Patrick's TCU Blog

In class we've been discussing how laughter is contagious, and often uncontrollable. I've found this to be a really enjoyable topic because one always hears how laughter is contagious, but I've never really considered why. I find the psychology of it to be fun to learn, and knowing more about oneself is always beneficial in life. The discussion in class reminds me of a story from when I was in the 7th grade. I was taking a musical theater class, and for the class I was required to go see a play put on by the theater department. I sat in the front row near the corner for the show. The show was started by a boat coming out onto the stage, stopping, and starting a song, the boat was around 5 feet away from myself and the few friends I was sitting with. As soon as the boat stopped one of the guys with me broke out into laughter, causing the rest of us to break out into laughter. We knew it was inappropriate so we tried to contain ourselves but it was difficult to stop. Ulti...

Recently, in my Systems Development class we've started learning the coding language Python. It's been a difficult experience because its basically like learning a new language. In my major, we'd done some minor querying work in the past with SQL but Python is the first "real" coding language I've been exposed to. I find it difficult, but much more enjoyable then most my other course content. The main reason for that is because I can see a clear applicability for the skill in my future life and career. Although many things I learn are interesting, I don't think that my knowledge of the 5 phases of SDLC is really going to "do" anything for me. I enjoy learning about Python because it is a skill that I can see a clear use for in the future, whereas much of the material I learn, I cannot. 

This past Thursday I witnessed something that caused six of my friends and I to break out into uncontrollable laughter. My roommates and I were cleaning our house and putting some lights up on the walls in preparation for our fraternity mom's weekend. Our living room ceiling is double vaulted so we had to use a ladder to hang the lights. My roommate Joey was on the ladder hanging the lights, and I was unraveling and handing them to him. When we were around half way finished someone knocked on our door so Joey and I both went to answer the door. We let one of our friends in and then when we turned around our 4 month old cat was on the top of the ladder trying to, unsuccessfully, paw the hanging lights. One of us pointed it out so all six of my roommates and one of my friends were chuckling at our cat. Joey went to go back on the ladder and move the cat but before he could get to him that cat jumped through the air towards the lights. He completely missed, tumbled into the floor, a...

One of the big themes of our class so far has been the discussion over the negative classification of laughter. This is a topic that I've found to be interesting because I personally never really thought about the philosophy behind laughter, and I assumed that others did not as well. I'd always thought that philosophers like Plato were dealing with "bigger" issues then laughter and I personally never considered a discussion on what seems to be a core human characteristic to be valuable. As we've discussed the topic more and read on it I see now how it is important to discuss but initially, it did not occur to me. Another reason why I've found this interesting is because I was raised in a religious environment, with the majority of my teachers before TCU being Catholic monks. They had me learning about topics like Latin and apologetics every day, and I never noticed what seems like a multitude of Christian philosophers denouncing laughter. All in all, I'v...