Portfolio Introduction

To be honest, I’ve never really considered myself a writer. My true love lies in speaking and I will likely always prefer the spoken word to the written. For me, the joy in words lies not in their beauty on the page but in the melodies they create as they are spoken into existence. I will oftentimes begrudge the difficulty of writing, frustratedly pronouncing that if only I could give a speech instead of write a paper it would be so much easier. In many ways, this bleeds into my writing style. I tend to write casually and conversationally, as though I were speaking. My writing has a prominent voice and my focus is typically more on word flow than content. In short, I like to write like I speak.

So when I first read the assignment to blog about coming of age stories, I was delighted. It was like the light had finally broken through after semesters of writing lab reports and technical papers; here was my chance to actually write stories. Sadly, I quickly realized that to write a story I first needed something to write about. My memories tend to be hidden away even from myself, it seems, and to dredge up an interesting story topic from my past was more difficult than I had imagined. Soon, I was disillusioned by the horrors of having to write about myself. Being asked to pour myself into a piece of work was not just demanding but incredibly difficult.

It took me weeks to muster the courage and stamina to write a single coming of age story, but I wasn’t dormant in the interim. I let myself focus first on the reading experience blogs, where I would try to respond to the literature as authentically and realistically as I could. With each post, I attempted to make sure that it was both personable and truthful. If I couldn’t figure out how to write my true thoughts about a book, I would never be able to write out a coming of age memory. And that’s where it began.

Eventually, I was able to move on to coming of age stories. I did the easy ones first. The familiar territory provided to be a good launching ground for more sensitive memories, culminating in one of my most dear memories and best experiences I’ve had. Still, when each blog was written, edited, fretted over, and finally posted, I allowed myself a huge sigh of relief. Writing isn’t easy for me.

Looking back over all I’ve written during the course of the semester, I’m surprised at the number of topics I managed to cover. In almost every story is a different side of me at a different age. Only when they’re put together can you truly begin to understand the complete scale of experiences that help create the man I am today. No piece manages to reflect my whole identity alone, but in conjunction with all the others, my identity becomes apparent.

In one of the wonders of writing and other forms of self-expression, my identity isn’t just revealed to those who read my stories. Through the writing process, I began to understand myself better and more truly grasp my identity. It’s easy to tell a story or to share a memory, but to unearth the complete spectrum of colors, sounds, sights, and smells requires an author to go back and relive where you can sometimes notice things you’ve never seen before. The forced three dimensional perspective on my coming of age stories somehow managed to create a three dimensional perspective on myself too. Writing coming of age stories practically became a coming of age moment in and of itself.

Now that it’s all said and done and the semester has reached its final days, I’m proud to say that I have grown in my writing abilities. The comfort I have with writing about myself has increased dramatically and I’m happier than ever with my abilities. I can only hope that my blog posts have been enjoyed and have been accurate depictions of who I am.

Here I Am (Final Coming of Age Story)

The memories come in fragments, as they often do. I remember the story not as a flowing, eloquent tale but as the halting, jerky travels as I leap from moment to moment. From image to image, sound to sound, scent to scent, and feeling to feeling, I travel through my past. The story comes to me not so much in words but as a collage of experiences, washing over me in beautiful cacophony.

- - - - - -

I have my fingers on the keyboard, but nothing to type. The words aren't there and my mind feels cluttered. Somewhere deep in the recesses of my memory is the story I'm trying to tell, but it resists my attempts to unearth it. I fidget uncomfortably. I'm not used to being at a loss for words.

I know the story, though. It's the story of a stubborn boy who thought he knew what he was doing with his life. The plans were made and the time-line was laid out all at the young age of seventeen. He was old enough choose for himself and nothing could upset his perfectly crafted future. It would take more than soft nudges and a quiet whisper to push him in a different direction.

Of all the stories I could tell, this is the most important to me. That stubborn boy was me.

So I get up from my chair only to kneel down on the floor. I lean forward until my forehead is resting on the ground and softly say, "Lord, I need the words. I don't know how to tell the story, but I want to and I need to. Let me write about you and how you whispered to me when I thought I knew it all. Let me write a testimony to your power, your dedication, and your everlasting love. I want to write our story."

The memories begin with a song. Before I try again to write, I turn it on. It washes over me, the cool piano sounds, the flowing strings, and the familiar lyrics. I can remember again. Images begin to form and the words are suddenly available. I write.

- - - - - -

I am standing in an unfamiliar sanctuary. The pews look familiar, but sanctuary pews always look familiar to me. It's the same long bench and thin cushion I've seen at a hundred churches, the same red bibles in the pew backs as I've read my whole life. And standing alongside me, filling all of the pews and flowing into the aisles are the hundreds of people joining me at Michigan's United Methodist Annual Conference.

We all spent the day together, sitting in an auditorium listening to propositions, reading legislation, debating, and voting by holding up sheets of bright pink paper. This is the deep inside of the church, the legislative body that meets once a year to handle administrative tasks. My pastor asked me to attend and I happily accepted, not anticipating how exhausting it could be to sit and keep up with discussion. I was ready to leave before the closing worship service even began.

The bishop is standing at the front now, in a flowing white robe and with a red stole hanging from his neck. He has a very round face only accentuated by his thick, out of date glasses. Even with his slightly stooping stature, he looks regal as he peers around the sanctuary and begins to speak. His voice is deep and weighty and fills the room.

"There are some here today who have felt the call to ministry," he said. "It could have happened this weekend or it could have been on your heart for a long time, but God has called you to a ministry in his church. If that's you, I want you to come up to the front during this next song so one of us can pray over you."

And with a nod to the musicians on stage, he steps off to the side. A few tinkling notes on the piano ushers in the song and the congregation is quick to sing along. Not me, though. I'm too busy watching to see who will go to the front. Watching and wondering if it should be me walking that way.

"I, the Lord of sea and sky, I have heard my people cry," everyone sang.

There's the first one. She's young, maybe twenty, with short dark hair and a nervous walk well aware of how many people might be watching her make this journey.

"All who dwell in dark and sin, My hand will save."

The girl is joined by a boy. He's older and looks like the type of man who might work in a car repair shop for a living, but he seems no less nervous making his way to the front of the sanctuary than he would anywhere else.

"I who made the stars of night, I will make their darkness bright."

I want to join them, but I can't explain why even to myself. There was a time when I thought I might want to be a pastor, but it was short lived and I decided to leave the position for someone who was smarter, wiser, and surer of themselves. Instead, I'm going to be an engineer and go build space ships. Or boats. Or bridges. Or something. I dunno.

"Who will bear My light to them? Whom shall I send?"

Me? I can't become a pastor, much less walk down the aisle to the front of this church. I can't. I won't. But I mouth the words "Whom shall I send?" silently to myself, even as the song moves on to other lyrics. A part of me seems to think I want to head for the front. I don't know why. I thought I had my life figured out and this wasn't part of it.

I feel frozen, as though this pew has latched onto me and won't let go. The music keeps playing and the congregation keeps singing but I'm not paying attention anymore. My eyes are trained on the front, waiting for someone else to come forward.

But nobody else steps up and pretty soon there are no verses left to sing. Everyone fidgets slightly and a few people begin sitting down. I feel a sense of relief, but tinged with regret. Regret that I didn't truly make a decision, that my hand was forced by the length of the song.

And as the last tones of the music is fading from the room, the bishop takes off his glasses and looks across the rows of people.

"We're going to sing that last verse again," he says. "I feel that there's someone else who has felt the call but hasn't come forward yet." And he peers around the sanctuary again, slowly, and I could swear he looks right at me.

I'm terrified. The bishop has never met me and has absolutely no idea who I am. So did he really just look at me? Maybe I'm not containing my internal struggle as well as I thought. Am I sweating? No. Have I let me face contort with indecision? No again. Maybe he managed to lock eyes with everyone in the sanctuary?

All three hundred of us. Yeah. That's probably it.

And that's what I try to believe. Still, I can't help but think that the bishop wants me to come up just as much as I think I might want to go. The balance of my internal battle has shifted as the bishop takes sides and makes a stance. But I dig my feet in. I am not leaving this pew.

As the verse comes to an end, I'm still in my spot. Victory, I think to myself. But with the slightest lift of the eyebrow and a look at the crowd, the bishop motions silently and everyone knows what he means. We sing the verse again.

