Meeting 6

            Meeting number six started off with some great news. The TCU office of admissions agreed to accept Rosa’s application to become a freshman even though the deadline had past! Definitely a relief for Rosa. I know I’d feel pretty down if after going through the ESL program I didn’t become a freshman because I missed the deadline. Rosa was eager to tell me about the application process. From what she said, it seemed very similar to the application process for non-international students; you send in your transcripts, fill out a couple of essays, send in your test scores, and hope for the best. The only difference I could tell is just a few additional forms. But, I know Rosa finds writing to be the hardest part of English, so I’m sure the extra forms make the process more frustrating. Rosa has applied to two schools, TCU and ULA or something along those lines. Hopefully she’ll be receiving some good news from both schools.

            In other news, both of us were busy with school the past few weeks. Rosa told me how her teachers have suddenly felt the need to fit in more tests and projects. Not sure why, but that’s seemed to be the case in all my years of schooling. When students are ready to shut down, teachers seem to really turn it on. Of course not all teachers take such actions, but quite a few do. I told Rosa I’ve been “lucky” this semester to have my last round of tests last week; a two-day second midterm in financial accounting and an econ test. Both worked out just fine. The only problem is the time from now to finals. It’s nice to feel done, but it makes it a lot harder to focus. When you don’t have anything to study for, it can really make your days feel long. Rosa didn’t understand my point of view. She said she’d gladly swap her upcoming tests and a couple papers for my schedule. Another case of the grass is always greener.

            Our conversation took an interesting turn. Rosa asked me how many semesters I had left at TCU. I answered four. She was shocked, to think of a twenty-one year old with a degree. It doesn’t seem too weird to me, but I understand her point of view. She’ll have her degree at age twenty-eight. To think I’ll be done seven years before her is eye-opening. That’s a long time! She asked what I was going to do for graduate school. I matter-of-factly informed her that I wasn’t planning on attending grad school. Once again, she was shocked. I tried to explain that the career path I’m pursuing wouldn’t require grad school. If anything, it would set me back for the lost time. She told me my thinking is wrong. It’s become apparent from our conversations that Rosa really values her education. After she earns her TCU degree, she plans to return to her home country and finish her degree that she almost finished there. I asked why, and said it was a personal choice. She doesn’t feel right about how she quit so close to the finish line. Good for her. It’s probably also good that she’s in no hurry to get out of school.

            It’s been really cool to see how far Rosa’s English has come. Her vocabulary has expanded quite a bit, and her pronunciation has improved significantly. All that movie watching paid off! Okay- I’m sure there were a lot of other contributing factors. Either way, I’ve been really impressed with Rosa’s skills. Our conversations became easier each meeting, and it was obvious that Rosa’s speech was becoming more natural. She doesn’t seem to spend as much time thinking about her response before she says them. She’s even picked up some of the vernacular. With Rosa’s work ethic, I’m sure she will have a good handle on English in no time.

Newsweek

            This trip to the library was much easier than the first. I didn’t consult someone at the help desk, but I knew where to look. I headed over to the same section I found Time last time and was lucky enough to stumble upon the Newsweek periodicals. Since 1963 was right in front of me, I went ahead and pulled a book from that year.

            Man, magazines have changed since the 20s and 30s. The pages no longer looked or felt like newspapers. There were also some color photos! Mainly beer advertisements had the extra pop of color, which I found laughable. The advertisements in general were far different. The majority were concerned with business specifically bringing up things like income and savings. Some of the most entertaining advertisements were those for Avis rental cars. They were all different forms of the phrase, “Avis can’t afford (insert statement about a different aspect of cars).” No matter the statement, they made it clear that they aren’t the biggest in rental cars, and thus they have to try harder. They do, even though are number 2. I found them pretty entertaining.

