Conversation Partner, Take 2

Another Conversation Partner!!!

            This week, I learned that I would have a new conversation partner. I am unaware of what happened to my previous conversation partner, but since we only met once it is not that big of a deal. Anyways, I found out about this early in the week, and we have already met once with plans to meet again Friday afternoon. I am excited for the opportunity to get to know another conversation partner.

            My new conversation partner is named Guilherme. He is a student in the Intensive English Program here at TCU that came here all the way from Brazil. I do not remember the name of the city he is from, but I probably couldn’t spell it right even if I did. He said it was a relatively small town of about 60000 people. Or did he say 120000? Now I’m not actually sure. Whatever, I’ll just ask him tomorrow. His hometown is pretty close to Sao Paulo, which is a very big city in Brazil. He likes his hometown because it is small and quiet, but when he wants to go to a big city it is only about a half hour away.

            Of course, I had to introduce myself as well during our conversation, so I shared with Guilherme a little about myself. I talked about my family and where I live. When I said I lived in Arkansas, I doubted that he would know where that was, but to my surprise he knew exactly where it was AND he had actually been there himself! I was quite impressed. Now, Guilherme has never been to my part of Arkansas, up in the northwest corner, but he has relatives in Hot Springs, a city that I have visited on several occasions. In fact, Hot Springs is the city where the state of Arkansas usually hosts its high school cross-country championship race. I have run at that race several times, so I know a little about the area. It was really cool that Guilherme had been to Arkansas before. What a small world!

            Of course, since we’re guys, we talked about sports. I told him a little about my background as a runner throughout high school and for two years in college. If you want to read more about that, feel free to check out one of my previous blog. Then we talked about his favorite sports. Brazil is known for it’s superb soccer teams and amazing, passionate fans, so naturally I asked him if he liked soccer. To my surprise, he actually doesn’t like it all that much. He and I share a similar view towards soccer in that it is ok, and sometimes fun to play, but it is not really that fun to watch a game that lasts ninety minutes with a potential 0-0 draw. We didn’t go into the fine details of the sport, but one thing I absolutely cannot stand about soccer is the offside rule. I understand, at least to some degree, why the rule is there, but it seems like all it does is punish a player for getting behind the defense. In most sports, like (American) football for example, that’s kind of the point. But I digress.

            Overall, we had a fun first meeting. I’m looking forward to meeting him again on Friday. We might try to play basketball in the Rec or something. Ok, until next time, thanks for reading! I should work on a sign-off phrase. Something like, “You stay classy, San Diego!” Hopefully I can come up with something more original than that, but until now, bye bye!

P.S. Yes, I am excited for the Anchorman sequel. And yes, I do plan on being severely disappointed.

Reflection 1- what I have learned about myself

      This year has flown by really fast. It’s hard to believe that the semester is almost over, and when it is I will only have three more semesters at TCU. The thought of having to go out into the real world is a little unsettling, but I think that I am preparing myself to succeed with everything I am doing here at school.

                I think the most important things that I have learned have been about me. I don’t usually reflect on how I’m doing or how I see the world or why I did something. I usually just go with the flow and assume that everything will work out. But this semester I did learn a few things about me that I think are important. The first thing that really hit me this semester has to do with my running career. Since 8^th grade, I knew I wanted to run cross country in college. I was talented enough to do it. I just needed the willpower. My dreams came true when I was able to run for TCU. I had two great years filled with a lot of great memories and a lot of frustration with injuries. Overall, I couldn’t ask for anything else. But this year I left my team. I did it with a heavy heart. It was a rough departure, and I won’t get into the specifics, but I didn’t know what I would do without the sport anymore. I knew there would be a day when I would have to put up the spikes for good, and I thought I had prepared myself for it, but sadly there was a part of me that was not quite ready to let go.

                After a few weeks, it didn’t bother me as much. I remember talking with a freshman on the team during a BYX rush event. Talking with him didn’t make me feel any regret or anything. I actually felt pretty good. I think that was the point where I really decided that I was done, and that I was ok with that. Throughout this semester, I have been getting a lot more involved on campus, and especially within my fraternity. I am the leader of a cell group, I got a Little, and most recently I was elected to be Treasurer for BYX. I have been a lot less tired thanks to not having to get up at 5:30 to go to practice, and I’m doing really good in my classes (not that I was having trouble in the first place, I just really like the extra time to study). Overall, I would have to say my life improved after I walked away from running (see what I did there?).  I have learned that I can be happy without cross country. Don’t get me wrong, I loved being a part of the team, and I will never forget the fantastic opportunity that I had, but I am so glad that I can go through my last two years of college as a normal student.

                I’ve learned a few other things as well. I probably value sleep too much.  I am very good at convincing myself to sleep in a little longer, even though I should be working on homework or some other thing. I have been trying to train myself to be diligent and wake up early, but it’s hard for me. Now that I don’t have to get up early for cross country, I have the luxury of sleeping in past 6:00am, so I’ve been taking advantage of it. Along the same lines, I am an extreme procrastinator. I didn’t know just how bad I was until this semester. I don’t know why, but for some reason I live by the creed Squidward made in an episode of SpongeBob, “Why do today what you can put off till tomorrow?” It is horrible advice, but I think that it describes me well. I need to follow Mr. Krab’s advice when he quipped, “What is today but yesterday’s tomorrow?” meaning, “Get stuff done today!” If you don’t get the reference, you should watch more SpongeBob (the older episodes because the newer ones are just plain dumb in my opinion).

                Alright, that’s all I have for now. I’ll write more on what I have learned school-wise next time.

Adios,

Mason