Our near-future plans at TCU (seventh meeting)

Once again, Monique and I met over some coffee at Union Grounds. Monique had just got out of her class. She had just done a presentation so I asked her how her presentation went. As she was able to choose the topic of the presentation, she had done her presentation on Brazil, her home country because she was familiar with it. She told me that though she was nervous, she requested to present first because seeing other presentations would have made her even more nervous than she already was. She wanted to, so-to-say, “rip the Band-Aid off.” She was glad that it was finally over but there was still much to do; she told me that she to prepare for a writing exam the next day. I told her, with finals coming up, it really felt like it was one thing after another but as we established at our last meeting, there were only a few weeks to power through until we would have a much-deserved break.

She then told me how excited she was to be going back to Brazil for the holidays and in turn, I told her how equally excited I was for my parents to be coming here for the holidays. I told her that this is my favorite time of the year. This brought up the Christmas tree lighting. Monique wasn’t able to go so I told her all about it. She then commented on how it must be to be living on-campus because I can easily get to class and go to different events. With this, I realized that I probably take living on-campus for granted. Nevertheless, I told her I was looking for a place for myself as well since I am planning to move off-campus for next year. And she told me that she was looking for a place nearer to TCU so that she wouldn’t have to commute as far. We talked about the off-campus housing in the area. I told her that I was nervous since I had never lived on my own but she reassured me saying that it is the best experience and you get to cook all your food. With this, she told me about all the Brazilian cooking she does, typically just rice, beans and meat. We discussed my current food options and I told her about my opinion about the food at Market Square.

Just then, Monique pulls her phone out and I made a comment saying that she got her phone back. She was very excited that finally, her cousin had returned and even more, he had got her a nice phone case. Being girls, we admired the phone case for a while. She told me how glad she was to have her phone back because she can now be in contact with everybody; she didn’t feel as lost anymore. The weird thing was that I didn’t find this comment weird. In fact, I sympathized with her; I would feel lost without my phone too. It’s interesting to notice the role of technology in our daily routines. This reminds me of Twain’s quote on civilization, “Civilization: A limitless multiplication of unnecessary necessaries.” With the advancement of technology within civilization, it seems as though we’ve created a need for devices that we don’t actually need.

Monique then asked me about the courses I plan to take next semester. I told her that I was only planning to take four classes but I had been rethinking what classes I actually want to take. She told me exciting news that she was going to begin her undergraduate career at TCU next semester as she completes her English course. She told me about all the trouble she has to apply to any school in the US. With this, I realized how much more there was for her to do because she had many documents to submit and even more, she had to get them all translated through a certain company.  Moreover, it was frustrating since some of her classes didn’t transfer over so she is required to retake certain classes. I asked her all about the application process for her and in turn, I told her what I did when I was applying for college. It was interesting to see how different the process was, even though we were applying to the same school.