ice mixture that morning and tried to do some sledding as well. I told her all about the previous night when my roommates and I decided to go have a snowball fight at 2:00AM. She thought we were crazy, but we laughed about it in the end.

We then talked about how the Thanksgiving break was for each other, and Vera said that she simply stayed local, but had a nice time relaxing and taking it easy. Many of her friends also stayed in town, so she had plenty of people to see and spend time with. She asked about my trip back home, and I told her several funny stories about my time with family and friends. She hopes to visit Boston at some point, and hopefully we will still be in touch at the time so I can show her around the city a little bit. After several other side stories about various travels we wanted to do during our lives, I asked about her plans for Christmas. Vera said that she was really looking forward to going home to see her parents during the vacation, but was already excited to returning to TCU after the break and seeing her friends here in America. She leaves on Saturday after finals, so unless we run into each other before then, it will likely be the last time I get see Vera (at least in 2013). After rambling on about various topics, the time came to part ways. We wished each other well on our final exams, and embraced one last time.

All in all, I could not have asked for a better conversation partner to exchange experiences and laughter with. While there may have been a communication barrier during some of our conversations, we are both still college students at the end of the day and share similar experiences in everyday life. Whatever the future holds for both Vera Wang and I, I know that we won’t forget each other anytime soon. I will always look back and be able to say that I became friends with a fashion icon.

Study Abroad Thoughts

In my young and callow life, I always saw the United States as an honorable homeland revolving around the economy, and a place where people flourished in all walks of life. I believed this until it came time to board a big bus, bound for the copious mountains of Appalachia. I knew that I was going to be assisting in the construction of residences for the people of Eastern Kentucky, but I was not expecting any amazing realizations or changes in my own character. Little did I know that my whole future was about to change, from the moment my sneaker hit the Kentucky soil.

I arrived with my church group after a twenty-hour bus ride through the transition in terrain between New England and Appalachia. I could see the enthralling forestation, as well as the impoverished community that was going to be helped, but there didn’t look to be much hope for the area. My perception of the world was beginning to change already, and I hadn’t even been off the bus for more than a minute.

There was a full week ahead of me, to embrace the culture and to assist people in the area, who were in desperate need of some financial help. I wasn’t sure how useful I was going to be since I was a small and skinny young man at the time. The work that week involved intense manual labor, and by the end of each workday, my body was a limp rag-doll, almost unable to pick up my own legs to climb atop my rickety bunk bed.

However, after attending a service at a nearby church on Sunday morning, my realization was able to fully develop and my character started to change. The church congregation was a mere 20-25 people, but each and every person was incredibly outgoing, and the beaming smiles on their faces alluded to the appreciation they had for the work we were doing to help the local community.

After the week had come to a close, and the duffle bags were being hurled onto the bus once again, I felt closer to some of the people in Neon, Kentucky than I did to friends in my own school. Between sharing riveting stories about our own lives, to just letting each other know that we would keep them on our minds, I realized that I didn’t just help a struggling community in Appalachia. They also helped me to discover the true compassion and meaning worth living for in life, and for that, I was beyond grateful.

Following the trip, I found myself reaching out to others in more ways than I had been prior to the experience. I continually believe that I can make a bigger and better influence in people’s lives, whether I knew them personally or not. The trip assisted me in finding a positive way to look at every decision that I will have to make, and will ultimately help me in the future.

My Trip to Neon, Kentucky

In my young and callow life, I always saw the United States as an honorable homeland revolving around the economy, and a place where people flourished in all walks of life. I believed this until it came time to board a big bus, bound for the copious mountains of Appalachia. I knew that I was going to be assisting in the construction of residences for the people of Eastern Kentucky, but I was not expecting any amazing realizations or changes in my own character. Little did I know that my whole future was about to change, from the moment my sneaker hit the Kentucky soil.

I arrived with my church group after a twenty-hour bus ride through the transition in terrain between New England and Appalachia. I could see the enthralling forestation, as well as the impoverished community that was going to be helped, but there didn’t look to be much hope for the area. My perception of the world was beginning to change already, and I hadn’t even been off the bus for more than a minute.