            While thumbing through, I was stopped by some pictures of Frank Lloyd Wright homes. Incredible really. As I looked down the page, I began to read an article titled “Age of Portraits.” It seemed interesting enough, probably about people getting paintings of themselves done. On the surface I was correct, but the author gave some interesting insight to what the portraits revealed about their time. According to those at the Cleveland Museum of Art, modern portraiture is dwindling because the modern man is quite different than those over the past few hundred years. Sixteenth century portraits show men full of pride in class, culture, character, and wealth. Said portraits depict that being a man revolved around a new sense of self-awareness.

            Modern Portraiture is on a decline because of “the redeployment of individuality.” –whatever that means- It began to make a little more sense when the author later explained that in the current day, attention has been focused on notions of humanitarianism, efficiency, and success. Apparently as time goes on, portraits have become softer in a sense, allowing for more vulnerability, less regality.

            Who knew portraits could be so revealing? Much of what the author noted as being of importance to manhood seemed consistent with the advertisements throughout the issues. As I noted early, there are now advertisements that question the reader’s ability to earn a high income, and save the right amount of money. There are advertisements for cars, projectors, and other products that are faster and do more; they emphasize efficiency. It was harder for me to find humanitarianism in advertisements, but with several articles focused on the war in Vietnam, I’m sure issues of humanitarianism would come in to play.

            It’s interesting to me how there are definitely timeless themes concerning coming of age, but the things that define it vary with time. Coming-of-age in the sixties seemed to concern entirely different ideals than that of the twenties and thirties. While it has been a while, I can’t recall advertisements concerning success in business and personal savings. In fact, I don’t remember money being a very big concern of the magazine. In this era, it is a prominent issue. Interestingly enough, the people of this time knew their world was changing quite a bit. One article entitled The Real Trouble With Teenagers makes the claim that the real trouble is that teenagers have not been around long enough to adjust to an ever more complex world. It notes that teenagers of their time are stronger, smarter, healthier, and do more work than those before them. Perhaps the reason coming of age changes is because people are always changing. Each generation has its own take on the beliefs of the past and as a result, views adulthood, or any sort of transitioning period, according to their understanding. 

Razor Race

            My next-door neighbor Joey and I were quite the avid racers. We’d race on roller-skates, bikes, razors. It was a night like any other, the sky had faded out to a nice dark blue, the street lights flickering on along our cul-de-sac. As we walked to the end of our street, we started laying down the ground rules. The finish line would be the gray house right after Joey’s. We’d start on the count of three. No pushing or false starting, and we could only stay on the sidewalk to make it more challenging.

            We reached the end of street and lined up side-by-side. I was on the side closest to the driveways of the homes. We looked at each other and said in unison, “One…Two…THREE!” We both rocketed around the curve of the street. We were neck and neck, but after passing about three homes, I started to really push hard to make a pass. I pushed and pushed when in a flash, I lay on the ground in tremendous pain.

            While going around the curve, the front wheel of my razor got caught in a gap between the street and the driveway. My scooter stopped, and I flew over the handlebars landing face first on the cement. I didn’t know what was happening. My mouth was on fire with pain. I did what every other eight-year-old would- I screamed for my mom and bolted down the street toward my house. It would probably be a pretty hilarious scene to watch, a crying, screaming bloodied mess running down the street being chased by his friend yelling his name. I rushed in through the garage door of my house continuing my panicked screaming. My mom rushed over and quickly took me to the sink to wash me off. She asked, “What happened? What happened? How did you chip your tooth?” I frantically rushed to the mirror to find that indeed, I nice chunk of my front tooth was missing.

            Great. Not only was I in pain, I looked like a freak. My mom assured me we’d get it fixed, and immediately got on the phone with our dentist who happened to be my good friend’s dad. Still, I was fixated on the moment. I didn’t understand how you’d fix this chip in my tooth. I thought I’d permanently have this gap. My mom got off the phone, and said to get in the car. We were driving over to the dentist’s house so he could get a better look at the tooth.