I will not leave this pew, I tell myself. I am going to be an engineer. I am going to look back on this moment one day and laugh about how silly I’m being. I glance towards the bishop and hope the look on my face tells him what I want to say: I will not leave this pew. He’s not looking at me, but the message remains.

And when the bishop finally lets the song end, after the final words are spoken and the stage has emptied, I am still in my pew.

- - - - - -

Time passes in moments and instants and I try to forget. I try to forget the bishop’s look. I try to forget the song they played. I try to forget how much I wanted to walk to the front of the sanctuary. And more than anything, I try to forget that I ever thought about becoming a pastor.

Yet somehow it’s just a year later that I find myself again in an unfamiliar sanctuary with the now familiar song playing. I’m in Saint Louis for a conference about discerning a call to the ministry. Over the course of the weekend there were workshops, speakers, worship services and small groups. I’ve had fun. But that doesn’t mean I’m ready for the card I was just handed. Reading it, I find I have three options:

1. I feel called into ordained ministry.

2. I do not feel called into ordained ministry.

3. I am still discerning.

Each has a little box next to the text. I guess I’m supposed to put a check mark in one before getting up and turning it in to one of the baskets placed at strategic points in the aisles. If it were a test question and if I were guessing, I'd have a 33 percent chance of getting it right. But I’m not guessing.

If I’m honest with myself, I know the first box is the one I want to check. I admit that I’ve known it since before the bishop first posed the question. But I still don’t feel ready just yet to tell the world I want to be a pastor.

I’ve spent months running from this question and these three boxes. I ran all the way to college; I had been running when I chose majors and I had been running when I first signed up for classes. When people asked if I wanted to be an engineer, I always said yes. Even this day, with the song in my ears and the card in my hands, I still might say yes. But I’m finally well aware that this yes is nothing more than lip service in the hope that if I have a good plan laid out for my life, I can keep running forever.

I never thought all this running would take me to Saint Louis. Most of all, though, I didn’t know that when the time came to make a decision, I’d still have so much trouble continuing to run. But looking around at the room, I’m not the only one struggling. The other hundreds of participants are hunched over in their chairs, silently holding the card in clenched fists.

On one hand, I know it’s time to stop and face the three little boxes. Still, the decision scares me a little and I fear I don’t have the courage to make a choice. I wish the bishop were here to look lengthen the song and look pointedly at me. He would force my hand; he would push me through my trepidation to a conclusion. But the bishop’s not here.

So instead I sit in my seat, expectant and ready, like a runner at the starting line. I’m crouched and tensed, waiting only for the sharp retort of a pistol. Except I'm holding the pistol and I'm afraid to fire. At any moment, I might do it. I might fire the pistol. I might check the box. Any moment now.

Everyone around me seems to get up at once to turn in their card. They step over and around me, trying to avoid tripping on my gangly legs. And as they file by, I can see their faces, some apprehensive, some excited, and some clearly terrified out of their minds. Now is the time, I need to choose an option - any one of the three - and join the ranks of the decided, the checkers-of-boxes. I move towards the first option, but stop to reconsider.

I can keep running if I check the third box. It's not a yes or a no. It's not even a maybe. The third option keeps up the illusion I've been trying hard to maintain, that I really don't know what I want to do with my life. The third box lets me keep saying that engineering is my backup plan until I hear otherwise, without mentioning that I've got my fingers in my ears and am humming loudly to keep from hearing anything else.

Taking a deep breath, I check the first box. It is both terrifying and exhilarating. I’m going to let myself become a pastor.

- - - - - -

Full realization doesn't hit me until several hours later. I’ve taken a walk to clear my mind, hoping to come to terms with what I've decided. I find myself directly under the Saint Louis arch, the huge silver beam stretched across my vision from left to right in a decidedly magnificent fashion. Standing in the shadow of this magnificent creation, I feel happy. I’m not afraid, I’m not excited, and I’m not even feeling particularly emotional. I just feel happy.

Looking out over the Mississippi, I smile from deep within and whisper the final words to the chorus I now know so well:

“I will go Lord, if You lead me.

I will hold Your people in my heart.”

I sense that looking down from above, God is happy too. We both know I checked the right box.

I’m going to be a pastor.

Three Boxes (Coming of Age)

I had three options:
1. I feel called into ordained ministry.
2. I do not feel called into ordained ministry.
3. I am still discerning.
Each had a little box next to the line. I was supposed to put a check mark in one and then get up and turn the card into one of the baskets placed at strategic points in the aisles. There were only three options and if I was guessing, I'd have a 33 percent chance of getting the right one. But I wasn't guessing.

Even when I had first come to TCU, had first chosen my major, had first signed up for classes, I was running from these three boxes. If you had asked me then if I wanted to be an engineer, I'm sure I would have said yes. But that yes would have been nothing more than lip service with the hope that if I had good plan for my life laid out, I could keep running forever.

I never thought that all that running would take me to Saint Louis, where I would spend the weekend in a conference about discerning your call to ministry. And I sure didn't know that when the time came to make a decision, I'd have so much trouble continuing to run. Looking across the room, I wasn't the only one struggling. The other hundreds of participants were hunched over in their chairs, card held tightly in their fist.

The first box was the one I wanted to check. I knew that was the one I wanted, I had known it for a long time. But I didn't feel ready just yet to tell the world I wanted to be a pastor.

So instead I sat in my seat, expectant and ready, like a runner at the starting line waiting for the sharp retort of a pistol. Except I'm holding the pistol and I'm afraid to fire. At any moment, I might do it. I might fire the pistol. I might check the box. Any moment now.

Everyone around me seemed to get up at once to turn in their card. They stepped over and around me, trying to avoid tripping on my gangly legs. And as they filed by, I could see their faces, some apprehensive, some excited, and some terrified out of their minds. Now was the time, I needed to check a box - any box - and join the ranks of the decided, the checkers-of-boxes. I move towards the first option, but stop to reconsider.

I can keep running if I check the third box. It's not a yes or a no. It's not even a maybe. The third option keeps up the illusion I've been trying hard to maintain, that I really don't know what I want to do with my life. That engineering is my backup plan until I hear otherwise, not mentioning that I've got my fingers in my ears and am humming loudly to keep from hearing anything else.

I check the first box. It is both terrifying and exhilarating; full realization doesn't hit me until several hours later. I took a walk to clear my mind, hoping to come to terms with what I've decided. And I find myself directly under the Saint Louis arch, the huge silver beam stretched across my vision from left to right in a decidedly magnificent fashion. And looking straight up, I felt happy. I wasn't afraid, I wasn't excited, and I wasn't even feeling particularly emotional. I felt happy.

And I sensed that looking down from above, God was happy too. We both knew I checked the right box.

Space Camp II (Coming of Age)

I could see the neutral buoyancy tank from where I was sitting. Just outside the lunchroom and across the hallway was a window where you could peer right into the giant tank of water. Waiting in the clear blue depths was a little mock-up of a satellite and if you craned your neck just right you could see the space suits set out above the water and waiting for bodies to fill them. By donning the suit and submersing yourself in the water here at Space Camp you could simulate microgravity exactly like NASA astronauts do.

But I wasn't in the buoyancy tank, I was in the lunchroom. I had been herded in alongside a mass of my laughing and boisterous peers, though I was silent amid the noisy crowd. We had only been here for a few hours and hadn't even seen our suitcases, much less unpacked and settled in. And yet they all seemed so at ease, as though they all knew each other from another life and were just rediscovering old friends. Why weren't they scared, like I was? Didn't the shine and polish of the buildings intimidate them like it did me? My life started flashing before my eyes.

But not in the way it flashes when you're dying and you see everything that's happened to you over a long and fruitful life. I only saw a week, and not the week prior. It was that week. The long, lonely trials I could face at Space Camp. I could spend the week friendless and alone. I would be there, but only in body and just floating on the edges of the group. I was scared.

I sat down with my lunch at a mostly empty table both hoping and fearing that someone would come and sit with me. It was baffling to me that I could see no one who was just as uncomfortable as me, quietly and nervously contemplating the situation from afar.

Trying to hide my fear, I focused all of my attention on my food. I kept my head down and so I didn't see him sit down. But when I glanced up and across the table, he was sitting there. He was clearly older than I was and had no place sitting there, but that's exactly where he was. Across from me, with his elbows on the table and soft look on his face.

"Hey," he said.