There was a full week ahead of me, to embrace the culture and to assist people in the area, who were in desperate need of some financial help. I wasn’t sure how useful I was going to be since I was a small and skinny young man at the time. The work that week involved intense manual labor, and by the end of each workday, my body was a limp rag-doll, almost unable to pick up my own legs to climb atop my rickety bunk bed.

However, after attending a service at a nearby church on Sunday morning, my realization was able to fully develop and my character started to change. The church congregation was a mere 20-25 people, but each and every person was incredibly outgoing, and the beaming smiles on their faces alluded to the appreciation they had for the work we were doing to help the local community.

After the week had come to a close, and the duffle bags were being hurled onto the bus once again, I felt closer to some of the people in Neon, Kentucky than I did to friends in my own school. Between sharing riveting stories about our own lives, to just letting each other know that we would keep them on our minds, I realized that I didn’t just help a struggling community in Appalachia. They also helped me to discover the true compassion and meaning worth living for in life, and for that, I was beyond grateful.

Following the trip, I found myself reaching out to others in more ways than I had been prior to the experience. I continually believe that I can make a bigger and better influence in people’s lives, whether I knew them personally or not. The trip assisted me in finding a positive way to look at every decision that I will have to make, and will ultimately help me in the future.

The Bowling Alley Incident

By going back home to Boston for Thanksgiving break, I was able to spend time with friends and family members who I had not seen since leaving for school in early August. While we shared funny stories from the past few months and stuffed our faces with delicious food, there was one particular experience that had my whole family cracking up.

My family had nearly thirty people at our house for Thanksgiving dinner, and then we regrouped on Friday to have even more fun times with each other. We decided that it would be a great idea to go bowling as a large crowd, and almost everybody attended. We called around lunchtime on Friday to see if a place called “Lucky Strike: Boston” had any open reservations for our group, but unfortunately they did not. Lucky Strike is essentially the Rolls-Royce of bowling alleys in our area, simply because it sits right next to Fenway Park and has an amazing atmosphere. Although we struck out there, we still were determined to find a place to bowl, and ended up heading over to a 24/7 bowling alley in Dorchester, which is a rather seedy part of Boston.

Upon arriving to the rather dingy establishment, we began to play when we realized that we were the only caucasian people in the entire bowling alley. While this was not a problem at all, it just put us in a different environment than we were used to. Two lanes down from us was a group of young men who seemed to be taking their bowling extremely seriously. We watched as they would consistently get strikes and spares, while we continually rolled gutter balls.

Towards the end of our second game, my brothers and I decided to have a competition to see who could roll the ball down the lane the fastest. Unfortunately, my brother got his thumb stuck in one of the bowling ball holes during his turn, and could not release it at the proper time. Instead, the bowling ball ended up sailing over two lanes and rolled down the gutter of another party’s game. It was the group of professionals. One of the intense male bowlers just received a gutter ball during his tenth frame thanks to my brother. Everybody in the entire bowling alley stopped and stared. Then, the young men all started to crack up. Thank goodness!

Everybody started laughing and joking with my brother about his mishap, and luckily the group of guys were not mad at all. They had never seen anything quite like it, and so the laughter continued. At the end of the day, we made new acquaintances during a situation that could have ended up totally different. We laughed hysterically about how out of place we were in the bowling alley, yet still managed to have an amazing time. This story definitely seems to be one where, “You had to be there” in order to fully appreciate the experience, but it is one that I won’t forget anytime soon. With elements of unexpectedness, a cognitive shift definitely occurred, which made things so funny. Even though people were not in play mode, the situation was funny enough to make everyone laugh. Another aspect of the situation could be related to the fact that we felt superior to my brother when he threw the ball.

