As I watched these two men chat about a few syllabus weeks, and as the one on the left comes upon one week, he recalls that his teacher says that after they look over the modules, they'll come to class next week to talk about abandonment. I think that abandonment strikes the two as humorous because abandonment is an uncomfortable topic, but in a way that is not offensive to either of the two of them, qualifying as a benign violation. It also reflects on the truth and pain theory, though I do not know the background of these men, so I cannot say how strongly they relate to the sentiment of being abandoned.

A Favorite Book

            My favorite book that I’ve ever read is William Faulkner’s Light in August because of its ability to present a realistic depiction of the world in which Faulkner lived (ie. the Deep South) while also shedding light upon many of the truths and paradoxes of our world and behaviors.

            One passage I remember in particular is the passage when Hightower is looking out from his high tower (pun exponentially much intended) upon the street, seeing the old and fading advertisement he had made to promote art classes he was teaching. At this point in the book (it’s fairly early on), we don’t know too much about Hightower’s character, so the eeriness of this chapter as he watches the sunset on his reminiscences strikes us with yet more distrust and uncertainty since nothing in the book has been guaranteed to be right from one perspective up until this point. We find out that Hightower has been ostracized from the town because of his wife’s formerly adulterous nature—I say formerly because she was found dead in Memphis, the newspaper being the medium through which the people of Jefferson found out about this fiasco. The townsfolk then begin to gossip about Hightower’s sexual life with a black women (heaven forbid; the book was written somewhere between the late 1920’s and early 1930’s).

            While this is mostly mere summary, I wanted to point out the inherent truths presented in just a summary of the pristinely worded work of art that Faulkner created in Light in August. First, from my own experience of living in Memphis for three years, the Mid-South can be operate in the mode of facades, assuming things to be true of people based on outside appearances and quickly judging and spreading rumors about such spot-analysis without so much as a passing thought of guilt. This truth is reflected in the way that the townsfolk quickly get Hightower fired from his job as a minister due to his wife’s actions and ostracize him from group activities. Moreover, the Ku Klux Klan beat him with sticks due to the gossip being spread about his relations with his African-American maid (if only he were Bill Clinton, he would “not have [had] sexual relations with that woman”). Second, this section of the book reflects incredibly clearly the imminent racism of the South in the 1930’s both by noting the relations with his servant as well as in the prominence of the KKK. Faulkner seems to be advocating against such racism in a mild satire of what the South looks like to him (race is one of the major themes of the book).

            Aside from this passage, I will note the eloquence with which Faulkner writes this book. The book is written in a stream-of-consciousness fashion (less so than his As I Lay Dying) and out of chronological order, throwing the reader through a loop in his or her attempts to understand the book. Additionally, the book reads like a poem: for 426 pages, every word is chosen carefully to have numerous meanings that all apply to the situation at hand and provide numerous insights into the characters and plotline on subtle levels. No wonder it took an entire wall in his house to map out the storyline for this book! To be honest, I’m mildly advertising this book as a great read here, but I enjoyed his prose and insights more than I have any other writer I’ve read.

Learning Experience 3

            During the rehearsal process for Giselle, the classical ballet piece in which I was cast this semester, I had a discussion with one of the rehearsal directors about my work as a partner in the piece. I have always prided myself on the amount of care I have for my partner and her safety over mine and on my ability to generally keep my partner on balance and safe. However, I have far less experience in classical partnering than I do in other areas, and this was showing to my professor as she informed me that I was making both her and my partner nervous, a sentiment of which I was most definitely not aware. My teacher began to outline what I needed to fix, which principally involved being firmer in the way in which I held my partner, and I began to reflect upon my work in relation to her corrections.

            For me, this was a turning point in the way I partnered. Up until this point, my philosophy of ballet partnering was to be delicate with the woman so that I wouldn’t bruise her with my hands or harm her in any way—my guess is that this premise simply stems from gentlemanly conduct and thought process that is valued in our society. Unfortunately, this way of thinking and working simply does not work in the classical partnering environment in which the woman needs to feel fully secure that you will keep her on her box (the fancy paper maché portion of the pointe shoe on which the woman stands in ballet). Thus, it becomes especially important to handle the woman (since the male is essentially in charge of how her weight is being shifted in partnering) with a firmness that both functions to keep her on her leg as well as to keep her confidence in you high.