I didn't want to think he was talking to me. I didn't know why he would be. So I looked around as though I didn't know how alone I was before looking back at him and saying, "Me?"

"Yeah, I just wondered why you were sitting all alone?"

"I dunno," I mumbled as looking down at the table. The answer hung in the air for a fraction of a second and I looked up and saw that this boy knew exactly what I meant even if I didn't say it. He knew that I had just flown on a plane alone for the first time in my life, that I was intimidated by the camaraderie that my peers had fallen into so easily, and that I was scared out of my mind but hardly even knew why.

He smiled at me and said, "Look, Space Camp can be one of the coolest things you'll ever do and you're going to have a blast this week. But you can't make any friends sitting by yourself and you won't have much fun unless you make a friend. So go sit with somebody. Talk to them, ask them how they're doin'. Make a friend. It'll be more fun if you do."

And with another smile and a little shrug, he stood up to sit somewhere else. Probably with somebody he never met before, I figured. Someone who he didn't know now but would turn out to be his friend later. This kid probably picked up friends like toddlers pick up germs.

I tried to discount what he said, tried to tell myself that I couldn't, wouldn't, and heck, shouldn't even try to make a friend. But the thought remained and taunted me. I wanted so badly to be just like I imagined this older boy to be.

So when dinner came and I was again herded into the lunchroom I knew I would have to go and sit with someone. If I didn't that boy might come and talk to me again and ask me why I was still alone, and I'd have less of a response than before. I couldn't let this nameless mentor down, so I gathered all the courage I could muster and sat by the least intimidating boy I could find and asked him the first question that came to mind:

"Hey, do you know if we get to go in the neutral buoyancy tank this week?"

My Father and Psalm 127 (Coming of Age)

The picnic table was far from comfortable. The seat sagged slightly under my weight and the table surface was rough and uneven. I wanted to be lying down in my tent, just a few steps away. It was just a one man tent, only a few feet tall and lacking even the space to roll over, but I knew it would be far more comfortable than the bench I was sitting on.

My legs were aching. I had cycled over a hundred miles today and had pedaled my way four hundred miles in the past five days. Nothing seemed better than sliding into that tent and resting before the miles I would bike tomorrow. Looking around the table, I could see similar sentiments in all five faces. Yet here we were, pushing the exhaustion aside for just a few minutes to have a Bible study.

My dad and I on one of our training rides
(because you can't ride 800 mi without training!)

It was my father's turn to lead the group tonight, and he put his Bible softly on the table. Just a simple brown leather book, with a lone bookmark in it. I had seen it around my house a thousand times, but I didn't typically see my father reading it. He did and the scuffs along the binding and the fade of the silver edges attested to that, but it was usually early in the morning. Early enough that my brothers and I would still be asleep, the air would still be foggy, the grass would still be wet, and the world would be silent. The silence suited my father. He liked to think, not to talk. He was never very loud or boistrous, a far cry from my own personality.

Which is not to say he was nerdy. My father, forty something years old, had biked that four hundred miles too. And there was still another four hundred to go before we got back home. But this night, halfway along the trip, he sat quietly for a moment and scratched the stubble that four days of camping and biking can bring. And in that moment, he looked apprehensive and even shifted slightly in his seat. The man who had led Sunday School classes since before I was born, who could preach a sermon both thought provoking and amusing should not have been nervous about something this laid back.

Flipping to that lone bookmark, my father introduced it as his favorite Bible passage. It was Psalm 127, and he began to read aloud:

"Sons are a heritage from the Lord,
children a reward from him. 

Like arrows in the hands of a warrior
are sons born in one's youth. 

Blessed is the man
whose quiver is full of them.
They will not be put to shame
when they contend with their enemies in the gate."

I looked up and made eye contact with my dad. He was crying. But he kept talking through the tears about how blessed he was to have the sons he did. And by the end of it all, I was crying too.

Through my tears, the grass looked greener and the trees taller and my father looked more magnificent than he had ever looked before. I didn't feel tired any more. I had always known how much my dad loved me, never doubted it for a second. But to hear it in words, expressed eloquently and accompanied by tears meant so much more. He really loves me.

The Sixth Conversation - Food

It's funny to think that food can bridge such cultural boundaries when every country and region can have such a wide variety of dishes and favorites. Somehow, though, it manages to still connect people and be an incredibly fruitful conversation topic. Talking to Bandar today, it certainly became the focus of our discussion for a long while. I had just returned from a lunch banquet with some fantastic food and was excited to tell Bandar all about it. He countered by suggesting that I visit an Arabic restauant just downtown. The meals there are aparently fantastic and Bandar thought it would be good for me to try the food of another culture; I could only agree.

So I asked him what sort of meals his favorites where and what he missed the most since moving from Saudi Arabia. Bandar's eyes immediately lit up and he began to speak excitedly about a dish I could never hope to pronounce (let alone spell) but was a chicken and rice combination of some sort. It turns out that he just tried to make the dish the other weekend and he laughed and started to tell me the story of his attempt at cooking:

Bandar has never been a chef by any stretch of the imagination and had never truly made a meal in the kitchen before. He missed his favorite dish but it wasn't until he had guests coming over for a meal that he felt compelled to try his hand at making a culinary creation. The preparations began with gathering supplies, including not just food but also utensils, dishes, and the like for his previously unstocked kitchen. The meal preparation began early; Bandar knew that it would take him a long time to make the meal. Five or six hours before the meal was intended to be served, Bandar began cutting onions and preparing the chicken.

Eventually, the pan made it into the oven and all seemed to be going well. The aromas began to fill the house and Bandar felt good. When he pulled the chicken and rice out of the oven for the first time, the chicken wasn't done, but there seemed a simple solution. Back into the oven. Things still seemed pretty okay. But when the dish came out a second time, Bandar found that the rice had disintigrated and the chicken was overcooked and hardly edible.

And all Bandar's work got scraped into the trash. Fortunately, his guests were able to step in, remake the dish and the meal turned out fine in the end. It was a bit embarrassing and Bandar felt determined to master this dish, no matter how many attempts it would take.

Bandar and I laughed together over his cooking fiasco and I asked when he planned on trying again. With a smile and the shine of determination in his eye, he said that he was going to do it again tomorrow. But he hadn't set his hopes too high, he fully expected to fail once again. It would take him at least a few more mistakes to figure out how to master the recipe, but I could tell he would keep trying until he did exactly that.

The conversation continue on from that topic to Ramadan and essays, coffee and the weather, but it was the cooking story I enjoyed the most. I have never been good in the kitchen and I have had more failed creations than I can count. To my eternal shame, I have been known to have difficulty with boxed macaroni and cheese. I felt close to Bandar in that moment, and that's how I'm going to remember our conversations this semester. We've come so far from the awkward first meeting.

Bandar said he was going to miss having these conversations and I could only agree. I haven't the slightest idea whether it's helped him with English, but I enjoyed the chance to meet a incredible person here from another country.

The Fifth Conversation - Cars

Despite living in Michigan for essentially my entire life, I just don't do cars. I like them and all and I enjoy driving, it's just that everyone there knows far more about cars then I do. It's the auto state of the nation, the home of both Ford and GM and more of their employees than you can possibly imagine. A true Michigander can talk about cars for longer than most normal people can stay awake on an average day. My older brother prides himself on being able to identify the make and model of a car based on its headlights in the dark. There's no way I could do that. I can barely tell the difference between a Honda and a Chrysler.

So when Bandar started off our conversation today by talking about cars, I felt completely out of my element. He said he was looking at buying a car and wanted to know which one had the most easily replaceable parts. Not the most cost effective, not the one with the best gas mileage, not the safest, not the fastest, no. Why was this the most important attribute in Bandar's mind?

I asked and he said that at least in Saudi Arabia when a car part breaks it can take weeks or months to get it replaced, all depending on the type of car. Surely, I asked, that still wasn't as important as gas mileage. Replacing parts only matters when something breaks, but gas mileage matters every time you have to fill up your car with gas! But in Saudi Arabia, of course, gas isn't as expensive. It's an oil nation and the cost isn't nearly as inflated as it is here.

Gas prices in the United States are pretty high!

It made sense, but when I asked Bandar just how expensive gas was in Saudi Arabia I certainly wasn't ready for the numbers he tossed at me. While in American it might take 45 or 50 dollars to fill up a car's gas tank it would be a mere 7 dollars across the pond in Saudi Arabia. I sat there in stunned silence as Bandar thought for a moment and then amended his statement to the even lower $5.50 or $6. I could hardly believe it.

