Coversation Partners: Meeting 6

           I intentionally titled this post conversation partner meeting six instead of calling it our final meeting, as it most definitely is not our final meeting. Ileana and I have enjoyed each other’s company so much, and we plan on meeting each other at least once again this week. She has finished up the semester with IEP, so she has a decent amount of free time.

            As far as the interview update goes, we don’t exactly know where she stands yet. Regardless, I still plan on helping her to strengthen her interviews. She definitely has the charisma and the ability to take on these jobs; she just needs to develop interview finesse. Hopefully this won’t take too much time to achieve, considering how quick she is to pick up on new topics.

            This time, she mainly wanted to talk to me. She knew that I had gone home for my grandfather’s funeral, so she wanted to make sure that I was emotionally okay. I explained that I don’t find these situations too difficult to deal with anymore and that I was actually much more concerned about the mental wellbeing of my mother instead. Even throughout the week, she has been texting me asking how my mother is doing and ensuring that the family is making it through this difficult time. It is incredible that she clearly deeply cares about my family and me considering we have only known each other for about a month and a half.

            As I reflect on my time this semester with Ileana, I feel truly grateful to have been able to participate in such a fantastic, eye-opening, and fun experience. I have learned about a new culture, new phrases, new ideas, and most importantly: new food. I hope I can continue to learn from Ileana as we both proceed in our academic journey, and I hope I can make more friends of diverse backgrounds, so I can continue my personal growth.

Learning about Myself: Dark Humor

           A few weeks ago, my grandfather passed away. This was my final grandparent. Yesterday, I found out that one of my friends from Midland with whom I swam competitively shot himself. Over the years, I have been to countless funerals for all of my grandparents, some great-grandparents, great-aunts and uncles, my uncle on my mother’s side, a few cousins, friends, family of friends, and my little sister. What did I get from all of this? Well I got a nice heavy dose of pessimism, but I also developed a dark sense of humor.

            My family typically uses humor as a shield to keep their emotions from getting out of control during such sad situations. I have known this for years, and I always would use humor with them as frequently as possible in order to calm them. Granted, they don’t exactly do a good job of calming themselves. I go home and our activities almost always involve death, whether it be attending another funeral, buying more flowers for the graveyard, mapping out where we all want to be buried, or looking for headstones for various family members who are still alive, death seems to be an unfortunate focal point in family activities.

            It would make sense for my family to also have a dark sense of humor, but for some reason I am the only one who uses humor in that regard. I believe this is because I have been continuously exposed to death during a critical time of development. Because I gained so much exposure to death, dark humor became rather simple. I never think much of it, but sometimes my friends point out things that I say that are “not okay.” Like when I sent my friend a selfie of my grandfather’s urn and me in the back seat of the car with the words “chilling with my grandpa in the back seat as usual.” However, this dark humor does not stop with the motif of death. It extends itself out to other touchy subjects. For example, I am writing a paper about the use of crystal meth by gay men as a subculture, so I went to Dallas and spent a few hours around a densely populated area of gay males. Within a 24-hour period, I was offered meth four times (I turned it down obviously). Instead of freaking out, I texted the same friend I mentioned earlier and said “Finding meth in the gay community is like finding a piece of hay in a haystack.” Apparently that isn’t an okay thing to joke about either. While many people find this side of my humor to be harsh and sometimes extreme, that part of me makes much more sense when it is put in the context of my life so far. Hopefully, the events of my life will lighten up and this humor will start to subside, but only the future knows.

             

Learning Moment: So Maybe I'm Judgmental

            A few weeks ago I went to a wedding. I love weddings. Well, I loved the one wedding that I had been to before this one and I love the wedding photos I see on Facebook at least. So I went to this one with the exact same expectations. Well when I got to the venue, I realized that not all weddings are created equal. This wedding was less than stellar, but I have included a list of the top 5 worst parts of the wedding below:

5. There were garage doors directly behind the couple as they got married.

4. The minister was an old man who tried to be a comedian and failed.

3. The bridesmaids AND THE BRIDE stomped down the aisle in cowboy boots. Classy.

2. The groom was found taking shots in the parking lot and the bride was clearly intoxicated less than an hour after the wedding. Again: classy.

And drum roll please……………

1. There was a twerking competition to Wrecking Ball. Epitome of class. I could not even handle this idea.

            So what did I learn from this? Well first of all, I learned what not to do at a wedding. But second of all, I learned that I am incredibly judgmental of everything and everyone. I don’t exactly do it intentionally, but I realized that throughout the wedding I would pass judgment on the bride, the groom, the minister, the other guests, the food, the music, the dancing, the venue, the bathrooms, the town around the venue, the cake, the chairs, the seating arrangement, the organization, the clothing, the informality, and the people who frequently used the open bar. As you can see, there was a lot of judgment. I honestly have no idea why this happens with me as frequently as it does, but hopefully I can gain more life experiences in the future that will help me to become less judgmental than I currently am.

Conversation Partners: Fifth Meeting

           I met with Ileana for the fifth time the other day, and we continued talking about having a cultural food night. This could be because we really want this to happen, or perhaps the fact that we have all of our meetings at lunchtime that we keep pushing the issue. Either way, it still sounds like a good idea to me! Anything with food is a welcome experience.

            We also talked about Ileana’s job search in the area. She wants to have a job and the recreation center or something of the like. Ileana loves sports and she plays seemingly all of them. If I haven’t mentioned that Ileana is incredibly athletic before, she is. I also may have neglected to mention that we always meet at NRG in the recreation center because she works out immediately after our conversations. Regardless, she is finding out that there is a slight language barrier that is preventing her from getting a job. It isn’t so much that she simply doesn’t know the language, but rather that she says different things that are expected because her English is not completely fluid yet. Essentially, she told the employer that she should get the job because she has a great body and likes sports. Because of this, we have been talking more about interviewing skills and working on improving her speech for those situations. Hopefully after enough time working on these skills, her interviews will improve and she can find local employment.

            Relating to the employment issue is the fact that living out here is more expensive than it is in Venezuela. She has expressed that while she does not need a job to live in Fort Worth, she does need a job to live with any degree of comfort in Fort Worth. So right now, I am dedicating some extra hours to helping her interview to the best of her capability. I’m rooting for her! I’ll be meeting her again later today, I can check up on how that interview process is going. Maybe things are beginning to look up in her job hunt.