Stockyards Souvenir Search

My quest to find meaning in life from things I could find at gift shops led me to the Stockyards last week. I browsed through several gift shops and antique stores searching for items that people like Billy's mother could use to make sense out of life.


The first item I stumbled upon was this lamp. This might not be considered a typical trinket or souvenir but the symbolism I found in it was the shape of the cowboy in its design. Images like this with a cowboy riding a wild horse have long been associated with Texas and life in this area. Although today we rarely ever see the stereotypical "cowboy" let alone anyone riding a horse, the image still represents ideals that people from this region value. Depending on who you are, this image could symbolize courage, fearlessness, freedom, or the general wild spirit associated with the old West.

Like Billy's mother, I also found a crucifix in my gift shop quest for meaning in life. This particular crucifix is attached to a box in which you could store things. The cross is probably the most recognizable symbol around the world. It is a universal symbol for Christianity and faith. A cross can also be symbolic for the burden a person must carry in their own life. People look to symbols like this crucifix during times of trial to find comfort. A person's faith or religion is often one of the most important aspects of their life. Just like Billy's mother, even if people are not overly religious or belong to a specific church, they look to the symbolism of the cross and believe hanging one in their house will help instill its meaning in their lives.

 My favorite find of the day was a winged pig I found outside an antique store. At first it seems difficult to find symbolism in such a strange object but this object has a connection to my own life. One of my best friends was given a pig just like this one (but in a different color) as a present for graduation. We laughed about how strange it was and after a while we decided to name the pig Terrence. We started taking Terrence everywhere we went over the next summer and introduced him to all our friends. By the end of the summer Terrence had become our unofficial mascot and was a necessary member at every social gathering. For us, Terrence had become a symbol for individuality and fun. He represented the new found freedom we had during the summer and were looking forward to as we approached college. The meaning you can apply to life from this winged pig is that your life is unique. Just as this is not your everyday souvenir, each person has their own personality and characteristics that separate them from others.

ESL Conversation: Spring Break and Giraffes

I was able to catch up with my conversation partner Tiffany again at the end of last week. We spent most of the time comparing what each of us had done for spring break and what we had been up to lately. Once again in this conversation I was able to see how well Tiffany has adapted to life in Texas and also how there are still a few small gaps in her vocabulary but she is able to work around them easily.

Tiffany was excited to tell me about a recent trip she had made with her friends to a wildlife park where you could feed the animals.  She didn’t know the names for some of the animals but it was easy to figure out what she was talking about.  A zebra, camel, and giraffe are all pretty distinct animals. This reminded me of when I had to learn the names of many animals in my high school Spanish class. We only scratched the surface and I can honestly say I would be lucky to remember half of them.  I know if I moved to China learning the names of every animal would not be very high on my list of priorities. I couldn’t help but feel like my life was a little boring when the most exciting thing I had done recently was eating BBQ with some friends.

My life didn’t seem quite as boring when we started discussing what we had done for spring break. Neither of us made the typical pilgrimage to a warm beach but had found something to do. I went back home to Muenster, Texas and spent half the week camping with my little brothers.  Tiffany had flown to Seattle with several of her friends and toured around the area, seeing the Space Needle and Pacific Ocean. Tiffany had also told me she flew to Chile to visit relatives over the Christmas break so I asked her how she felt about flying so much. I was surprised to learn that she actually doesn’t like flying at all. She wasn’t deathly afraid of flying, but after the extremely long flights she has made back and forth from China she is sick of it. I could count the number of times I’ve flown on one hand so it’s still an out of the ordinary experience for me.

My conversations with Tiffany have changed my perspective on foreign students in general. I had always thought they didn’t get out as much as normal students because I knew I wouldn’t be that outgoing if I was going to college overseas.  But obviously if these students are adventurous enough to go to college in another country, they will find more exciting things to do once they get there.

April Fools

All the talk about April Fool’s day reminded me about a prank my friends decided to pull on me last year for April Fool’s. I got back to my car after track practice and found that someone had taken my radio. After believing it had been stolen for five seconds I noticed a note in my front seat. The note was a riddle that described a location somewhere in town and said I needed to go to that location for further instructions. This note lead to another, and another, and another….and so on.  In the end, I had to go on a 2 hour scavenger hunt all over town before finding my radio. After searching the city park, my school, and even a teacher’s backyard to find clues, I was finally led to my house where the radio was sitting in my room. I didn’t think the prank was that hilarious but I’ll admit I was impressed that they had gone to that much trouble. For me the funniest part of the prank was the irony that the radio was in my room the whole time while I was searching all over town and sneaking into teacher’s backyards. In the end it was just a harmless prank and gave me something to do for the night even if it wasn’t laugh out loud funny.

Laugh Lurking

I made a trip home for the Easter break to spend time with friends and family and took this as an opportunity to listen in and see what really made them laugh. Not surprisingly, after listening to my little brother’s talk for several minutes I found that they laugh at almost everything. There were constant references to their favorite funny tv shows or movies or slight mentions of an embarrassing moment about each other that came up constantly. To most people, the things they said would not be laugh out loud funny but I knew exactly what they were talking about when they referred to Tom trying to climb a tree or Mark falling through a wall.

                Later on I had the chance to observe my friend’s conversations and found they laughed almost constantly as well. They have never been the type of people to take things too seriously and their conversations were no exception. They did not laugh as much at each other but they still used laughter to keep the conversation moving and to let the other person know they had enjoyed what was said.  They laughed especially hard at any quote from Workaholics, which was the main topic of laughter for the night.

                Once I got back to campus I decided to spy on a more challenging set of people so I went to the library to observe a group of studying students. I’ll admit it was difficult to get close enough to a group of people and I felt like a bit of a stalker. I finally got close enough to a group who was working on a project due the next day.  I found that they used laughter quite often as well and in their case they were laughing at how ridiculous they felt the project was and how they had waited until the night before to complete it.

                 Observing these conversations over the weekend helped me realize just how much we use laughter in our everyday conversations. Without it, many conversations would be boring and awkward. It not only signals that we found something funny, it lets the other person know we are paying attention and interested in the conversation. This reminded me of the point made earlier in the semester that laughter is a social experience and that most of the time it is shared between two or ore people.