He went on to joke that if the rest of the world ever found a reasonable alternative energy supply, his country's economy would tank. At least, Bandar laughed when he said it, but I'm not so sure it was a joke. Without the country's oil exports there'd be no money for a lot of things, most notably the scholarships paid to students studying abroad. Students like Bandar. I was reminded of my own state, devastated when its powerful car manufacturers went under and had to lay off so many employees. To this day, the economy hasn't recovered.

Over our weeks of conversation, Bandar and I have talked about a lot of differences between our countries. We've considered the differences in laws, in city types, in jobs, in education, even the difference between our driver's licenses (in Saudi Arabia your license doesn't act as an I.D., you need a separate card), but nothing drove home the point quite like this discussion about oil. I don't know why knowing the gas price in Saudi Arabia had such an effect, but it did.

It almost seems like a fairy tale I'd sarcastically tell: "Once upon a time, in a land far away, you could fill up your car's gas tank for only seven dollars. And everyone was rich because they spent so little on gas. And they were happy. The End."

Our countries really are incredibly different places. We come from wholly different backgrounds, different cultures, different families, different climates, and even places with drastically different gas prices. And yet, when Bandar insisted on buying me coffee and we both walked out holding coffees in our left hand and talked about how little we were looking forward to the summer heat, I was reminded of just how similar we are too.

The Woods (Coming of Age)

I have lived in only one house during my life. It sits nestled up against the road comfortably, smiling at the cars that drive slowly by. The red bricks, the white of the garage door, the well-trimmed tree in a happy little garden - the house suits this neighborhood and the neighborhood the house. It's not new, far from it in fact, but I love it.

And I love the feel of the grass beneath my bare feet in the summer and the exhilaration of sledding down the driveway in the winter. I love it when my dad sets up a sprinkler and I can dance in it with my brothers. I love it when my dog prances about awkwardly in snow much too deep for him. I love the house, I love the yard, and I love the woods behind the house.

There will never be any buildings behind my house; the city says so. That's where the water runs when it rains and where the ground gets soggy under your feet. If you tried to build a house, tried to cover the mud with concrete and cut down the trees that thrive there, you'd fail. So the city won't let you try. This strip of trees and knee high grass will always be there and the creek will always flow slowly and with a quiet gurgling sound.

When I was young my brothers and I would put on our rainboots, grab plastic sand shovels and our one yellow butterfly net before stomping through the grass, around the rusted metal lawnmower, past the tree stump and over the rotting log and heading to the creek. We'd dig. We'd splash. We'd climb trees and throw sticks, run as fast as we could before falling over, and we'd laugh. I love the woods.

And so it makes sense that when I forget that I love my house, that I love my yard, and I even forget if I love my family or myself, I go out to the creek. I love the woods. I haven't forgotten that.

I'm sitting on a log, staring into a little swirling eddy at the edge of the water. The creek looks different. Maybe it's because it's winter and I never really played in the woods in the winter. Maybe it's because it's been so many years since I've been back here. I don't know. But the creek looks smaller and the trees older and more crooked. I notice that when I look back I can see my house through the barren branches.

I can see the kitchen sink window. If my mother were doing dishes right now she could look out and see me, but I doubt she'd notice even if she did look. She has no reason to think I might be out here, has no idea why I might be out here. I hardly know. I think I'm here to remember.

With a small stick, I start to write in the snow by my feet. The snow keeps falling into itself and obscuring my words. Eventually it reads: "Why do I hate myself?" It strikes me as profound for a moment; I didn't realize I hated myself. I turn it around in my mind again. I decide that it's not profound. But I still might hate myself.

Looking up, I pause. The air is cold and thin and I can see my breath, but for just a second I can feel the wet, hot air of summer. I am reminded of another time and young boy. A boy who would dig, splash, climb trees and throw sticks. Who would run as fast as he could before falling over. And would laugh.

The creek is still quietly gurgling when I leave. The trees are still strong and mighty, ready for a nimble child to come and climb into their protective branches. The ground is soggy and my footprints reveal a layer of mud beneath the snow.

I'm not ready to laugh again, but I can smile, so I do. I don't think I hate myself. But that really doesn't matter. I love the woods.

And that I know for sure.

It Hurts (Coming of Age)

I don't think you understand. I care about you. I wouldn't be here right now if I didn't, and if I wasn't here, then it would hurt more. I couldn't do that. Instead, I'll sit and hate myself for the pain that's so apparent on your face, so blatantly obvious in your eyes.

You're crying and I wish I could do something to make it better, but it's my fault and I can't. Every salty drop making its silent journey into oblivion may as well be dropping into an open wound in my soul. I want to retch, or tear out my beating heart and thrust the pumping organ into the sky whilst screaming to the world that the hurt I have caused is but a fraction of the hurt I feel. I'm sweaty, cold and clammy, and my stomach has begun a strenuous acrobatics course of which I have not approved. It is as though my body itself has taken careful note of what I have done and is now revolting in horror and disgust. But not my eyes. Your cheeks shimmer and glisten with still-falling tears. My face is dry.

I open my mouth and can feel my vocal chords flexing and the words that I'm forming are supposed to explain why I'm not crying. Somehow, someway, they're supposed to convey weeks of angst and sleepless nights. Nights where, alone and in bed, I cried for the knowledge that this day would come; I cried because I knew that I had to do it. And I cried because I knew you would cry. You would cry and I would watch, wishing to the highest realms of heaven that I had could have just one short moment of tears more so that you can know that I care. But heaven is unmerciful today and though I try to explain all this in words, the cotton in my mouth and the fog in my brain muddle my speaking beyond recognition.

Ironically, I am reminded of where this all began. Then too, my English speaking skills had deserted me, just as I was flushed and perspiring and about to ask you to begin this journey. The question was easy enough, but somehow I managed to stumble nervously on the two syllable words anyway. You were gracious as I blundered vocally about, but your friends were close-by and impatient and quickly prodded me to finish. Not one to disappoint, I summoned all of my remaining courage and asked you to be my girlfriend. I still remember the answer you gave, and I'm sure you do too: “In a heartbeat,” you said.

I hope you don't think I have dropped you in as quick a heartbeat. For months now, I have seen this looming future, but I avoided looking it in the eye. You thought I was perfect, and you were happy with this fantasy. I forgot your birthday and ignored you at Christmas but you hardly batted an eye. How could I tell you that I didn't think we would make it as a couple? I could not be as perfect as you made me out to be. I wanted to be; I wanted to be everything you ever dreamed of. But I'm not and I couldn't be.

It has gotten to the point where I can no longer delay. Time would only solidify your belief in me, your belief in us. I don't believe in these things any more. To continue on with things as they were before would be to live a lie and I cannot do that. It would hurt more to know that I pretended things were fine when they weren't. It would hurt more if I allowed you to grow closer to me every day only to break up with you. It had to be faced sooner or later, and sooner hurts less than later. It still hurts, but it would be worse tomorrow.

And now you've run out of tears. I can tell that you wish you could still be sobbing but you can't because the initial shock has worn off and left you with nothing but a dull, throbbing ache. The bench I'm sitting on is suddenly very cold through the seat of my jeans and the air about my head hangs with a cool, crisp chill. You're straightening up, and I know you're about to tell me that you're going to leave. I wish you would say something. I want to wish that you would say that you knew this was coming, that you understand, but I'd settle even for shouting angry words accompanied by finger pointing. Instead, you say nothing. You're going to leave.

When I turn to part ways, I tell you one more time: “I'm sorry.” You respond with a wave of the hand and a face that hints at the potential recurrence of tears. So I leave, more for your sake then mine. I want to stay and try again to explain what I'm sorry for. That I'm sorry for beginning something that would end in tears. That I'm sorry I wasn't perfect. That I'm sorry for hurting you.

Please, understand, I know it hurts.

It hurts me too.

A Great Story (Library Research)

Today is officially the first day I have ever asked a librarian to help me find something in a library. It's kind of a sad day, but I've come to terms with it. See, I take some amount of pride in my understanding of the Dewey Decimal system. I realize that the TCU library actually uses the Library of Congress' numbering system, but books are still listed in alphabetic and numeric order! So why couldn't I find Life magazine?

