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July 31, 2007 at 3:36 pm · Filed under wahoowa, people
Less Than Jake sings a song titled “The Science of Selling Yourself Short”, which is really too fitting for me. I feel like the song title describes the story of my life. In general, I’m not a very loud person, and I don’t usually toot my own horn very much. Sometimes I wonder if I really err too much on the side of being too quiet about my accomplishments and end up selling myself short.
I was at something recently where the whole string of events just bothered me. It was at an alumni event, and as much as I still love Virginia, the longer I am out of college, the more I feel like the whole place was just a giant hairball of pretentiousness. Inevitably, because of the presence of young alums, the Lawn came up in conversation. So-and-so attending the event got called out as “oh, see her over there, she lived on the Lawn, too!” And the next person. And the next person. Until a group of former Lawnies all gathered together and shared the funniest stories from their respective years living on the grassy knoll.
Of course I felt left out. No one brought me up; no one even knew about me. I guess I could have easily said, “Hey guys, wait a minute. I lived there, too. Don’t forget me! I applied, got chosen, and then went and became Head Resident! Me! Me! I need reaffirmation of my worth as measured in Lawnie-status, too!”
Of course I didn’t say that. I really wanted to. In the end, I said nothing and just chit-chatted with the rest of the people, listening politely to the Lawn stories that were told. Before long, the conversation topic shifted, and the whole episode was forgotten. For me though, I still kept wondering just why was it that I always inevitably feel like I sold myself short, and furthermore, why is it that others do the same to me, too?
June 19, 2007 at 5:09 pm · Filed under people
Despite now having lived in a big city for three years, I still don’t have the survival-essential city instincts. I don’t automatically assume that everyone may be out to mug me, and when people ask me for directions, I always stop to help. At one point, I did wonder why I seemed to be targeted especially frequently for directions. Back then, I didn’t really feel/realize the need to be more selective about stopping to talk to strangers, so I always helped.
This past week, while in Toronto, I walked home one night by myself (I had an early flight to catch; others in my group wanted to go out). I know one shouldn’t walk alone after dark, but really, what was I supposed to do? I didn’t have money for a cab (Canadian or US).
Walking along, I barely noticed a car stopped on the side of the street … Having already passed the car, I was surprised when the driver said something to me. City Instinct Girl (CIG) would have just kept walking, but my first gut reaction was to stop, turn around and very politely ask “What’s that?”
The man asked me for some directions. CIG would have walked off, or at the least perhaps made up something. I actually said “Sorry, I don’t know; I’m not from around here.” Mistake #2 in the books of city instincts: Reveal that you are not familiar with the area.
At this point, some form of instinct did kick in, and I turned on my 3-inch heels and walked away, ignoring anything else the man said (which included various ways to try to entice me for further conversation: “Oh? So where ARE you from?”, “Where are you walking to?” etc etc)
The moral of this story was that I need to gain some city instinct, be more alert/aware of my surroundings. It’s better to seem rude and offend a stranger (he’s a stranger!) than to put myself in any potential danger. I know I should do this (and I will try), but at the same time, I can’t help feeling a tinge of disappointment that our society has come to this.
Must be the southern-upbringing.
June 14, 2007 at 5:32 pm · Filed under people
I’m in Toronto for a conference on tissue engineering, and all of the talks started today. For the first time ever at one of these conferences, I saw people taking pictures of presentations with digital cameras. Whenever a new slide gets shown, or even sometimes when animation on a single slide gets changed, someone would take a picture. Is this a new form of note-taking? It really struck me as rather odd.
My first reaction was one of shock: “Oh my god, are they allowed to do that in this day and age of oversensitivity to IP??” Then I reasoned that taking a picture of a presentation slide is not that much more damaging considering that the content is being presented orally anyway (and theoretically available on the abstract CD). But the whole concept still felt somewhat off to me. If I were presenting, I’d be pretty thrown by cameras pointed at my slides snapping images as I paced through my presentation.
Perhaps more interestingly, the presentation-slide-photographers are almost entirely Asian. Seeing that the conference boasts attendees from 20 different countries, I wonder if the cameras are an emerging trend in Asia-hosted scientific meetings that got carried over here to Toronto/North America through the venue of an international conferece.
