Up Close and Personal?

A few weeks ago I went to see Taylor Swift in Dallas. My friend owns a box suite so we had a great seats in our private suite. However, we weren’t where all the action was down closer to the stage. Taylor Swift came out and I couldn’t really make out her face from the other dancers so I watched the giant screen in the center of the stadium instead. Here I was at a Taylor Swift concert and I was not even watching her. I was watching a screen of her. So was I still watching her live if I was watching the screen? This reminded me of our discussion of the ubiquity of screens around us. Most people go to a concert to watch the performer live, but I looked around me and most people were watching the screen instead. I thought it was really interesting how screens have seemed to take over, even in a place you think they wouldn’t.

-Hannah Cooper

Emojis or text?

So I was talking to my little and was jokingly sending her a ton of emojis to annoy her. Soon enough we were just sending emojis without text back and forth. I don’t think it really resembled a conversation because I have no idea what she was responding with when I would ask things like “dinner soon” or “raining or just cloudy?” I thought it went along well with what we recently discussed in class regarding emojis taking over text. So this might just prove that emojis can never really fully take over text because the English language would be too difficult to try to recreate in only a couple hundred emojis. I think I will stick with using emojis just as a little bit off added emotion when needed in my texts.

~Hannah Cooper

Texas Brunch

My little sister came to visit and stay with me recently. I decided on our last day we should go to Brewed for brunch. She wanted to get something that she couldn’t easily get in California, like acai bowls, so she ordered chicken and waffles. Even though this is my second year here, I still had not ventured to try it yet. The idea seems very strange to me and a little bit like a heart attack waiting to happen. Nonetheless, she ordered it and it was one of the tastier things I’ve had. I thought it was interesting that our two meals seemed very different to me, despite them both being breakfast items. The fried egg and arugula sandwich with sweet potato fries reminded me a little of home, whereas the chicken and waffles reminded me of Texas. We have read about brands and how they may have certain connotations and meanings attached to them and they may be different depending on the culture. I realized food can too, it can remind you of a certain time or place, even though you can find different kinds of food everywhere.

Side note: the chicken and waffles are delicious at Brewed and you should go try them!

-Hannah Cooper

Go Frogs and Go AXO!

This picture is from Labor Day weekend. My friends and I are all from out of state and we wanted to explore Dallas since we never got the chance to last year. We decided to drive through the SMU campus and see what our competition (if you can call them that) looked like. We found the Alpha Chi Omega house and it had a banner up saying, “Alpha Chi loves the Stangs.” Despite us all being sorority sisters, we go to different schools and cheer on different teams. Our bond of sisterhood is strong, but so is our school pride. Our visual culture is very different from SMU’s. TCU is full of horned frogs and purple and theirs is full of red, blue, and mustangs. In the end, we knew we had made the right choice by coming to TCU and joining Alpha Chi.

~Hannah Cooper

Hi everyone! My name is Hannah Cooper and I am a sophomore, biology pre-med major/ psych minor. I am from Coronado Island, CA. I miss the ocean, my dogs, my sisters, and California burritos (if you know, you know). My bucket list includes traveling to all 7 continents and at least 100 countries.