It turns out I was looking on the wrong floor. There are indeed a lot of bound periodicals to be found in the basement, but not all of them. No, Life magazine was on the first floor. Shelves upon shelves of Life magazines. I was limited to the 1950's and 1960's, of course, but a lot of magazines are printed over a twenty year span. For a while, I didn't know where to begin.

And then I carefully found a particular month within a particular year and slid the heavy tome off the top shelf. It was July of 1969, the year that Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon and for the first time in all of history, a man walked on an extraterrestrial surface.

I have always loved the stories of space travel and Neil Armstrong has always been a hero of mine. The excitement was building up within me as I opened the magazine and I could barely contain myself when I discovered Neil's picture on the cover. I skipped over the advertisements, barely glanced at the letters to the editor, and skimmed the table of contents just enough to find the first space related article.

Off to the Moon - July 4, 1969

It was a biography of Neil Armstrong.

I read it all the way through. I didn't care one way or another if it had anything to do with coming of age, I felt like I was 7 years old again and nothing was going to stop me from devouring every word on those few pages. Only after I had finished the article and sat in quiet contemplation for a few minutes did I realize that what I just finished reading had everything to do with coming of age. The story was all about how Neil got to where he was today and dealt heavily with his childhood and his transition to becoming not just an astronaut, but a father and a man.

It talked about how Neil was a quiet, but hardworking and driven boy. He was expected to help earn money for the family and to "yearn only for the things they could afford," and he did both. At the same time, he dreamt of flight and airplanes and got a pilot's license on his 16th birthday before even his driver's license. Piloting lessons weren't cheap, of course, and he worked long hours only taking off time when he had enough to run over to the airfield and have another lesson. The words on the page painted a picture of a boy who knew what he wanted and worked for it.

His parents were mentioned just long enough to say that they instilled values in him of dedication, hard work, the value of money and the importance of honesty, before getting out of the way and letting their child dream.

I don't know how much of the article is really technically true and how much of it is overzealous reporting, attempting to make a hero out of an ordinary man. Honestly, it's probably a little of both. But what it does do is show just the sort of childhood and person that people of that time admired. They were enthralled by the story of a man who worked himself to where he was, who had achieved great things based solely upon his desire and dedication to greatness. Children should dream, and they should dream big. And then, they need to go after that dream and achieve everything they dreamed of. That's the story that people wanted to hear in that time.

And that's the story that 7 year old me still wants to hear. It was ordinary people who dreamed extraordinary things that built, engineered, and piloted America to the moon. And whether that's technically true or a mixture of overzealous reporting and patriotism, I don't know.

But it sure makes a great story.

The House on Mango Street

It's really fascinating to carry a book around in public. People you barely know (or don't know at all!) suddenly have something to talk to you about. I've heard lengthy book reviews from folks I could never imagine holding a book and from people I could have sworn were bordering on the edge of illiteracy. I was reading part of To Kill a Mockingbird during spring break at my younger brother's band competition when I was approached by someone's mother who told me all about her experience reading the novel in middle school. She said she loved it. When I was reading Candide, I passed someone in my dorm who told me all how her 10th grade teacher read it aloud to her class. She said she thought the book was hilarious. Apparently people like to talk about books and carrying one around is treated as an open invitation for conversation.

So when I carried my slim paperback copy of The House on Mango Street into the band hall yesterday, I wondered what sort of reception it would get. I didn't think it would go unnoticed and it sure didn't. There were four or five people who noticed it right away and they all echoed the same sentiment:

They didn't like it.

For one, it was because he thought his AP English teacher analyzed it too deeply; there's not that much significance to the red balloon, he said. Another thought that the format was dumb; there wasn't much cohesion between chapters and no real plot, he said. Yet another was irritated because he thought the book's popularity stemmed from the author's nationality; people only read it because the author's Mexican, he said.

At this point, I hardly knew what to think. So I didn't, and just opened the book up to the first page. The first page of the novel, not the introduction. I skipped the introduction. I would come back to it later, but not now.

I think the book is cute. It's nice. I mean that with every connotation you probably have for those words. You may think it sounds condescending, but not really. It's almost condescending, but still respectful.

It's a well written book, and the sentences flow. The words craft images in the mind, they paint with colors and with feelings more vibrantly than half of the novels out there. I enjoyed reading this book.

But I'm not really sure what it's about. I mean, yes, it's about a little girl named Esperanza who moves with her family to a little house on Mango Street. It's about living in a poor family in a poor neighborhood but still trying to be normal. That's what it's about. So why do I feel like I missed something?

I reached the end and found myself grasping for more. There had to be more, I knew it. A deeper meaning somewhere, some significance beyond these simple stories. But I didn't know what.

I still don't know.

The Fourth Conversation - Tornadoes

My conversation with Bandar was certainly different than normal this week. We always have our conversations early Tuesday afternoon, and this week was no different. I was walking over to meet Bandar when it started raining and I watched the sky start to look a little intimidating. Earlier that day I had heard the bad weather sirens go off and ever since I had been keenly aware of the possibility of a tornado.

For me, a tornado is almost exciting. I've never actually seen a tornado or even hardly been in close proximity to one. In sixth grade my class and I spent the afternoon huddled in of our school's interior hallways because the sky had turned a lovely shade of pea green and there were tornado warnings, but nothing came of it. It occurred to me after moving down to Texas, that now I was in tornado alley. My chance to actually see a tornado could come. It's a silly, boy-ish desire, but one I never really gave up.

I began to tell Bandar all this, about the weather and what might happen, but he stopped me and asked, "A tornado?" I thought that perhaps he didn't know the word, so I began to explain it as I do when I use a word he's unfamiliar with. He stopped me again; he knew what a tornado was, he was just concerned because he walked from his house to campus and didn't particularly want to walk back during a tornado.

We moved on to other conversation topics, but Bandar remained ever aware of the weather happening just outside the window. He seemed to only be pulled away from the changing storm conditions once, when we were talking about the word "colleague". Bandar mentioned that he had just learned the word today and enjoyed how it sounded, but was bothered by the spelling. I agreed wholeheartedly, saying that I can't ever remember how the e's, a's, and u's go either. But then he baffled me by asking about the silent "d" in the word.

For a moment, I was incredibly confused. I played back what he said several times over in my mind, thinking maybe I had misheard him. I mean, I know quite well that there's no silent "d" in the word colleague. English doesn't make much sense sometimes, but it's not that inane. I'm sure I looked very puzzled for a few seconds before saying that I really didn't think there was d in the word at all.

Bandar insisted, and he pulled out his notebook of words, flipped to the back page and pointed to the word as he wrote it down. For a moment, it looked exactly right to me. Where in the world was he finding this "d"? And then suddenly I realized that the way he wrote it had the "o" and the "l" bunched up next to each other in such a way to look like a "d". I explained the issue and we laughed.

And at that point the weather was getting bad enough that we cut out conversation a bit short and Bandar headed home. As I left myself, I hoped that he would make it safely and avoid whatever nasty weather was headed this way. I didn't really want to see a tornado after all, I decided, I just wanted everyone to stay safe. And fortunately, they did.

To Kill a Mockingbird

I've never been able to tell exactly how much I'm lying when I say that I've read To Kill a Mockingbird before. In one sense, I absolutely did. My whole class read it back in eighth grade and I honest and truly looked at every page with my own eyes. I read every word. I turned every page. I knew the names of characters and the order of events. But I didn't really read it.

You could tell because I hated the book. I thought it was dull, slow paced, and had little to no redeeming qualities whatsoever. Maybe I wasn't ready for it at that young age, I don't really know. All I know is that I managed to miss everything that makes this novel good.

This novel is good.

I didn't know this until I read it this past week. Influenced by my middle school predjudices, I allowed myself to put off what I figured would be a frustratingly long and boring read until Friday night. When I finally opened the cover, I was prepared with earbuds and exciting music. I figured I'd need something to help escape the duldrums Harper Lee had in store for me. Honestly, that's all that kept me going through Part 1. I wasn't altogether interested in the childlike fascination with Boo Radley nor did I give a hoot about Jem reading to an old lady.

It was in Part 2 that the novel took off. All of a sudden I was entraced by the trial of a black man in the deep south where the hatred for his race was wild and uncontained. I knew Tom would be found guilty. I knew it. Harper Lee didn't write a fantasy novel. Tom would be found guilty. But knowing doesn't stop it from stinging.