Meeting with Vera #5 - "Double-Date"

A few days before Thanksgiving, Vera and I decided to meet up for the fifth time. Rather than going to our usual place in Union Grounds though, Dan Arndst and I coordinated to have a “double date” with our conversation partners. We talked a week beforehand about setting something up, simply because both our conversation partners seemed to be friends. Vera and Tristan had each tagged along to the other’s conversation partner meetings, so we thought it would be fun to just have a group meeting! Initially we expected to have Tristan play piano for us, but ended up just getting a nice afternoon snack at Market Square instead.

After Dan and I met up with Tristan at a table in the main area of the cafeteria, Vera texted me to ask if it would be okay to bring another one of her friends. What a social butterfly! Sure enough she tagged along with her friend named Amy, who is another Intensive English Program student. When I first met Amy, she seemed to just be a normal foreign student like Vera, but it turns out that she was far from the normal student. She actually got married a year ago and commutes to TCU from her home. Her husband owns a frozen yogurt shop nearby, and she seems to be very proud of it. It turns out that Vera and Amy have several classes together, which is how they know each other. Amy is from Seoul, South Korea, so their only common language is English, which I thought was very cool.

After chatting for a bit and getting acquainted with one another, I noticed that Vera had a large band-aid on the backside of her hand. I asked what had happened, and it turns out that she had just received a sports injury about thirty minutes before meeting up with us. She and Amy decided that they wanted to try the rock climbing wall in the TCU Recreation Center, and did it together. After struggling to ascend it, Vera slipped and cut her hand on one of the handholds. We all exchanged laughs about the simple mistake, but only because I told her I probably would have done the same thing.

After that, we got into the topic of social media applications other than Facebook and Twitter. Dan and I described new programs like Snapchat and Instagram, and gave the three IEP students a couple demonstrations on our phones. I thought it was unusual that they had never heard of these popular applications, but I guess it’s not that strange since they are mostly limited to America and Europe. After we showed them though, Vera created an Instagram which she says she wants to start using. The main topic of discussion though was our individual plans for Thanksgiving. As I had expected to hear, neither Vera, Tristan, nor Amy had any plans for the holiday. They were all just staying local, but said that they would most likely spend the day with their friends in the TCU area who were also staying in the neighborhood. Dan and I talked a bit about our own family traditions, which fascinated our conversation partners.

Finally, our conversation was stopped short because everybody had somewhere to be later that afternoon, but we talked about each other’s plans for the future after graduating from school. The consensus with all five of us was that we wanted to work and live within America, simply because of how great the opportunities are here. Everybody mentioned that they liked being near a major city, so it will be interesting to see how our individual plans work out in the time to come. After saying goodbye to Amy and Tristan, I gave Vera a hug and we parted ways. I know our meeting after Thanksgiving will be bittersweet, but only because it will be my last time seeing Vera for the semester.

Meeting with Vera #4 - The Piano Man

During the first few days of November, I scheduled my fourth meeting with Vera Wang. The one major thing I began to notice about her was that she always had free time to meet up, and was willing to meet with me whenever I asked. I don't know whether our schedules just happen to match up perfectly, or if she doesn't have much to do outside of the classroom. Nonetheless, I am very pleased to have a conversation partner who is free to meet with me. After all, there have been numerous stories about other conversations being missing in action. As I approached Union Grounds, I was unsure what Vera and I would talk about, simply because we seemed to have exhausted almost every potential conversation topic in the past month. However, this all changed when she arrived with her friend named Tristan, a brilliant piano player who also originated from China.

I was not expecting Vera to bring somebody to join along in our conversation, but was pleasantly surprised when she did! After spending a lot of time introducing one another, I really enjoyed speaking with Tristan. He definitely speaks much more fluent English, and actually brought up various topics that he wanted to get my opinions on. The most interesting thing about Tristan is that he is actually a fantastic piano player. After explaining that he lives in Irvine, TX and commutes to TCU each day, I asked why he bothered to live so far out of the way. It turns out that he is a professional piano player who happens to have a manager in the Dallas area. His manager had attended one of his concerts in Beijing a few years ago, and ended up offering Tristan a contract to come play and perform in the United States. With an opportunity like that, Tristan ended up signing with him, and currently lives in an apartment provided by his manager. Being a proper businessman, Tristan immediately handed over his business card and told me to check out some of his work. Since getting back from our conversation, I have gone online and heard several pieces that he performed. He is fantastic.