            Unfortunately, this learned technique does not translate directly to my everyday life outside the classroom, but it does directly feed into the work I do on a daily basis. After this point in time, my partnering in class and in rehearsal improved immensely, and I feel more confident in my ability to work with an array of different partners of differing levels of ability because of this epiphany. I also have found that I am able to focus on how I look more in partnering now that I can securely hold my partner in a position with greater consistency, which essentially means I get to work more artistically within the partnering regime than I could before, the exact opposite of what one would expect when told to approach material with greater firmness (and thus, an increase in bodily tension that naturally accompanies giving more strength to a movement).

Learning Experience 2

            After covering Carroll’s perception of the basic theories of humor, we moved into The Comic Toolbox: How to be Funny Even if You’re Not, in which we became familiar with the theory of truth and pain as a way of explaining what humans find funny. I found this theory fascinating because it explained many of the situations the superiority theory explained through a more all-encompassing light. Like all theories on humor, it could not define the subject alone, but it does open a window through which to view the subject.

            It seems natural that relatable instances of the truth and pain that comprise our human existence might be perceived as comical, but like any good theory, it makes sense when its told to a person, but that person most likely would not have come up with the theory on his or her own. Upon reading his theory, I reflected back to some of the America’s Funniest Home Videos episodes I laughed at as a child. Many of these clips are merely children falling over accompanied by a cheesy comment made by Bob Saggot (or whoever the new announcer for the show might be). However, according to the theory, I would find this funny because I, too, have fallen over, and it reveals the truth that humans are not quite as sophisticated and coordinated as we might think we are. While I may have thought that these things were funny because they weren’t happening to me (based on principles outlined in the superiority theory of humor) before reading Vorhaus, I think that at a certain point, physical pain incurred by others is no longer funny, especially when it looks like it could cause significant bodily harm. I believe that Vorhaus’ theory provides a solution to this obstruction of the logic presented by the superiority theory by saying that it needs to be a relatable pain that reveals some truth about humanity. Watching a skateboarder’s shin bone protrude through his skin is not relatable nor does it relate anything about humanity aside from its fragility.

            In life, I have noted this theory present itself frequently since my first reading of it, particularly in relation to the internet memes I look at in the mornings before going to class. The majority of these short snip-its of entertainment possess the qualities outlined in Vorhaus’ text. One that I read recently related the struggles of finals week with an image of Boromir from Lord of the Rings and a text that read, “Brace yourself. The grades are coming.” Obviously, the relation of finals week to the gruesome battle that was about to ensue in the LOTR films and books is an exaggeration, but that pain and struggle is felt by all students during this time of the year, and it reveals the truth that we as students inherently panic over grades and final exams because of the societal value assigned to them.

A First Kiss

            After a long day of dancing at Adrenaline Dance Convention, I had finally built up the courage to kiss Marleigh Anderson, the girl I had been dating for 2 years at this point. It was November 23, 2008—her fourteenth birthday. I had gotten her a sterling silver necklace from Walmart with the money left over from my birthday; it cost $75, and it had a small stone as the pendant. This was the largest purchase I had made for another human being by this point in my life, and this day was for sure to be a big deal.

            I brought her to the side, next to the new exit to the men’s room at the Collinsville Convention Center (no one would see us there for sure!). I told her to close her eyes because that was important to me. I didn’t want her to see me trying to figure out how I supposed to go in for the kiss—she might realize how awkward I was. I stared at the burnt orange wall behind her, asking it to give me some sort of knowledge on how to proceed. I had no idea what to do with my hands as they began to sweat, the moisture making me even more nervous. Sensing that my deliberation process was taking too long, I began to move in without my hands. I leaned toward her, bending slightly at the waist. I could barely reach her lips since I had just caught up with her height in the beginnings of the school year.

            But finally, I achieved success as my lips, puckered tightly as people did in the cartoons, came into contact with her plump lips. She began to kiss me back with an open mouth, a confusing occurrence I had not expected, and my lips ground lightly upon the metal of her braces. This was the best moment of my life! I had finally done it; I’d finally followed Sebastian’s suggestion and “kissed da girl.” Certainly, we’d get married now.

            Far from it, actually. A month or two later, we broke up due to the strain of trying to maintain a relationship in which we only got to see each other on the weekends. Stressful times, let me tell ya...