           

            I didn’t say much in the car. I was finally starting to settle down. I even cracked a joke about maybe becoming a vampire with my new sweet fang. We both laughed. After a quick inspection, Dr. Slone said he could patch it up tonight if we wouldn’t mind driving over to his office. We drove to over to the office where Dr. Slone explained the bonding procedure he was about to complete. He told me he was going to create a fake tooth that would be attached to my chipped one to make it normal again. Sounded simple enough to me.

            He leaned the chair back and began to chip at the tooth. It was painless, just felt like scraping. That was only part one. Before I knew it, my upper lip was being held up by a piece of foam and a black tube with an acrylic shield was touching my tooth. For next thirty minutes, Dr. Slone seemed to weld my tooth back together. Once the construction process was done, he began to color the tooth, taking great care to match the current hue of my tooth. My chair came back up again and he let me look in the mirror. My tooth had returned. You couldn’t tell that anything happened. I was relieved and excited. Boy did I have cool story to tell the rest of the second grade class the next day.  

The House on Mango Street

            The House on Mango Street wasn’t what I was expecting at all. When I first sat down to read, I was imagining some sort of story about growing up in a Hispanic household, something similar to Like Water For Chocolate or maybe La Casa de Bernarda Alba. I mean, I did get a subject matter close to what I had expected, I just didn’t receive a story so to speak.

The more I read through the one to two page chapters, the more I felt like I was reading someone’s memories of growing up. Isn’t that how our own childhood memories are anyway? Not continuous. Not perfectly interwoven. Simply brief moments of incredible clarity. Maybe Cisneros was trying to create an authentic feeling collection of memories. It’s amazing how certain moments in our life are so standout that we can simply call them up and relive them as if they were yesterday. For instance, I remember being at the bike shop with my mom, dad, and grandpa. I had achieved my goal of learning to ride a bike without training wheels, and thus, I had earned myself a real multispeed mountain bike. I can’t tell you much about learning to ride without training wheels or when my parents told me about the deal, but I can certainly remember being in the shop, anxiously waiting for my new bike. It had a really cool speed monitor on it that would keep track of how far, and how fast you went. I thought it was so cool. Maybe think isn’t the right word- I knew it was cool.

Because I remembered the moment when I got my first real bike, Esperanza’s sketch of the co-purchase of a bike with her friends stood out to me. Sure the friends on my street had their own bikes, but we still would ride them around the neighborhood just as happily. We still did silly things, like trying to fit three of us on a bike. Sure, this moment was probably more special to Esperanza because she began some true friendships. Belonging is need we all must fill.

Otherwise, I can’t say that many of the sketches really pulled me in. Some were more interesting than others, but nothing really stood out to me. I think a big reason this happened was a result of my reading the book in multiple sittings. I’m not much of a marathon reader. I don’t think I’ve ever read a book (of at least 100 pages) in a single sitting, and thus, I took this one down in parts. I would read a few sketches at a time, then come back to it the next day. Every time I came back to the reading, I felt a little lost at the beginning. While the book is certainly disjointed, I’d always find myself getting into a sort of rhythm after a few sketches. It started making more sense with each sketch. A little bit of continuity seemed to emerge. Perhaps if I tried to read it in one sitting, I would have enjoyed it more, if only because of the sliver a clarity reading several sketches seemed to give.

At the end of my reading, I simply felt unsatisfied. I guess I’m just more of a traditional story kind of guy. I mean, I’ve never been a huge fan of experimental writing. Still, I can appreciate Cisneros work. Even though it wasn’t my favorite book, it was interesting at times. I did feel as though my understanding of Esperanza grew by reading about random moments in her life. In a sense, that’s how we learn about people in real life. We only know the random moments people choose to share with us.

Beating Mater Dei

            While I never considered myself to be athletic, I knew that in this moment, I would have a chance to prove myself. I didn’t expect to become a welcomed jock among the cool crowd- I was simply hoping that people would see more to me than just the guy who I want in my group for school projects. Today at our first fresh/soph volleyball tournament was my time to shine as the leader of an athletic team.

