mrs-roboto's Diaryland Diary
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Ego
Tonight I am bringing Pumpkin Orange bread to class. I'm still on the pumpkin kick. There have been pumpkin curries, pumpkin cookies, pumpkin pies and tarts, pasta with pumpkin and so on. I'm not normally a fan of orange at all, but the bread has just a few rinds and a teaspoon of juice so rather then being citrusy, it's spicy. Yum! I'm all about the Fall right now and it's bounty. I want to wear corduroy and knit wool scarves. If I start wearing seasonally-specific motifs on my clothes you'll know I've gone over the edge.
School is going stunningly well now. The instructors for the quarter are prepared, knowledgeable, and worth the money I am paying. Some of the reading is a bit dry but I'm able to muddle through it and take a tip or two away.
One of the more challenging aspects of this quarter involves the Persuasive Communications class. You see, each class requires us to plan out a short monologue which we present to the class and which is also recorded on video and played back for review. I don't have many problems speaking to groups. I may get a bit shaky but I do a good job of filtering my nervous energy. That being said, I hate cameras. I spent my entire teen years avoiding my parents gigantic video cam. I refused to open Christmas presents if the damn thing was on. I wouldn't even let them record my high school graduation. You see, I am convinced that the person I see on the video can not be me. I don't pause and use "ahh" as a filler that much. I don't crinkle my nose for no apparent reason when I am talking. My hair is way shinier then what I see on TV. I am certainly skinnier then the girl on camera. I am definitely more poised too. And my face does not get so red. The camera lies.
I am also supposed to be working with a mentor for my program. This is a strange concept for me. I'm not really one to ask others advice on what I should do. I was an only child for a good portion of my life and even after that I was the oldest. I do things my way. That being said, I can see the benefits of having a mentor. I am looking at it more as an opportunity to make a few contacts that might possibly want to employ me at the end of my program. Still, I feel like a fool calling people I don't know and saying "Hi, you don't know me but you seem really cool. Wanna be my idol....uh, I mean mentor?" I'll get through it though just like I'll get through watching myself on video.
Last week we did an exercise in class. We set up an X and Y axis personality grid like the one below
The red box indicates where I saw myself. I would say I'm assertive and fairly organized. We were then to hand the grid off to two of our classmates and they were to identify where they saw us on the grid. Those would be the blue lines. So it seems that I am way more of an uptight bitch than I originally thought. Great. Oh and remember these people have only know me for a total of two months. Nice first impression, way to go!
As long as we are talking about my quirky little personality, and this journal really is all about me, here's a faux pas I made at yesterday's weekly staff meeting. Staff meetings are conducted by our Executive Director. Each of us gets roughly five to ten minutes to let others know what's on our plate. One of the items I have been working on is hiring a photographer to shoot some pictures for our annual report. We need a new staff photo as well. Last year my organization took extra advantage of our photographer and had holiday photos shot too. These photos were then made into a card. On the outside of the card we all posed in front of a fireplace, with holiday themed balloons in front of our face. When you opened the card, there we were again, balloons aloft, faces revealed - From Your Corny Ass Friends At Mega Cheesy Nonprofit. It pained me to see this card and almost killed me to mail it out but alas, I am not in charge. So yesterday someone brought up the idea of what we should do for our card this year, how could we "top" last years. Several dorktastic ideas were bandied about (jumping out of wrapped boxes that looked like presents, dressing up as reindeer with the ED as Santa - gah) and I began to get agitated. Several times I interjected that we had agreed to do a photo card only every other year and this year was an off year but it was as if no one heard me or maybe these people enjoy humiliation? I don't know. Anyway, I couldn't take it anymore so I stood up and announced "It seems as if we all have many ideas. I suggest we table it for this week, take some alone time and think on it a bit, and bring it back up at next week's staff meeting. Okay? Okay. Meeting adjourned." Opps. This wasn't my meeting to adjourn. I got a little lecture later on not getting too uppity or letting graduate school inflate my sense of self. I guess I'll work on it with my mentor.
11:07 a.m. - 2005-10-06
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