Even as it stung, though, I was proud of how the trio - Jem, Scout, and Dill - reacted. Too young to know that this was the expected outcome, they were shocked. There were tears. It was a beautiful moment and powerfully written.

I couldn't wait to see where the story would go next and read hurriedly. I can't explain exactly what I thought would happen, but it didn't. Jem was struggling with the outcome and fighting an internal battle but then he just gave up. He didn't want to talk about it because he couldn't come to terms with it. And overnight he became totally disenchanted with the world.

Had the trial happened again with the same outcome, I don't know that Jem's face would have been "streaked with angry tears" like the first time. He would have taken it in stride, bitterly proclaimed that it was simply the way the world was, and gone on his way. And that makes me sad.

After the trial, Jem asked, "How could they do it, how could they?" to which Atticus replied, "I don't know, but they did it. They've done it before and they did it tonight and they'll do it again and when they do it-seems only that the children weep."

I never want to grow up to the point that I'm not among the weeping, but I fear Jem did.

The Third Conversation - Because

There has been a recurring theme in my conversations with Bandar: English. And I don't mean that because all of our conversations have been in English (though they have), but rather that we tend to talk a lot about how little sense this langauge actually makes. It began today with the word Wednesday, a very strangely spelled word.

As the story goes, Bandar was reading in class this morning when he came to this word that he thought he didn't know. He summoned the teacher to his side and asked the meaning of this "Whed-nes-day" only to discover he already knew the word. At least, he knew how the word sounds and what it feels like to say it and that it means the middle day of the week. Initially, he didn't believe that this "Whens-day" could ever be spelled "Whed-nes-day", but the teacher insisted. Bandar pressed for an explanation but was greated only by a "Because."

Uh...because?

According to Bandar, it's a magic "because". It's the response to every English question he's ever had!

Why isn't enough spelled "enuff"? Because.
Why do "know" and "no" get spelled differently? Because.
Why do we spell "cul-chur" as culture? Because.

It became a joke between us. Bandar or I would look at the other and respond to a question with a shrug and a magic "Because." And then we'd laugh.


We were having a grand old time in fact, and in between laughs Bandar told me the three questions he had since coming to the United States to study:

1. Why is there a "k" in the word know?
2. How is that Asians can differentiate between Japenese, Chinese, and South Korean just from looks?
3. Who is this man that created English? Because I want to find him and kill him.

We laughed at that.

And in between all these laughs about the dumbest language to ever form on this grand planet, we talked about movies. In Saudi Arabia, they don't have movie theaters ("cinemas") and so the experience we all take for granted is still thrilling and novel to Bandar. It's the food, the seats, the atmosphere, everything. You can buy the DVD in Saudi Arabia as soon as the film premieres in theaters across the world, but it's not the same.

What is the same, though, is the movies. Apparently films transcend cultural bounds and can easily provide a common ground. We talked about Tom Cruise and the newest Mission Impossible movie, about movies soon to come out, and movies I never saw because I was too young to see them when they first came out. Notable among the last catagory is The Godfather. When Bandar found this out, he jokingly insisted that I leave right then and go watch it. We laughed and then I think I committed myself to watching it over spring break. I'm looking forward to being able to come back and tell him I saw it.

Today for the first time, I think Bandar and I started really being friends. It took weeks and three conversations, but it happened. How? Why? I don't know. Because.

Hills Like White Elephants

I certainly hope I'm not the only one who looks at how long an assignment is before I read it. It helps me to know how much time I'm going to have to spend on it, whether I can get it done in just five minutes or if it's going to take me fifty. Well, when Ernest Hemingway writes a short story, he puts an emphasis on the short part (ever read his shortest one? It reads: "For Sale. Baby shoes. Never worn."). Hills Like White Elephants is a paltry 3 pages. I figured it would take me somewhere between four and seven minutes, ten minutes tops, before I could have the story down and move on with my life.

It turned out to take much longer than that.

I mean, sure, I read it in the expected four minutes but that wasn't really enough time to wrap my head fully around what I just devoured. It took two more readings, much slower and more contemplative, before I felt I was really getting a handle on what Hemingway was writing about. This wasn't just some idle conversation between a couple waiting for a train. It's not even really a conversation about getting an abortion. No, instead Hemingway is treating his readers to a tiny glimpse of the struggle between a man and a woman trying to balance a relationship thrown entirely off kilter by an unexpected pregnancy.

And that is exactly what I love about Hemingway's writing. It's not so much that he's telling a story as he's introducting characters. These people have depth and histories, but not names. Their lives come to life in only three pages and that's enough. Certainly, that was enough for me to become attached enough to the characters that the ending found me muttering angrily at a long dead Hemingway about how I felt gypped to not know what happened to the couple.

I suspect I know, though. The woman is going to have the operation, pressured by the domineering man and the societal pressure to forego her own feelings so she can cater to the man's desires. She doesn't want to, of course not; everyone involves knows that at some level or another. The American knows it and asks her about it, but she refuses to admit and so he feels justified it not admitting it to himself. The woman, on the other hand, knows full well how much she doesn't want it. She can hear just how flat all her words fall, how lifeless the promises the man makes are. Things won't go back to how they were before. They can't have the whole world, not now and not afterwards.

But she'll let the operation happen anyway and it will probably be wholly successful. They'll try to go back to how things were before but it won't be the same. The white elephant might be gone physically but its presence will remain in the relationship, straining things between the man and the woman. Both will insist that they "feel fine", but really, that's a lie.

Somewhere along the way they'll split the relationship, aknowledging how far they've grown apart as a couple. And that's where I see the story ending. I don't think Hemingway ended the story after three pages, that's just when he stopped supplying the words.

Space Camp (Coming of Age)

I never really grew out of wanting to be an astronaut.

Really, I'm pretty sure that's supposed to stop being a serious career path at about the same time you're too old to have Buzz Lightyear bedsheets. As soon as you tack that second digit onto your age it's suddenly socially unacceptable to aspire for interstellar travel; it's uncool.

But I didn't really care, rebel that I was. Astronauts get to ride on the tips of rockets, float in the emptiness of space, speak over crackly radios, and spend their days in total serenity, peering down on the most beautiful planet this solar system has to offer. There could be nothing better than this and only one thing could ever come close: Space Camp.

You have to capitalize both words when you write it - Space Camp - and you have say it like both words are capitalized. It's not just some term to be tossed about in normal conversation but requires you instead to speak it with a sense of awe and wonder. This isn't any old camp. This is Space Camp, the premiere and ultimate of all camps in existence and the greatest experience a boy could ever have.

So you can imagine that it was no small deal when I hugged my father goodbye at terminal A15 to spend a week at Space Camp. I didn't know what to feel. There was a battle of emotions happening inside of me, a fight between terror and excitement. At a single moment I was on the verge of both shouting for joy and bursting out in wet, salty tears.

I felt out of place as I was handed off to a flight attendant. She seemed so confident and put together, every blond hair positioned as perfectly as she had positioned the smile on her face. She walked straight and tall and the click of her heels echoed slightly as we walked through the Jetway to the plane.

And next to her I was hardly even half her height. My backpack felt childish and I resented the gaudy "Unaccompanied Minor" nametag I was forced to wear. It hung from an American Airlines lanyard and swung awkwardly about my neck, as if trying to draw as much attention as possible. "This boy is too young to travel alone!" the tag cried to everyone who would listen.

This was not the message I wanted people to hear. And yet, the message remained. First, I sat in the wrong seat on the airplane. Then when the flight attendants brought drinks, I promptly spilled orange juice on my book. The bored businessman whose seat I had accidentally taken earlier silently offered me a napkin, but I refused out of shame. Today of all days, I wanted to feel older, but I was reminded of my youth at every turn.

I only had to look down to be reminded of it. "Unaccompanied Minor" the tag said. Almost tauntingly. Repetitively. "Unaccompanied Minor".

I'm the fourth from the left, in a semi-authentic flight suit.
I told you this camp was legit!

When the plane landed, I didn't know where to go but was quickly spotted by a 20-something wearing a space camp shirt. He strode over to me with long steps, shook my hand and welcomed me by name. I was excited now. The worries I had on the plane dissipated with the arrival of this man who spoke to me like I was as old as I wanted to be. I took off that dumb lanyard and left it at the airport before I was accompanied to Space Camp.

And I had the time of my life.