            I had the most experience of anyone on our team with three years of club volleyball under my belt. Next most was my good friend A.J. with two. The rest of the starting team consisted of members of the basketball team and the most athletic kids who tried out; the typical demographic for average high school volleyball programs in our area. While I had played outside hitter and libero in club, I was playing setter for school. For those of you not familiar with real volleyball (I say real because people in Texas don’t seem to know that volleyball is a big sport for guys too and is much different than the games you see the average family playing at a picnic), the setter is essential the quarterback of the team. The setter is always the second touch, meaning after the pass, he decides which hitter to set the ball to. The setter runs the offense.

            Not only was I leader by the importance of my position, I was chosen as team captain. I still remember how empowered I felt. I, Justin Muncy, the non-athletic “nerd” is the captain of a sports team with a bunch of “cool kids” that everyone knows from the basketball team. I felt the pressure to be a strong leader and felt that if our team didn’t come out and compete, then I was doing a poor job.

            Our first game was rough. In reality, I shouldn’t have expected much from a team with as little experience as ours, but I treated the players the way I was used to being treated in club volleyball. If someone made a bad pass (which was frequent) I was on them. I got frustrated when people didn’t take advantage of some of my incredible sets, and screamed at those who let a ball drop without making an effort. We got smoked.

            We were off for the next two matches. During the second match, my coach asked if I’d go for a walk with him. He told me that he was really proud of me for pushing for the best out of our players, but I needed to change my approach. He helped me understand how this was most of the team’s first time playing in a real match, and I needed to understand that guys who have been playing only a month are going to make a lot of mistakes. He urged me to encourage my team with the same intensity. Suddenly it all made sense. I had been so caught up in expecting perfection that I had completely forgotten how to encourage our team’s strengths.

            The game plan would be different. With so little experience on the team, I realized the clean, precise power-volleyball I had been playing was not going to happen today. Instead, we needed to play scrappy. While our big hitters weren’t entirely coordinated enough to really put speed on the ball, they were smart enough to know where to place it. Likewise, my speed and A.J.’s speed allowed us to keep the ball live and in play. As long as our passers could put some air under the ball, I’d be able to salvage it enough to provide a hittable set, or at least keep the ball up on our side of the court. Most importantly, I was going to encourage our team and celebrate our points.

            The next five games were still pretty ugly, BUT we made tremendous progress. We weren’t getting blown out 25-5 anymore. We were taking teams to three games and keeping our matches competitive. Sure, I spent most of the games diving all over the court, but that didn’t mean I didn’t cheer like crazy when we kept dead plays such as those alive. Every point, we all came to the center of the court and yelled Capo proudly! We were starting to figure out how to play as team. For me, I was learning how to be an effective leader of my teammates.

            With the way the tournament was structured, every team would make it to the first round of playoffs, with the best teams being matched against the worst teams. With a resounding zero match wins, we got the honor of playing the number one seed in the tournament, Mater Dei. Seeing our opponent, most of our team looked discouraged. A few guys were laughing, saying, “Good, at least we get to go home sooner than later.” I must admit, I was feeling the same way too. Eight hours of losing while trying your best isn’t exactly what you’d call a great day. Still, there was a part of me that hungered for a win. I gathered the team with our coach, and flat out said, “We need to play to win, even if that means we leave the starters in the whole game. We’ve shown so much potential today, and have only improved with each game. If we play scrappy like we’ve been doing, we have a shot at beating them.” To my surprise, my teammates and coach fully supported my proposition. We were all in this game.