A Least Favorite Teacher

For my mom, whom I love very much.

            The worst teacher I ever had was my own mother. Not in the life sense, but in her actually being my teacher. I was in third grade when my mom began to substitute teach at my school, and I thought myself lucky the day she told me she was to substitute for my teacher, Ms. Griffin.

            Sitting in my silver-gray desk and facing the white board, I awaited her arrival patiently, looking forward to what would be a glorious day of fun. When she walked in, I was certain that my friends would think me the coolest guy in the room after today. Snack-time came, and my mom in some way said something that embarrassed me (what she said was unimportant in comparison to the feelings I experienced, and I seemed to have forgotten her words as my emotions boiled). I attempted to get back at her by telling the class of how she was always late to school because she had to pick her toenails everyday before school, messing around and taking her sweet-old time. Grandparents truly are a wealth of knowledge, in case you were wondering.

            She nodded along, “Uh-huh. Alden, flip a card.” She could do that? I looked at her appalled at the fact that she would make me, her own son, flip a card. This was the epitome of degradation, and I would most definitely not stand for it.

            “No,” I said, folding my arms over my chest and shaking my head. How could she refute that? The class was on my side. They had, after all, laughed at my story.

            In a classic The Breakfast Club style conversation, she asked me if I wanted to flip 2 cards to which my response, of course, was yes. When she asked if I wanted a red card, though, I immediately shut down. Going to the principle’s office was the absolute most embarrassing thing that could happen to a child. I aptly refused and flipped my two cards.

            I sobbed into my arms folded over my desk, yet another action I’d most likely be mocked for. How could my own mother do this to me? Why would she discipline me in front of my friends? There was obviously a code to this sort of thing, and it had been broken on this day.

Uncontrallable Laughter 2

           Often times, my girlfriend, Kirsten, and I mess with each other because we clearly have nothing better to do with our time and energy (obviously). One of the ways in which I mess with her is by preventing her from leaving whatever seating position we’re in. Her response? She finds all my most ticklish spots and terrorizes me until I concede, crippled with the uncontrollable laughter that accompanies tickling.

            Laughter due to being tickled is often theorized to arise from the anticipation of being tickled without the knowledge of when it will happen, and when it does finally happen, the victim is released from his or her anticipatory anxiety, satisfying the basic requirements of the release theory. Moreover, the reason I could not stop laughing after the tickling had subsided most likely results from the fear that the Kirsten might strike again.

            In terms of the benign violation theory, the violation is the timing, providing an element of anticipated surprise that is not necessarily violent or creepy in this context since I happen to know my girlfriend rather well and am thus not afraid of her tickling me as I might be if she were a stranger. In another way, she violates my sense of my own personal space by touching places in my body that are sensitive to tickling, but, again, she does this in a non-threatening way in order to remain within the confines of the benign violation theory.

            Lastly, it is often thought that tickling causes us to laugh because our body is endeavoring to protect itself from harm (the places being touched seemingly places that need protection by some other mechanism, like the ribs). If this is the case, then the tickling would cause laughter on a third premise, and obviously, triads make all things seem much more legitimate, so my laughter satisfied a number of theories that ensures that it was a sensibly uncontrollable fit of laughter rather than one that was purely illogical.  

Uncontrollable Laughter 1:

            In my Gyrokinesis class, there is a girl, whose name shall remain unmentioned, that has a mild case of what are known as “bucked teeth.” By mild, I mean that she may or may not be able to cover them when she’s not eating or swallowing, so I get the opportunity to see them throughout the entirety of the class. In Gyrokinesis, there is a lot of snake-like articulation of the spine in which the head is in front of the body with the spine in hyperextension, and since I’m generally on the opposite side of the room as this girl (we sit in a circle), I get to see her teeth quite often.

            After long days in the department, I often come back to my dorm and complain to my girlfriend (also a dance major) about the happenings of my day, and on one particular day, this girl had frustrated me, and so naturally everything about her was offensive to me, including the continual sight of her teeth. I noted the ghastly sight of them to my girlfriend who watched for them the next time we had Gyro. After the day ended, she told me “I couldn’t stop looking at them, and all I could think of was, ‘Nemo’s swimming out to the sea!’” in an allusion to the fish with large teeth in Disney’s Finding Nemo. I began to laugh and found myself unable to stop for quite some time because the parallel was intensely funny for reasons I will explain below.