The Second Conversation

My most recent conversation with Bandar was on Wednesday, one of those strangely warm days after a spree of cold weather. It was as though the sun decided that it had enough of this silly winter weather and was going to warm things up for at least a day. I started to perspire a bit just wandering over to Union Grounds to find Bandar but was nothing compared to the walk Bandar made from his place off campus. We chatted about the weather for a while and both agreed that it came from nowhere and was wholly unexpected. I moved here from a cold state and he from a warm country and it seems neither of us really understand the erratic Texas weather yet.

I asked about the weather in Saudi Arabia and learned that it was as I guessed: very hot. I've never actually stuck around in Texas for the summer and I'm frankly quite scared of the obscene temperatures I'd encounter if I did. Apparently it's no better in Saudi Arabia. Bandar didn't seem too partial to the heat of his home country. In fact, as we began discussing the differences between Saudi Arabia and the United States, Bandar was always straightforward and never seemed idealize or misrepresent his homeland.

He spoke of the influence of Islam on the laws and rules in Saudi Arabia. Islamic persons aren't allowed to either drink alcohol or eat ham and it's illegal to sell either as a result. Bandar seemed wholly unconcerned about the absence of ham but the alcohol was a different matter. The way around the rule, it seems, is to know people from other countries who had come to work in Saudi Arabia (there's good money for European and American workers there!). These workers bring alcoholic beverages into the country with them and might be convinced to share.

These Europeans and Americans also tend to bring their religions with them too and I wondered aloud how it was living as a Christian in an Islamic country. I half expected to hear that it was a big issue and it was rare to find a practicing Christian in the country. Bandar quickly banished my hasty assumption and told me that there were plenty of Christians in the country, and he knows quite a few himself. Plenty of Christians, but no churches. It was okay to be a Christian, but you have to keep it mostly to yourself, worshipping in your own home. There's no requirement to participate in the multiple prayer times during the day, but there's a stringent social code to adhere to in that regard. You can't keep a shop open during prayer time, even if you're not Islamic and not praying. That said, when you close your shop, you can't wander around the streets (because then you're rubbbing in the fact that you're not praying) and you can't just stay in your shop (because you could be helping a customer). It was an intruiging look at the state of religious freedom in a different country.

We moved on in topics, and talked for a while about what it was like getting out of the country. Bandar spent some time lamenting the difficulty of getting a visa to the United States, though it's fortunately much easier than it was after the September of 2001. He laughed and said it was very fortunate he wasn't named Osama or Muhammad, and though I hoped he was kidding, he wasn't - it's apparently very hard for persons with that name to be granted a visa to the US. I knew from our last conversation that Bandar had been to most every tourist location in the states, but I hadn't thought to ask him what other countries he had been to. I did this time and was treated to a bit of a shock. I was sitting across from a world traveler!

And when I say world traveler, I mean it. Bandar recently spent seven or eight months traveling across the world, staying for 20 or 25 days at each place he visited. I asked for descriptions of the places and he leaned back in his chair and looked off to the side and into the distance, clearly at ease and happy to reminisce about his months of travelling. I got to hear stories about the places - oh so many places! - that Bandar had been to and to say I was jealous doesn't do the feeling justice. Even the stories of muggings in other countries held a sort of allure. Bandar told a story about seeing a man get clubbed by a group of men, and that failed to dampen my excitement about the foreign countries. Besides, he said the police in Rio de Janiero were quick and were on the scene in a moment. To then have to admit that I had only been to three countries outside the United States (two of which are Canada and Mexico, and not even a warm sunny beach in Mexico, much to Bandar's dissappoinment) made me feel uncultured. Bandar treated me to a list of recommendations and insisted that if I ever go to the carnival in Rio that I would have to take him along. I don't know that I can ever take him up on that offer, but I sure want to now!

As we began wrapping up the conversation, the topic turned to schoolwork in the upcoming days and Bandar mentioned his frustrations with the English language. For him, reading, listening, and speaking came easily and all he has left to do is just expand his vocabulary. The issue arises with writing. In arabic, words are spelled just as the sound and that certainly isn't the case in English. He recounted the conversations he would have often with his teacher, going something like this:

Bandar: Why is there a k in the word "know"?
Teacher: Because there is.
Bandar: No, really, why?
Teacher: Just because.

And I had no answer for him either. What torture we inflict on those attempting to learn the English language! Why is it that so many words have silent letters, that t's often make the sound of d's (Bandar is baffled that we pronounce the word water as "wah-der"), and that so little in spelling actually makes sense?

It almost makes me wish that another language were the world-wide standar, but then I'd have to learn another language. Isle stik with Inglish, thank yew very much.

Er, I mean: "I'll stick with English, thank you very much."

The Huck Finn Experience

1. Have you read the novel –Huck Finn- before? If so where and why?

I first read Huck Finn in my 10th grade English class as an assigned reading. It was part of the school curriculum and had been for years, I'm sure.

3. What was your response to reading Huck Finn, and what do you remember from your
reading? Also, did you actually read the whole novel, or just parts of it? Did you read
Cliff Notes or Monarch Notes instead?

Surprisingly, to me at least, I really enjoyed the novel. I read the whole thing - the whole thing - unlike many of my classmates. Sparknotes was helpful in reviewing for the final test because I was the student that read ahead and by the time the unit was ending it had been several weeks since I last turned a page in the book. I remembered a surprising number of events, though the most clear in my mind was the scene where Huck is subject to a particularly clever scheme to reveal whether he's truly the girl he's pretending to be. Other moments were less clear, but I still remembered Huck pretending he had a smallpox ridden family in order to protect Jim and that the Duke and King used the phrase "Women and Children Not Admitted" to draw a big crowd.

4. If you were assigned to read Huck Finn in a previous class, either here or in high
school, how did your class as a whole react to the novel? Why do you think your
instructor assigned the novel? How did he or she try to “teach” the novel?

Like with most books my English class read, the class wasn't the most fond of the book. Most of them didn't read it and they didn't really connect with it. To be honest, I'm not sure even my teacher liked the novel. It was part of our class because it was part of the curriculum and no other reason that I could tell. I can't remember actually learning anything about book, sadly.

5. If you were required to read Huck Finn in a previous class, what sort of assignments
were you required to complete, and what exactly did you do during the classes when
Huck Finn was being discussed.

Though I'm sure there was more than one assignment attached to the the Huck Finn unit, I only remember the one major project I had to do. We had to take any passage from the novel and represent it in any number of multimedia forms. It could be a video reenactment, a picture book, a diagram or a model, or anything else we could come up with. I chose to do what amounted to basically an audio reenactment and I wrote a piano background for the scene where Huck pretends his family has smallpox. We spent a few days presenting our projects to the class, and mine was fortunately well received. Besides that, I really can't remember what we did when discussing Huck Finn.

6. Huck Finn is still one of the most controversial and most banned books in America.
Why is it so controversial?


I think a majority of the controversy is over the use of the n-word. Though it was vernacular in Twain's time (and Huck Finn is clearly written using vernacular), it is no longer a socially acceptable word. It's difficult for teachers to teach tactfully and many parents balk at having their children forced to read a book containing what most perceive to be a vulgar term. I suspect the depiction of Jim also factors into the controversy. It's true that a major purpose of the novel is to show the humanity of African-Americans, but alongside his humanity Jim is still a stereotyped character. He's superstitious and a simpleton and he talks like the uneducated man he is. To some, this is just as distasteful as the n-word.

7. Is Huck Finn still relevant to you as college student today? Should it continue to be
taught in college classrooms?

I wasn't able to connect as closely to Huck Finn as a character as I could in high school but I was happy to find that I was able to get more out of the novel. The subtleties of what Twain was doing where clearer to me as a college student and I appreciated being able to see better the systematic dismantling of the assumption slaves have no humanity. Though I originally scoffed at having to revisit a book read by freshman and sophomores in high school, I think it's a valuable addition to my curriculum and should continue to have a presence in college classrooms.

8. The general consensus among critics is that Huck Finn is a brilliant and powerful
novel, but also a flawed and problematic novel. What do you think might be flawed and/
or problematic about the novel?


I find it curious that we're attempting to describe a work of literature as "flawed and problematic" as though the author didn't uphold to the standards of how to write a perfect novel. Couldn't we just as easily describe the parts of the novel that are flawed or problematic as an artistic choice Twain made? That aside, I think the flaws and problems lie in the scattered feel of the novel. It's hardly a cohesive work, dramatically shifting between every third of the novel. Even in the middle of each of these sections, it has a piecemeal feel as though Twain was only loosely tying unrelated stories together in a shoddy excuse for a novel. Still, the work is enjoyable to read and makes a powerful point about slavery and racism, and I shy away from calling Huck Finn flawed.