            We served first. I carefully bounced the ball three times as I always do, and served a hard float into the back right corner away from the libero. It flew off his hands backwards. We all rushed in excitedly. We were already winning. I ended up serving ten straight points before we lost serve. 10-1 Capo. The game didn’t change much with their serve. We got the ball back after one, with a great pass, set, and hit. We had this game in our grasp. After we took a 17-2 lead, Mater Dei started to make a comeback, angered by the embarrassment our team was causing. I was more vocal than I had been in any other match. The difference, I was cheering for my team. Acknowledging their passes, hits, and serves. We were having fun. Once we made it through the rough spot, we pulled away with the game. It was 23-13 and I was serving again. I served the first ball and it sored into the back corner untouched. 24-13, Mater Dei’s coach was screaming at the outside hitter. I took a deep breath as I swung into the ball. The passer handled it with no problem. The setter did his job and the outside smacked the ball back onto our side. To my amazement, A.J. made an incredible dig. I set the ball out to Kyle, and he hit it straight to the back left corner. In slow motion I saw the ball hit the court as the libero, just a half second too late fell behind it. We had beaten the number one seed in the tournament.

            In a blurred moment of joy, our bench rushed on the court screaming. Our parents were going crazy, while the Mater Dei bench sat in silent shock. The ref couldn’t even believe it. Not only had we beaten the best team, we rocked them. Everything we had tried so hard for throughout the day was realized in our most important game of the tournament. 

Tornado Tuesday

            While walking over to the BLUU to meet Rosa at our usual spot, I received a text message from her saying, “Hey, are you coming?” I was pretty sure I wasn’t late. We planned to meet at 1:00 and it was 12:59. Thinking that was a little odd, I simply responded yes as I walked through the doorway. Now I knew why she texted me. The bottom floor of the BLUU was swarming with people. It was as if all of Market Square had been pushed into the Union Grounds area downstairs. Rosa came up to me with a big smile on her face. “The tornado alarm went off.”

            “What?” I confusedly responded. Apparently the alarm had just gone off in Market Square and everyone was told to evacuate because of a tornado in a nearby area. I started laughing. I’ve never experienced a tornado- guess that might change. Within five minutes, we were told we could return to Market Square or go about our way. We decided to head upstairs to the food. To Rosa’s luck, they simply let her in for free, assuming she had been inside when the evacuation occurred. There’s no such thing as a free lunch… well there kind of was for Rosa today. Once we had settled in, we immediately started talking about the tornado. It was on all the screens. We both were excited. Neither of us had experienced a tornado before. We talked of how we hoped it would come a little closer. Of course I didn’t want it to cause damage, I just wanted to be able to say, yeah, a tornado came through my school. Pretty legit.

           

            We decided to take a break from tornado talk, and exchange our experiences over Spring Break. I told Rosa how I went to Disneyland three times, went to the beach, and saw a couple of movies. Of all the things I did, Rosa was most concerned with how much time I spent with my parents. She wanted to make sure that I did enough things with them. I feel like I did. Quite a contrast from when your friends ask what you did. They usually don’t want to hear about playing games with the family and having lunch with your grandma. Those were Rosa’s primary concerns. While her Los Angeles trip didn’t work out, she said she still had fun here in the fort. Most of her daytime was spent with her uncle, cooking and cleaning. That didn’t sound fun to me, but she was really happy to tell me about it. During the night, she would go out with her friends. She said while it wasn’t super exciting, it was nice to get a break from school. We needed that break.

            In terms of learning English, Rosa continues to maintain a steady diet of movies. She said that it is her most common assignment in her classes. That sounded pretty cool to me at first, but the more I think about it, the more I realize how boring that could get, but I’m not really a big movie person. Rosa loves movies, so I’m glad that that media proves to be so helpful to her learning. I bet watching films helps her not only learn the language, but pick up slang, or at least familiarize her to common phrases that would make little sense if taken literally.

            Probably most exciting, Rosa will hopefully be a student at TCU in the fall. She is to be admitted as a freshman, but she missed the deadline for turning in her paperwork. I hope the admissions office will let it slide so she won’t have to wait another semester.