The most interesting thing about our conversation was how much more willing Vera was to engage in conversation with us. Rather than being shy and bashful, she ended up telling a plethora of stories when topics arose. A great conversation we had with each other regarded the freedom of people in the United States versus that of the people in China. Both Vera and Tristan noted that they loved the fact that they were now allowed to have Facebook accounts in America, simply because it was not allowed in China. The other thing they mentioned was how difficult it was to be granted permission to travel to America for college. It was apparently a very long and painstaking process to obtain government approval to come here, but well worth it in the end. Tristan said that the technology here is also much easier to access, like Apple products for example. I know that due to riots and people storming stores in China, it is not very common for Chinese people to have iPhones, unless they purchase them overseas. Vera told me that since attending TCU she has purchased an iPhone and finds it very difficult to live without it. With social media that she had never accessed like Facebook and Instagram, it is very difficult to stay focused on school work.

Another funny conversation we all had was in regards to Halloween. I asked if either of them had dressed up to celebrate the American holiday, and only Vera admitted to it. Due to the required Colby Halloween festivities, she and her French roommate stood at their dorm room and handed out candy to local children for hours on end. The other thing she mentioned was that she decided to dress up as a vampire, which I thought was hilarious to imagine. All in all though, Vera concluded that Colby Halloween was a terrible experience because of how many people came by her room, and because of the amount of candy she ended up consuming.

In all, I really enjoyed my conversation with both Vera and Tristan. I think the two of them having each other's presence made them much more comfortable while talking with me (I mean come on, look at how ferocious I seem). I hope to follow Tristan's journey as a professional piano player in the future, and will hopefully meet up with him in the near future. On the other hand, I am also looking forward to seeing Vera in the coming weeks, as we finish up our semester together.

We Did It!!!!!

Yesterday the Boston Red Sox won the 2013 World Series Championship!! For somebody who never feels homesick, I want to get back to Boston so badly. Throughout the playoffs, I was constantly reminded of my amazing memories growing up with the Red Sox and my family. It is crazy to think that a sports team can invoke so many positive and negative memories into a person’s mind. After being a die-hard Red Sox fan for as long as I can remember, there are so many reasons I want to be back home to celebrate with my family.

I vividly remember breaking down and crying during the 2003 American League Championship Series against the New York Yankees when Pedro Martinez stayed in the game and Aaron Boone hit a walk-off home run to take the “Stankees” to the World Series. The Curse of the Bambino was alive and well. I get the chills just writing about that night because of how clear the memories are. My whole family watched the game in my grandparents’ home, and then had a quiet drive back through the city afterwards.

Then in 2004, things were totally different. I still have the World Series starting lineup memorized, as well as the pitching rotation and MVP awards when we beat the St. Louis Cardinals in Game 4. I remember watching each game in my family room with my mother and father. During the final game I could barely stay awake, until the last out occurred. We jumped around and then my parents popped a bottle of champagne that sprayed onto our wall (we have never wiped the stain off). I couldn’t sleep for the rest of the night, simply because of how ecstatic I was. The good vibrations were felt all over my town for months afterwards, and the memories still bring a smile to my face.

In 2007, we watched the Red Sox win once again, and the memories are just as vivid as those a few years before. Even with hardships like the Boston Marathon Bombings this past year, it is sensational that a city can rally around a sports team in order to achieve greatness. I still don’t know why, but Red Sox Nation is like my second family. A quick nod of acceptance seems to come anywhere I make eye contact with another person wearing a Red Sox hat, which seems weird to people who don’t understand the dynamic. Now unfortunately, I am getting way too many chills to continue writing this blog post, so I am going to have to end things here. Time to go listen to my favorite Christmas song of all time: “Merry Merry Merry Frickin’ Christmas.” I highly suggest you listen to it!