Rediscovering Huck Finn

I read "The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn" in high school, four years ago. I was surprised but pleased to discover that I really enjoyed the novel and actually read the whole thing, unlike so many of my classmates. After learning that I would be revisiting the novel for this class, I had hoped that I would remember most of the story. After all, I could rattle off the major plot points and give brief biographies for most of the characters, and even wax eloquently about some of Twain's underlying agenda.

Sadly for me, rereading the novel proved that not only had I forgotten much of the book, but even the first time around I had missed a huge amount of Mark Twain's points. Huck Finn has far more depth than a simple story and really is a scathing description of a society and culture. I picked up on more this read but discovered, much to the chagrin of every English teacher I've encountered in my life, I didn't much care for that aspect.

More than anything else, I think, Twain was a good story teller. It was the characters I fell in love with the first time I read the story and it was the characters that welcomed me back.

Jim greated me with a simple and characteristic, "Who dah?" For a while, it wasn't the Jim that I remembered and I questioned my memory of the character. Where was the man so kind-hearted and honest, ready to do the right thing and so capable of both befriending and mentoring Huck? This simpleton with a hairball, convinced that witches would fly him all over the state wasn't the Jim I knew. No, that Jim came later, slowly growing out of the pages and into a wonderful reality of a man. It was the Jim who refused to leave Tom Sawyer bleeding in the woods that I remembered. He was still there and I discovered that I still admired the man. He was uneducated and forever convinced that his hairy chest meant he would be rich one day, but that doesn't mean he wasn't the character with the purest of hearts.

Then there was Tom Sawyer, the rapscallion with such a large imagination and a propensity for getting himself in trouble. I had forgotten how much of a distaste I had for Tom in this book. After finishing Huckleberry Finn, I enjoyed it enough to venture into other Twain works and read The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, a book where I discovered Tom in a different light. In that novel, I liked him, but the Tom in Huckleberry's story was different. Continually, I found myself frustrated by the boy's total and utter lack of sense. He couldn't comprehend a serious situation and I was especially bothered by Tom when he concocted such an absurd scenario to free Jim.

Often in stark contrast to Tom was Huck, but I was surprised to find that I didn't like Huck all the way through the novel as I thought I would. I began the book with a sort of ambivalence towards the rough and tumble boy, no longer as intranced by his rebellious nature as I was years before. In essence, he moved with the river. He hardly ever took action but allowed himself to pushed along by random happenstance and the actions of others. The change began when the Duke and the King got involved with the deceased Peter Wilk's fortune and Huck realized that he couldn't let these two con men get away with their scheme. As soon as Huck started to let his morality direct his actions, I began to like him more, but I wasn't fully set in my opinion. It was only after Jim had been turned in as a runaway slave that I think Huck really began to take action. He could have moved on like he did so many times before. In fact, he was tempted to just that, tempted to write a note to Miss Watson so that he could justify forgetting all about the man who had cared for him, befriended him, and mentored him. But he didn't.

Huck found himself, as he said, "betwixt two thing": he could make a firm decision and act on it or he could return again to the river to float on into infinity. And with a "All right, then, I'll go to hell," he chose. And he chose to act.

I was proud of Huck in that moment. Not so much that he could see past Jim's race to care for him but simply that he had grown to where he could make a decision on his own, knowing full well the consequences. Sadly, this independance was short lived.

Suddenly, Tom was back on the scene and Huck reverted to following the direction he was given by others. Anyone could see that Tom's plans where ridiculous just as easily as Huck could see that and yet he let Tom take the lead. There were moments of resistance, but never substantially and I was frustrated. I wanted Huck to remember that moment of strength he had on the riverbank, with the torn up letter in his hands, and the determination took to decide to free Jim. That Huck, who I saw but briefly, would have rejected Tom's plan for the absurdity it was. Where had that Huck gone?

The book ends nicely and everything worked out well, but I was saddened to think that maybe Huck hadn't truly come of age. He was back to fighting off those who wanted to "sivilize" him, just like he began. Where was the progress? What had happened to the growth Huck made when he decided to free Jim? I was disappointed.

I didn't feel this way after finishing the book the first time. Then, I was delighted at the journey Twain had taken me on and that everyone could go home happy. This time, everyone went home happy except for me.

The First Conversation

The number of emails Bandar and I passed back and forth reached into the double digits before we were finally able to meet face to face. His messages typically consisted of one line and gave me no hint of what he was truly like and I was ready for anything when we finally sat down and had our first conversation.

That said, I wasn't really expecting the fellow who sat down across from me. With long hair and mirrored aviator glasses, I could tell he was older than me by at least a few years. In actuality, it turns out he is 30 years old while I'm a mere 19. The age gap surprised him as much as me, and we talked briefly about how I was young for my grade. From there, the conversation was all over the map.

It took a while to get used to how Bandar spoke; he used the right words and in the right ways but with a distinctively Saudi Arabian accent. It wasn't too hard to follow him, what was harder was paying attention to how I was talking. I could tell that I lost him a couple times, either going too fast or slurring words in just the wrong way. He never asked for clarification and preferred instead to move on to another topic, which made me feel bad. The goal was never to be that annoying American who spoke so slowly as to be insulting, but I didn't want to be insensitive either. With luck, I will improve at this over time and become more comfortable in my conversations with Bandar.

Of the many topics we breezed through, I remember most distinctly our discussion about various American cities. I was talking about where I was from in Michigan and mentioned that I was from the Detroit area, because that tends to be the only city anyone recognizes from my beloved home state. Bandar did know the city and asked if it was "dangerous". I was a little confused, and he tried to clarify by mentioning the "black people" there and asked again if that made it dangerous. He had been looking into universities across the country but some of them were in dangerous areas and he was very interested in which areas where dangerous and which weren't.

The confusion lessened slightly, and I understood that he was talking about gangs, and Detroit sure does have a gang presence and a big percentage of the residents are in fact African-American. Still, I have a deep love for Detroit. The museum of art there is wonderful, and I enjoy going and hearing music at the concert hall, but it's true that these landmarks are surrounded by run down and abandoned buildings. I didn't dwell on this point and chose rather to talk about how I live an hour and a half away from the city and we moved on to other topics.

Later, though, it returned when Bandar was talking about his brother who is studying in Seattle, another "dangerous" city. I was surprised by this. As a Michigander halfway across the country, you get used to people (a) not knowing where Michigan is and confusing it with Minnesota, (b) thinking Detroit encompasses the whole of the state, and (c) assuming that upwards of twenty people are shot every day by gangs in Detroit. I'm used to these (completely inaccurate) assumptions. But I had never thought of Seattle as a dangerous city. Seattle! Do dangerous people really want to live in a place as dreary and rainy as Seattle? I suppose that I had an incredulous look on my face and so Bandar explained that there are a lot of Mexicans there, dealing drugs in the city streets.

For a while, even after Bandar and I parted ways, I couldn't help but think that these opinions were horribly racist. Not all Mexicans deal drugs in Seattle and not all African-Americans run with gangs in Detroit. Still, I didn't want to just assume that this man who I had hardly even met and only talked to for an hour was a racist. That's jumping to conclusions, so I kept turning over these thoughts in my mind. I remembered then something else Bandar had said. As the conversation was winding down, he thanked me for talking to him. In his experience, 80 percent of Americans don't talk to outsiders and I think that he was being generous with that number.

In this country, people have a tendency to associate with people like themselves. There's a number of reasons for this, and I could easily list five off the top of my head, but you and I both know it's true. Outsiders are barely acknowledged, let alone welcomed. This is true whether you're from Saudi Arabia like Bandar, an illegal immigrant from the south, or just an urban boy with the wrong skin color. So when Bandar talks about the African-Americans making Detroit dangerous or the Mexicans dealing drugs in Seattle, whose racism is showing: his or ours?

Can I blame this Saudi Arabian for picking up on stereotypes we pass around to each other? He hadn't been to either of these cities, he had just heard about them. It was uncomfortable to hear him say it but sometimes it's uncomfortable to look into a mirror. This wasn't Saudi Arabian culture staring me in the face, it was American.