            To start, the comment entertained me because the exaggeration of her features from what I would describe as only slightly protruding front teeth to the obnoxiously oversized teeth of the fish whose teeth comprise a third of its face. The tool of exaggeration being one of the most frequently used tools, this point seems fairly obvious and not out-of-the-ordinary.

            However, through the lens of the superiority theory, my fit of laughter makes even more sense. Because I myself do not suffer from bucked teeth, it is comical to mock another for having abnormal features. Since I tend to find the sort of jokes that align with the superiority theory of humor funnier than perhaps most others, my outburst at a joke that aligns with this sense of humor makes a lot of sense, especially since the joke had to do with something that had happened in my immediate life (rather than on a television show or some other media outlet). I include the last part since we have talked about humor as often being malicious.

            Lastly, the joke satisfies the theory of benign violation in the sense that it violates the principles I generally hold on how to treat people, but since neither of us was affected by the joke, it remains “benign” and ends up harming no one. The analogy also caught me off guard because my girlfriend usually does not make jokes as harsh as that, providing yet another instance of benign violation of my expectations, this one perhaps a bit more “benign.”

Learning Experience 1

           At the beginning of the semester, I came into class with no knowledge of humor as an academic subject or that it was even studied as one. Within the first few weeks of the course, I found many of the theories that attempted to describe humor in its entirety informative, though far from all-inclusive. Of these theories, I found the incongruity theory to be incredibly fascinating.

            On the base level, the theory intrigued me simply because it made a lot of sense. Many of the things in life at which we laugh are funny because they are unexpected, even uncomfortable (since laughter is often a response to discomfort in a situation). For instance, we find it funny when people perform an action outside of normal behavior like the scene in Elf in which Buddy, the principle character, drinks an entire 2-liter bottle of Coke in one long chug and proceeds to burp for an extraordinarily long period of time. We find this scene comical because Buddy has broken our expectations of societal norms.

            In my everyday life, I see this all the time, or at least, with a new lens, I notice it with great frequency both in new occurrences and memories of past ones. Recently, I was in the BLUU with a friend of mine, Ajja, when he dared me to perform an interpretive dance to Adele’s ridiculously overplayed hit song, “Hello,” and so I, scooting my chair out, decided to take him up on it and began my improvisation. Much of the cafeteria began laughing, and Ajja seemed to be failing to breathe in his laughter response to my tomfoolery. This, of course, was an instance in which the two of us subconsciously realized the humor of an act that breaks the congruity of everyday normalcy (daring me to break such norms, knowing it would be comical).

            In terms of my own life, I think this has helped me to increase my level of funniness by helping me to understand one of the basic principles behind making people laugh. Our limericks provide a good example of a way in which I think I have improved my skills as a comic. When we were endeavoring to conclude our Art Briles slander poem, I decided that “International nautical mile” was the funniest conclusion because it breaks the themes of the poem in an unexpected and silly way. It may have broken the boundary of absurdity, but I think that the limerick remained funny because the structure of the poem itself was still intact.

Conversation Partner Meeting 2

            I met with Jacky a couple days after our first meeting following our Senior Showcase in the TCU School of Classical and Contemporary Dance Department. I found out in our first meeting that Jacky roomed with Will, one of the freshman ballet majors, so we decided to meet after he watched his roommate perform in the show. After briefly discussing the dances (I will refrain from going into too much detail here for sake of avoiding jargon and lengthy explanations of topics that don’t hold much importance here), we began to reflect upon sports and childhood pastimes.

            The conversation started as Jacky noted that when he found out Will was a ballet major, his response was that he didn’t know that men performed ballet at all, which I, as a ballet major myself, found mildly humorous in that it benignly violated the entirety of my life—I suppose I laugh self-deprecatingly at myself here. Regardless of the humor analysis, this small point spurred a conversation on sports in which we held interest.

            Jacky started by telling me of his newfound interest in basketball since being in the United States. I suppose his interest was not necessarily newly founded, but he gravitated toward the sport more heavily than when he resided in China. As the two of us continued to converse, we came upon the topic of soccer—a sport I actually comprehend in its entirety (not too complex really: kick a ball around, try to score, fall over in excruciating agony and then get up as soon as a penalty is drawn—in actuality, not that different from basketball). Apparently, soccer is huge in China. I may have expected this due to the popularity of the sport in essentially every country aside from the one in which I live, but I think that due to the lack of results put up by the Chinese national team, I just assumed it wasn’t that big in that country.