April 3, 2007 at 8:32 pm · Filed under people
The scholarship I had at Virginia is very good about keeping alumni involved and informed as to the happenings of the program. Today, I received mail listing the high school seniors who were recently named Scholars after a grueling weekend of exams, dinners, and interviews. As I always do, I scan the list for other South Carolinians because there never were many of us at Virginia. Sure enough, there was a guy from Greenville, SC. He goes to Christ Church Episcopal School.
The name of the school sounded eerily familiar, which is strange indeed because why would I have ever heard of Christ Church Episcopal School in Greenville? I know no private schools; I’m not religious; Greenville, SC is clear across on the other side of the state from Charleston … why was this name so familiar to me?
Then I realized that CCES was where Dr. Cox went to be Headmaster after he left the president’s job at SCGSSM. Such a small world…
This then reminded me of a recent encounter where I met someone random at a party, and it turned out that he was college friends with a high school friend of mine. Really, we ARE all connected in strangely familiar ways.
December 19, 2006 at 3:06 pm · Filed under people
I saw this book in an airport newstand, and it caught my eye because there was a picture of Michael Moore on the cover. I thought, YES, finally, somebody who doesn’t worship the ground that Michael Moore walks on, and I bought the book hoping to pass some time while waiting for my plane. It turns out that Michael Moore is #1 on the list (the book counts down from 100, Rich & Kathy Hilton, with 10 extras added in to the paperback edition), but his name is accompanied by no commentary, which was very disappointing. I want to know why this guy put Michael Moore as the #1 person screwing up America.
So I started reading the book, and the author first categorizes the people who are screwing up this country (from the feminists, to the white-collar thugs, to rappers who sing about beating up their wives). I agree with the ridiculous things he points out, but I disagree with the nature in which he presents them. It reminded me all over again of when I was in San Diego, listening to some talk about teaching evolution versus intelligent design in American high schools. I felt like the exact problems the author of the book was points out with Michael Moore is what’s also wrong with the author himself (arrogant, thinks he’s better than everybody else).
I suppose there’s no way around that. You write a book titled “100 people screwing up America”, you’re inevitably writing a book about how you think you’re better than those 100 people. Radical ideas by radical people who use too many exclamation points and rhetorical questions in regular prose is what sells books. Expert witnesses who not only presents the evidence needed by counsel, but who can also do it in a way that is degrading and belittling to the other side is what convinces jury members and what wins court cases …
I just wonder why we can’t present our ideas in a selling way without being condescending to the other side, and without giving the impression that we think we are better than other people (especially if their views are different from ours). Is there an inherent conflict in wanting to convince without belittling? I’d like to think not. Ideally, your good ideas, if you present them well, should sell themselves. You needn’t inflict snide, rhetorical, sarcastic comments on the audience about your opponents in order to win them over to your side of the argument.
December 10, 2006 at 6:51 pm · Filed under people
I’m out in San Diego, at a conference I somehow convinced my adviser to let me go to even though I am not presenting nor displaying a poster, and I’m thinking that I should be more friendly.
I got up this morning for an 8am session, and on my way downstairs, I shared the elevator with a very nice-looking girl who was obviously also attending the conference (name badge, thick program book). We rode the entire way down in complete silence when it would have been so easy for me to have said “Going to the first session of the day?” and perhaps had made a friend. It wasn’t that I didn’t want to talk to her; I was just too shy/scared/awkward. We walked out the elevator one after the other, and I purposefully slowed down my pace so that I could stagger myself with her and not have to awkwardly walk side-by-side and STILL not say anything.
Just now, I rode UP the elevator with a bunch of people (also with the tell-tale name badge), and one actually got off at my floor. We stepped out of the elevator one after the other, and at the T in the hallway, we both turned down the same way … leaving us, you guessed, walking awkwardly side-by-side in silence. He broke the silence, “Are you brain dead yet?” and I breathed a sigh of relief that I didn’t have to start the conversation to end the awkwardness.
In general, I think that I should just be more extroverted and have a phrase or two up my sleeve to pull out in those awkwardly walking silently side-by-side situations. Who knows? I may even make a friend or two. And it’s not that I don’t WANT to talk to people … it’s just so hard to break the ice and say that one something to a complete stranger. Even if s/he has a bright friendly smile and looks as if s/he would welcome the conversation.
