Meeting Suelli Again

My second meeting with Suelli went much smoother than the first. With minor scheduling conflicts, we were able to set up our second meeting with far less hassle.  One of my roommates, Kristin, was interested when I told her what I was doing so she decided to come along.  The three of us decided to meet at 1873 for lunch that Friday. 

Since it was only our second meeting due to the issues in the beginning of the semester, we spent most of it going over more of the basic topics and getting to know each other.   We talked a little more about the English classes that she was taking and what they had been going over recently. She had mentioned that she was at the intermediate level with only one more to go before finishing so I was curious about what topics were covered at that level. Suelli told us that in her grammar courses that week they were covering past perfect. It was then I realized that there are a lot of elements of the English language that I take for granted. I cant say I usually take time to think about the appropriate tense when I am speaking to someone. She admitted that this was one of the most difficult parts of learning the language because she still felt unsure at times about how to correctly respond or phrase something in conversation. Because she isn't confident in all of the grammar uses yet, she says it stops her from speaking too much because she feels self-conscious about making mistakes. I hadn't really thought about this as an obstacle before, but after thinking about my own experience in foreign language classes with oral exams, I could understand.  She asked Kristin and I what other languages we could speak and seemed surprised that we were only fluent in English. We found out that beyond her abilities in English, she could not only speak Portugese, but also Spanish and some Italian. 

We moved the discussion from languages and English classes to what we like to do in our free time.  It turns out that we enjoy doing a lot of the same things and even in Angola it isn't much different.  Even though there are a lot of shared activities, she says that the people and general feeling of the United States is definitely different.  It really isn't how she expected it to be, and although she likes the Dallas/Fort Worth area, she will definitely be returning to Angola after she finishes university.  One difference that she was missing the most was the food. If she wants anything like what she eats at home she has to cook it herself or go to visit family because there aren't any restaurants around serving it. She says the food here isn't bad but it isn't what she gets at home. Suelli really enjoys to cook and explained many dishes she loves to make that sounded delicious as well as difficult to pronounce. 

Our meeting started to wrap up because her family from Dallas was coming to pick her up for the weekend. She was going to spend the weekend with her cousins shopping and spending time together. Apparently due to some roommate issues, she often spends time with her family on the weekends. I can understand this and know myself that it is nice to have family nearby just to get away every once in a while.  I was getting ready to go back to my room and take a quick nap after the long week.  My roommate was making fun of me for all of the naps I take when Suelli commented that she enjoyed napping as well. I thought it was a funny thing to have in common, especially since we both said that when we were younger and were supposed to be taking naps, we hated taking them and often protested.

It has been an interesting experience so far even with all of the logistical problems in the beginning.  I look forward to our next meetings after the break and being able to teach each other some more along the way.

TIME Magazine 1928

The magazine issue I reviewed was TIME magazine Vol. XI, No. 8, which was published on February 20, 1928.  One of the very first things I found interesting was the first page of the issue, which was an advertisement for IPANA Toothpaste.  The reason I found it interesting was because at first glance I thought that it was an article before taking a better look.  The reason for this confusion came from the fact that this toothpaste ad had more text in it than many magazine articles I see today.  As I moved on through the rest of the issue, there were many different advertisements and they all had an incredible amount of text involved.  These ads are much different from all of the flashy advertisements we see in magazines today that rely largely on visual appeal.  I honestly think that if there were ads like this today people would take one look at all of the text and move on without reading about the product. 

Beyond the advertisements, there were several other things I found interesting about the magazine.  For instance, as I went through the articles and sections of the magazine, I felt more like I was reading a newspaper than a magazine.  It was broken up into sections covering different topics that the authors found newsworthy.  There were 7 full pages dedicated to national affairs, several for foreign news, and then smaller sections covering topics such as music and art, medicine, education, people, sport, business, and theatre.  Compared to most magazines I see today, the different sections just covered all of the relevant news of the week for that topic.  When I read magazines there is typically one or two main articles under a section that are about specific and concise issues, not just anything and everything pertaining to that topic.  I also found it interesting that they covered such a wide range of topics.  Today it seems that magazines have a more specific focus on certain areas, where some magazines are for entertainment, some for news, some for technology,etc. 

Because I don’t read TIME magazine very often, I wanted to make sure that I wasn’t attributing all of these differences to the change in times, in case it was something that was specific to TIME magazine.  To see if TIME really was different nowadays I took a look at a more recent TIME magazine issue.   I was reassured to see that the ads were much different beyond being in color now.  There was very little text and they relied more on pictures to sell the products to readers.  I noticed that the magazine was still broken into very similar sections with the same types of headings, but there was a difference.  Within each section, there were only a couple of articles that were specific stories related to the broad topic.  There wasn’t the same newspaper feel to the magazine where it was just little snippets of everything going on in each area. 

It is evident that there has been some change in the way magazines are made over the years, but it hasn’t been too extreme.  Most of the change seems to be from the formatting and style of articles within the magazine and how they try to appeal to the audience.  This was very noticeable in how the advertisements have changed and even the articles themselves.  Now they can appeal to readers more by providing fewer stories that provide more information, which gives readers a better chance to connect to them.  Overall, there weren’t very many pictures in the issue compared to the amount in magazines today.  Often times today even the news articles in magazines contain at least 4 or 5 pictures.  I was almost surprised by the amount of text in the magazine because it is something I attribute more to newspapers than magazines.  It made me think that during the time when this issue was published people were more willing to take the time to sit down and read everything.  Nowadays I feel as if most people don’t want to take the time to sit down and read that much when they look at a magazine.  They usually want to just flip through them, look at the pictures and read the short articles.  All of it showed how society has changed and how impatient Americans have become in a way.  I had never thought of looking at a magazine before to see how times have changed.  

