Patience Is a Virtue

This semester has taught me a lot of patience. Now, I will say that I am a pretty patient person. I want to work with elementary school kids every day for the rest of my life, so I am basically required to have patience to survive. However, this semester has been a little trying for me.

My dorm room has been the biggest source of this lesson. My room is the smallest out of my four roommates, which I don’t mind so much. It makes it cozy. It has two windows, so it gets a lot of sunlight..but that also means more sunlight comes streaming in early in the morning. It also means that in the winter, it’s significantly colder than all the other rooms. I’m practically cold-blooded, so this lack of insulation didn’t help the situation. On top of that, there has been construction going on outside my window all semester. First, they tore up the parking lot they had just put in (and for anyone who doesn’t know, tearing up concrete sounds a lot like shattering glass, but on a much bigger scale). Then they cleared the ground and started drilling and piling and goodness knows what else. They start at 7 am every morning and finish around 5 or 6 each night. I’m happy they are working hard, it’s great that they’re getting the job done so efficiently. However, when I’m trying to sleep in the mornings or do homework in the afternoons, it gets a little old.

After the construction stops in the evenings, you would think that I am home free for some peace and quiet, right? If only… You see, the guy that lives above me is a DJ. Yes, you heard that correctly. He really likes playing music. Loud music. All the time. And possibly hosting workout classes, because there is often a lot of stomping and jumping and yelling. I have never complained to our neighbors on the fourth floor, that’s just not my style. I’m glad they are having a good time. It’s just been a little trying at times when I’m trying to sleep or study and there’s a dance party happening over my head.

My classes have also taught me patience. This semester, I am in some prerequisite education classes. These classes are re-teaching some basic elementary concepts that we will later learn how to incorporate into our classrooms. The thing with these classes is that our teachers tend to forget that we’re in college, and treat us like elementary school kids instead. It sounds like I’m complaining that my classes are too easy..that’s not it. I just wish the teachers could teach us in a way that doesn’t make us feel like children. However, as the semester has gone on, I’ve begun to understand that as a teacher one day, I will have to have immense patience with my students, because we will need to move slowly through the material. My college courses are simple, but I think the underlying lessons are the most important.

These all seem like minor things, and to tell you the truth, they are. However, the lesson of patience is anything but trivial. Having patience allows us to have long-lasting friendships and relationships. It allows us to complete tasks and deal with all kinds of trying situations. I can say it’s one of the most valuable things we have as humans. They say patience is a virtue, and it might sound cliché, but it’s certainly true.

Hippos Are Our Friends

Let me start this story out by telling you that my roommate is terrified of what she calls “stuffed people.” This entails people in mascot costumes like Mickey Mouse or SuperFrog. She can’t stand them. SuperFrog once came up behind her at a TCU baseball game and she wouldn’t look at him until he went away. She was super scared but of course I, being the great friend that I am, was cracking up. So now you have that context.

Last week, we were walking out of the back entrance of the rec around 10:00 at night with one of our other roommates. We were enjoying casual conversation. All of a sudden, out of absolutely nowhere, my roommate screams, squeezes my arm, and begins sprinting in the opposite direction. Now, with a reaction like this, I jumped and quickly looked around, expecting to see several gunmen standing there on the sidewalk, waiting to shoot us down or take us hostage. Instead, what do I find?

There is a person in a full-on hippo costume casually strolling down the sidewalk.

Quick sidenote: We have seen this hippo walking around the new dorms (where we live) before. I do not know who it is, and I am thoroughly confused by it, but it’s pretty comical. Unless you have an irrational fear.

Once my other roommate and I see what the scream and the sprinting were all about, we absolutely lose it. Our friend is cowering near the building, and almost instantaneously we have tears in our eyes. We legitimately were rolling around on the concrete we were laughing so hard. Our friend exclaiming “that was terrifying!” only made us laugh harder. But don’t worry, she was laughing too. We all sat there for a good while cracking up. I genuinely got a good ab workout in during this time. We continued to laugh all the way back as my roommate walked gingerly behind us, darting her eyes around every corner in search of the hippo. It was incredibly comical, and even now I can’t think about the incident without laughing.