            However, Jacky informed me that the sport is popular in the country, but the people of China generally watch English Premier League teams and other European club football on their televisions. Why? The number of pitches in the country remain few and far between, especially at high schools. The conversation did not delve into why such a lack of playing fields exists in China (even in comparison to the U.S., where the sport is only beginning to gain popularity thanks to FIFA video games), but I have a theory. In the United States of ‘Merica, football fields take residence alongside nearly every high school that can afford to have one (which is most since having sports is much more important than paying teachers well in order to foster better education), and the dimensions of a football field and a soccer field are quite similar. Thus, having a soccer pitch here is fairly simple.

            In China, I assume that American football isn’t really a thing (since it isn’t popular in any other country aside from the U.S.; Canada has a few teams, but it’s not nearly as pervasive in the culture) and, therefore, that making football fields is likewise not a highly valued task. While this knowledge does not in and of itself explain the lack of soccer fields in China, it does perhaps shed some light on cultural values that might be different between the two countries. I would have to do more research to say this with certainty, but it seems to me that the education system of China concerns itself more with academia than the extracurricular activities that seem to be stressed more in the American schooling system (so much so that it is not good enough to have a 4.0 GPA and a 36 ACT score to get into Harvard or Yale: you need to have some sort of sport or provide some sort of diversity much of the time in order to be accepted to those types of schools). I will iterate here that this is mere conjecture to explain why a popular sport in China does not have enough space to be played regularly by its inhabitants and is not, in fact, fact.

Conversation Partner Meeting 1

            In my first meeting with Zhaolong (who told me he went by “Jacky”), we simply met in Union Grounds for sake of convenience and to simply get to know one another a little bit. However, before we met, I noticed a few things about his English that influenced the ways in which I communicated with him in conversation both consciously and subconsciously. First, I knew through his email diction that his vocabulary was fairly strong (he used words like “convenience” and “communicate”), but I also noticed that he struggled with grammatical structures as he used the noun form of a word as an adjective and made other minor errors (such as“grate” for “grateful”). Thus, I came in with the knowledge that I was speaking with someone who was intelligent but also with the assumption that I needed to be clear in my speech.

            The beginning of our conversation was quite formal. Jacky, reading the context of a random person emailing him several times to try to meet him, knew that I had a reason for meeting with him aside from simply wanting to get to know him. Thus, he opened by asking me, “So, you have an interest in Chinese culture?” While a start that counteracted the type of relationship I wanted to have with him, I allowed myself to seize the opportunity to ask specifically about Chinese humor—letting him know that I was particularly interested in him as a person as well. He responded by saying that the most popular form of humor in the region of China from which he hails (Southern China where both Mandarin and Cantonese are spoken) contains a lot of political satire. Due to the preconceived notions of Chinese government I had from my United States background, I found this piece of information fascinating. Believing that the Chinese government held onto many of the Communist ideas and structures of its past, I had assumed that making jabs at the government would be met with heavy punitive measures and, thus, be avoided. When Jacky revealed this form of humor to me, it opened my mind to the notion that perhaps China is further removed from its stricter regimes of the past than I previously thought, but I did not have the courage to inquire further on this subject so as not to insult Jacky with the stereotypes I intended to rid myself of.

            On another note, the revelation that political satire held popularity in China gave the two of us great common ground since such humor imbeds itself within the American culture as well, perhaps as one of the most popular forms of comedy in the country. So I asked if he had seen Saturday Night Live and if similar shows existed in China. He informed me that he had not seen the show but that shows of the sort held popularity in China; he mentioned one in particular, but its name I cannot recall. Jacky also mentioned that the largest source of jokes in China is internet memes. Once again, I found that our two cultures were on much closer fields of thought and interests than I had previously thought.

            While the conversation went on to cover a much greater array of topics, I found this to be the most relevant portion and a part that opened my mind to see Chinese culture in a much different light. I had always thought of Chinese culture as reserved in many different aspects (perhaps closer to the culture of Japan with which I have had more contact). I was surprised to learn that our cultures were much closer in thought process and, especially, in humor than I had previously thought.