Why? My Impressions of Modern Art

Why?

Ellsworth Kelly 'Curved Red on Blue'

When reflecting upon visiting the Museum of Modern Art on Friday there is one simple question that most easily comes to mind; why?  While I understand that there is a purpose and appreciation among a certain audience for modern art, I would find it extremely difficult to claim that I have the slightest clue or understanding for it.  There were few occasions where I walked up to the piece of artwork and was able to make a quick guess as to what it was about or what the artist was trying to get at.  Most of the artwork involved an initial glance, a review of the description on the wall, and several minutes of attempting to comprehend the meaning behind it.  For the vast majority of the pieces, I was still left in confusion as to the meaning behind it and the artist’s reasons for making the piece. 

Amidst the confusion and lack of understanding of modern art as a whole, I did enjoy some of the pieces and could appreciate the artistic process.  In one of the first rooms, the museum housed a couple of Anselm Kiefer’s pieces, including Aschenblume.  I will admit that I didn’t get the symbolism and meaning until I read the card next to it, but I thought that it was a tremendous piece of artwork that obviously took a lot of time and work to create.  As I moved from left to right while viewing the painting I noticed that it moved with you and seemed to be giving different vantage points.  I also enjoyed Alain Jaquet’s ‘Camouflage Boticelli (Birth of Venus)’, which played off of a reaction to Boticelli’s ‘Birth of Venus’ and a mix of modern influences with shell gas.  This painting caught my interest because it wasn’t completely straightforward and required a little background, but I didn’t find myself asking ‘why?’.  It isn’t that I am against art that challenges you to think, but I did have difficulties with finding some of the modern art being ambiguous to the point of frustration.  For instance, when viewing the museum’s entire set of Sean Scully’s ‘Catherine’ collection, I simply could not wrap my head around why someone would create 8 paintings that were simply stripes in different patterns and colors, all with the same title. 

After thinking about all of the artwork that I encountered I have concluded that I only have some general ideas of what modern art is about.  In class, we discussed how the modernism movement was a reaction to movements such as romanticism, realism, and naturalism.  The movement was rejecting what came before it and the expectations of society.  Thinking about the main goals of the movement, it seems like the modernist artists took these ideas to the extreme and tried to defy anything done before.  The artwork doesn’t answer or fulfill any expectations and challenges the audience however it can.  Just like the stories that we have been reading in class, void of satisfying conclusions, the pieces doesn’t have immediate messages or an overall apparent meaning.  Although I don’t have much understanding when it comes to the artwork, I will admit the artists succeed in forcing others to think and challenge society. 

Overall, I thought the trip to the museum and the experience with modern art was both interesting and confusing.  Even though I can appreciate the movement and those behind it I am still left with my initial impulses to ask why.  Why paint an entire collection of stripes? Why were so many works left untitled?  Why present a piece of scrap metal as a sculpture? Why so much ambiguity? Why?

Meeting Suelli

After several dozen emails, comparing schedules, and much confusion, I was finally able to meet my conversation partner.  I was honestly kind of nervous about the experience because I wasn’t sure how much English my partner would speak and how difficult it would be for us to understand each other.  I was beginning to think that there would be some issues because of all of the email difficulties. It took us several tries to set up a meeting time and place that would work with both of us.  Finally, we were able to decide on meeting at the Barnes and Noble bookstore on the corner of University at 2:15 on Tuesday.  Due to the scheduling issues and how long it took to make plans in the first place, it’s safe to say I was more than a little concerned about how all of this would go. 

At 2:15 on Tuesday, I found a table at the bookstore and began to wait for my partner to arrive.  When thinking about the emails that we had sent back and forth to arrange everything about our first meeting, I suddenly realized that I had overlooked one major detail; we hadn’t discussed how we would know who the other was when we saw each other.  In fact, all I knew beyond the meeting place and time was a name, Suelli de los Santos Mateus. I began to worry that this would cause further delay in the whole process and perhaps I would not get to meet my partner after all.  However, all it took was one quick phone call and some more patient waiting and my partner finally arrived. 

Suelli is an 18-year-old, Portugese speaking, girl, from Angola, a country in the southern portion of Africa.  I will admit that I had to look up its exact location on a map even though it sounded familiar.  I was pleasantly surprised to find out that communicating in person was going quite smoothly compared to all of our electronic attempts.  She informed me that she was in the high-intermediate level of the IEP classes with only one more level to go before completion of the program.  Because of this, she seems to be more advanced in her English than I had assumed. 

She told me a little about the IEP program and how it works to start out with.  One word that stood out in her description of the classes was “boring”.  After she described her typical weekly schedule of intensive English classes, with very little variation from day to day, I could see why she felt that way.  Suelli thought that it was indeed helping her learn English and that it was effective, but I can only imagine how boring it would be taking the same classes, about largely the same subject, every week, especially if your interests lied elsewhere.  For instance, she wants to move on to study at a university next fall to study microbiology, which doesn’t have too much in common with English studies.  When I asked her how easy or difficult she found learning English, she replied that the study of the grammar and mechanics was pretty easy and it was the actual speech that was most difficult.  As far as I could tell she was doing well with speaking English and there were only a couple of times where I had to break down what I was trying to say or ask into simpler parts. 

I also discovered that she chose to come to TCU and go through this program because she has had family and friends attend here and also has family members that live close by.  Having family in Texas was one of the same reasons I ended up attending TCU also.  I found it interesting that even though we were from two completely different parts of the world, we selected the same school for similar reasons.  I did have to explain where exactly Nebraska was by talking about its location in relation to bigger states she has heard of.  Honestly, I wasn’t surprised, as I have to do this with many people actually from the United States as well. 

Overall, it was a great experience and I am looking forward to our next meeting.  I learned a lot about her on our first meeting and cannot wait to learn more.