Hey guys!
How was your day today? Most of my work day today was spent filing through “take me off your e-mail list” e-mails. At the start of my shift, there were 2,088 of those e-mails. At this point in time where are 1,662.
Go Team Data Input!
So yeah, that took up right around three hours of my time (you think your job can get a bit tedious, let me tell you a little something. I kid, I love it, I’m not sure why.)
okay, story that leads into main point time!
So, at the start of my college career(as I’m sure I’ve mentioned) my original roommate and I weren’t really best friends. We didn’t fight or anything, we were just two very different people who really shouldn’t have been matched together in the first place.
That being said, for the first couple weeks of school I was a very lonely child whose hopes of roommate bonding had kind of crashed and burned.
However, I did hang out with my neighbors – Katie and Kara – a bit.
See, there’s this foam party that if you do attend here currently, you know all about. For those of you who don’t know, it’s exactly what it sounds like: everyone gets together and dances around in foam while foam rains down on top of you.
Not really my cup of tea. I gave it a shot, but it ended in failure.
As I was trekking back to my room, Kara saw me and invited me to play racquetball with some of her friends and her.
I nearly hugged her. To this day I’m fairly sure that whole group thinks I’m a little nuts, but that’s okay.
ahem. Right. anyway.
The thing is, that even though my first couple of weeks of school I spent eating with Katie and Kara and co., I eventually moved and I sort of stopped talking to them as much… okay really much at all. And then it gets to the point where I really want to talk to them, but it’s been so long that I have no clue what on earth I’m supposed to say. I mean, I never know what to say anyway, but… yeah.
I suck at conversation. I really do. I’m just really bad at it. Probably the worst conversationalist I know. And I’ve always been that way.
Well, since I survived Middle School.
Anyway, the point is that in coming to college, I didn’t magically acquire the skills and abilities to help me make conversation. I got a lot better, sure – a whole heck of a lot better – because I had to in order to actually meet people, but at the same time I’m still the conversationally awkward child stuck in my own head when trying to bond with others. I get the whole “what do I say? Am I bugging them? Oh God that was stupid, why did I say that? Oh okay, so I said hello. Now what do I do? SAY SOMETHING!” sort of thing going on. (okay, so I may be a little bit nuts)
On the plus side, I’m an awesome internal monologer. (that’s not a word.)
So my point is that you have to be aware of your strengths and weaknesses. And if it’s something you really want to change, you have to put some effort into it – the new environment that college provides isn’t going to magically do it for you. Some people, like myself, are just bad at talking to others until we’re really comfortable around each other. You can’t really force yourself to be someone your not, but you can force yourself to put an effort into getting past some of your hang-ups and finding people that like you every bit as awkward as you may be.
Furthermore, don’t be afraid to put yourself out there or extend a hand. Kara inviting me to play racquetball was the practically the highlight of my month, and you can do that for someone – you have that power.
And as for me? Well I’m still figuring out what to say, but I’ve got two years, right? And I do still have awesome friends, so I consider myself pretty lucky.
What about you guys? Any interesting stories from your first few weeks of school?
Thanks for reading,
~ Carrie