October 5, 2006 at 10:21 am · Filed under people
A couple of nights ago, I was conducting interviews to pick a student representative for this MIT-wide committee. The first point I want to make is that while I’ve done my fair share of interviewing before, I never feel that I do a good job. I don’t contest people enough; I don’t think about stuff enough; I don’t pick up on things people say enough to ask them probing questions back. In general, I’m not a big debater, and I think the people who enjoy debating are the best interviewers. It’s about looking at everything critically. My approach is to look at everything acceptingly and not question unless there’s something blaringly wrong.
My second point related to interviews, and this goes back to the title of this entry, is the difference between women and men when it comes to interviewing. Men give succint answers to question; you ask them something, they give you a one line summary answer. Women like to tell stories; their answers are usually long-winded (not necessarily bad) with lots of backdrop so as to explain the significance of something.
Is this something that is universal? Interviewing made me think about myself; what would I do? How do I answer questions? I realized that I definitely go the story-route. I try to give one-line summary answers before going on to elaborate, but sometimes I just elaborate. I think part of the problem is wanting to fill the silence. It’s really hard to stop, sit in silence with a panel of people staring at you, and think about how to answer a question. Whenever I’ve actually tried that, I don’t end up thinking about anything.
So as an interviewer, which method did I prefer? I definitely preferred the short succint route. Tell me what I want to know. Don’t go meandering around tangents because then I just think that you don’t know what you’re talking about, you don’t have an answer to my question, and you’re just talking to fill up space and time.
July 29, 2006 at 1:34 am · Filed under people
When I met Jack’s friend Matt Johnson, I thought he was crazy. Here was this good-looking kid who seemed perfectly normal otherwise, but he was in Boston en route to Europe, all a part of his 1-year trip around the world … on a motorcycle. You can read all about Matt’s adventures at 5pairs.
Growing up in Charleston and seeing the leather-clad bikers go up and down Highway 17 every May to Bike Week in Myrtle Beach–no, I am not making this up, and yes, this is a real annual event–I definitely associate a very specific stigma to bikers, and while it is not entirely negative, it is certainly not positive.
But admittedly it does sound pretty cool to tell your friends, kids, and maybe even grandkids, “yeah, when I was in my 20s, I biked around the world.” But, who even comes up with an idea like that? And who actually follows through?
For one, Matt Johnson. For two, Andrew Norton and J Hite, two kids I went to high school with, who have no idea who Matt Johnson is, but who have the same idea of going around the world on their motorcycles. Thanks for the news tip, Katelyn. Andrew and J’s travels are documented at DualsportDiary.
One Matt Johnson was weird enough, but two groups of people with no knowledge of each other all deciding to bike around the world?? Does anyone else find this odd? Who would have thought that this would the ultimate chic way to exert some manliness in this here 21 century America?
July 26, 2006 at 5:15 pm · Filed under people
y*******: men are boring
y*******: selfish
y*******: stupid
wahooswu: hate hate hate
y*******: flakey
wahooswu: flakey
wahooswu: YUP
wahooswu: heartbreakers
y*******: pretty much
y*******: horny
wahooswu: arrogant
wahooswu: bossy
wahooswu: overbearing
wahooswu: unappreciative
y*******: oh thats a good one
y*******: ill-mannered
y*******: lazy
y*******: i already read the news..and basically its men killing women
July 26, 2006 at 12:35 am · Filed under people
My dad forwarded me a jury summons letter yesterday, which asked me to appear at the Mount Pleasant Municipal Court on August 24. I was wondering how long it’d take before my name got drawn from the hat and summoned for jury duty. General life-sense tells me that people usually see this as an annoyance and get frustrated that they HAVE to appear at court. Me, I’m actually really curious as to what happens. I really want to go and see, but perhaps after my first experience, I will come to see it as a burden as well.
Anyway, being in Boston makes it rather hard for me to make jury duty in Mount Pleasant, so I called the Court today to ask what I should do. Completely expecting a rude clerk who’s been on the phone with strange people all day, with no desire to hear me give my excuse of “I am out-of-state for school and thus cannot serve as a juror,” I was pleasantly surprised by a very nice gentleman with a southern drawl telling me “yes ma’am, no problem.”
He then proceeded to very patiently explain exactly what I need to write and fax in, why it is that only the judge can excuse jury summons, and “please ma’am, if you have any more questions, feel free to call us.”
“Yes sir, I will. Thank you sir, so much. You make me miss home.” All spoken with the best southern drawl I can muster.
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