The Power of Smiles

This semester, a friend of mine wrote a blog post on his own personal blog. He told about how he had received a letter from a friend of his ‘just because.’ The letter was basically a ‘thank you for being my friend and an awesome person’ note. Because of receiving that letter, he was inspired to write letters to some of his friends reminding them of how meaningful they are. I absolutely loved this idea. We don’t give people the appreciation and praise they deserve nearly enough. Sure, we compliment someone on an outfit or congratulate them for a good grade on a test. But reminding someone that he or she is a good person and a valuable friend is often overlooked and forgotten. I wrote a few of these letters and even got some back. Even when I didn’t receive a response, it was such a wonderful feeling knowing that I could give someone a little boost of morale. I am big into complimenting people. If I can put a smile on someone’s face, I know it’s been a good day.

Another reason I think reminding people of their worth is so important is that we never know when time will run out. Never put off telling someone just how much he or she means to you, because life is fleeting. This might seem cheesy or cliché, but I have encountered and heard about so many instances this semester of college students dying suddenly, it has really served as a driving force for this fact. I’m not trying to sound morbid, it’s just a realistic thing. You never know when your last conversation with someone could be, so make sure everything you say has intention and meaning. Do everything you can to make a person smile and feel good. This is a big thing I have learned this semester. I think it’s incredibly easy to get caught up in ourselves and our own lives, and forget that everyone around us is trying to live their lives too. I have learned to not get so wrapped up in my own thoughts or plans that I forget to smile at someone as I pass them on the sidewalk. Sometimes people will smile back and sometimes they won’t, but at least you tried. Do absolutely everything you can to brighten people’s days and remind them of how great they are. Just think about when someone says something really complimentary and off-the-cuff to you. Doesn’t it make you feel great? Aim to give that feeling to others as well. I am still in the process of learning to do this every day, and there are days when you simply don’t want to smile at tons of random strangers. But I challenge you just as I challenge myself to do it anyway.

Lessons on "Universal Humor"

Learning about humor in this class has been really interesting because I haven’t ever really put much thought into WHY people laugh. I never realized how cultural humor is. Something big I’ve learned is this:

Laughter is universal. Humor is not.

I’ve sort of always assumed that something funny will be funny anywhere in the world, but I realize now that’s not the case. Culture has a lot to do with it, and I think that’s really interesting. This also brings even more truth to the statement ‘You know you’re truly good at a foreign language when you get jokes.’ A big part of learning a foreign language is learning about the culture behind the language as well, so this makes a lot of sense. This is a big deal to me because of my interest in French. After learning a little bit about French humor, I feel even more motivated to study and practice my French so I can learn how to understand French jokes.

I never realized how much a country or region’s origin plays into its humor, but now I understand how that makes sense. People laugh at what they know, and generally speaking, people know about where they live. If I were to make a joke about the wind in Oklahoma, you wouldn’t understand it unless you have experienced it. The same goes for anything in another country, or even a region or community. People in the TCU community would understand and laugh at a joke about the BLUU, but anyone else wouldn’t understand it.

I have really enjoyed learning this new information, and I feel like it will give me better insight into how to communicate with people from other places and cultures. I am generally the kind of person who will make a joke or sarcastic comment in a new or awkward situation. It’s really good to know now that this tactic won’t be effective with everybody, and could end up alienating the person more, rather than making him or her feel more comfortable like I intended.

Along this strand of thought, I am reminded of this quote:

“You can tell how smart people are by what they laugh at.” –Tina Fey

I like to think of this as the more educated a person is about a subject, the more jokes he or she will understand about the topic. If you make a joke about politics to someone who doesn’t know anything about politics, the person isn’t going to laugh, because he or she doesn’t understand the material. I think this works in the opposite way as well. Physical comedy is incredibly simple. It requires no outside knowledge or understanding. However, a drunk person falling might be funny to your average person, but may not be funny to an alcoholic or an addiction sponsor, because they are overly educated on the subject. It is more personal for them, so they wouldn’t laugh. You have to keep your jokes subject conscious as well as culturally conscious. The more it relates to people’s lives, the better they will understand and enjoy it.

This isn’t something I ever put much thought into before this class, and I’m so happy to have the insight now!