on the difference between sticking and standing out

Is it possible to be too quirky? Quirkiness makes you memorable, but does it make you lovable?

I'm learning here that I need to tame my natural eccentricities. It seems to be OK to have interests--everyone has those. But I've always thought of myself as a little odd. Maybe it comes with growing up awkward, funny looking, left handed, and tall. Maybe I'm still growing up.

We're getting more group assignments now, and I find that I have to work very hard to self-regulate in small group settings. In large group settings, I have all my filters on, so I do fine. Chit chatty networking sessions and company functions and dinner parties: fine. And one on one, I can connect with people. But in these smaller group settings where we're a group that decides to call ourselves a team, I find that I'm often the odd person out, and it's feels weird to have this sensation so often. I've spent the majority of my career working in small teams, and I thought I did a pretty decent job and could be good at it in the future. Now it's all sharp edges and dissonant notes. Not the blues notes that fall between the regular ones on the board, but the ones that stick out. And I gravitate toward other dissonant notes. So I'm OK at shallow and I'm good at deep. It's this sticky stuff that's in between that is the concern. It's not quite professional, but not really social. And until I get to know people better, it's damn uncomfortable. I keep reminding myself that I should be more nice and less in my own head. And I've been working on listening harder, too.

L never seems to have any trouble blending in. People who meet him (unless he's playing basketball) remember him as a very nice person, even if he doesn't really say anything. For years, I've been studying how he does it, and I still can't manage to get my arms around it. One could argue that he is a nice person, and that's why he exudes niceness. There's more to it than that, though. So far, all I've figured out is that I have to listen harder, brood less, and get out more.

Now that's we're nearing the end of the quarter, I find that I'm able to open my mind up to more things and more activities. I'm not running ragged from one thing to the next as I began to in the beginning, but I am doing more with the time not spent in the classroom. Yesterday, after weeks of frustration and inertia, I finally understood the process and framework behind what we do to model things in Excel. And it wasn't because I went to office hours or reread the lesson. It was because one of my classmates explained it to me, and we worked through the midterm together. Had I reached out better before, I could have enjoyed much less heartache. It is said (at least, it was said in a letter to first years that has been passed down for umpteen years) that poets have a taller mountain to climb. I'm not so sure that it is true of poets in general, but it has been true for me in modeling class, and I guess it will also be true in the case of succeeding in these small group work project settings as well.

can't stop crying

So I'm sitting here trying to buckle down and do my Modeling assignment that's due in the morning, and my mind is wandering and I can't focus and I realize I should stop pretending that everything is OK. Someone important to me passed away last week, and I will have to accept it at some point.

Today I walked through my classes and tried to appear to pay attention to the teachers and the people who were doing what we do after we leave and come back after a while: catch up. And I did my best not to burden other people with my grief. That's one of the things about being here. I am among busy people I don't know well who don't know me. There's a robust social aspect to school, but for me it still is and feels much like a workplace environment. To share something like this in a face-to-face interaction would mean a socially correct pat on the shoulder, a five second pause, then immediate departure. Can't be known as the person who burst out in tears in the middle of OB class.

Writing seems to help. Crying does, too. It's the remembering that hurts the most even when it makes me smile. The last time we spoke--and it's been a while since we spoke--he was working on a paper about the ritual of celebrating in the end zone after a touchdown. And I remember I wasn't surprised. He could be lecturing on political uprisings in Kenya one moment, and writing a paper about how black folks feel about their hair the next. I remember sitting in his office thinking about how long he must have been a professor here to have such a nice office, earnestly telling him about the stuff I was trying to figure out with my college studies. And he would ask me questions. Didn't offer much in the way of pointing me in a certain direction or drowning me in the names of people to call, as professors can. Didn't seem to get too riled up about the crises of electives and study abroad in my undergraduate education. He just offered me an open door, a comfortable chair, and a real mellow chat. And I will miss him.

so far so good

Today began the Net Impact Conference hosted by GSB. Already my mind is clicking. That's definitely a good sign. We've got a project to do for one of the core classes, and just thinking about what problem we could explore for the project makes me think about a lot of other ways to apply the same skill framework.

Some folks are looking for trouble tonight, so I may tag along. Sometimes I feel so old because I get sleepy more than I used to. Hopefully a nap will remedy for a few hours so that I can go out.