Firstly, let me apologize that I have started writing this post at 10:30 PM on Friday, but better super-late on Friday than never, right?
Anyway, today's post is going to be a bit about traveling, as you probably guessed from the title.
As you faithful readers know (all two of you), I recently got back from a trip to Greece and Turkey, as part of a travel course. Half of it was choir tour, which was cool, and the other half was Early Christianity, which was also cool. The course was interesting because of the sites we went to; places like Delphi and the Parthenon have been on my bucket list since I was around 12.
(for those of you who want photographic evidence that yes, I was there)
Anyway, while being at the Parthenon was one of my favorite experiences of the trip, I think one of the more valuable experiences I got was how to deal with people. We were a varied group - extroverts, introverts, fraternity guys, sorority gals, fraternity gals (yes, hi, I do exist), people who are easy to travel with, people who have never left the US, and a bunch of other things that I don't feel like categorizing right now. Some people I didn't really feel like I could bond with; others were really nice but were solidly in another group.
This is not my first time out of the US; Greece is the seventh non-US country I've been to. (Canada, Guatemala, Switzerland, Italy, Peru, and Turkey are the others). I'd like to think that I've become a fairly decent traveler - there was a time in Switzerland where I was a jerk to everyone and irritated all the time, but there were a lot of factors going on in that (and do not attribute it to biology, because the trip managed to land on the three weeks I wasn't on my period); other than that, I think college has taught me a lot about how to work with people.
But my college experience is far from over, and I don't think I've met every single personality in the world. This trip, however, has shown me several.
First is an extrovert that I didn't know how to handle at first. I've roomed with an extrovert before - I spent an entire year with that person in a fairly good and comfortable relationship, and we're still in touch though we don't room together. This extrovert, however, is constantly chatty - not necessarily in a bad way. Where I might write or think deep thoughts in order to process emotions, she talks aloud; my feelings are put down in pen, hers are put out . She's not necessarily a bad individual; the important thing to note here is that as an extrovert, talking is her emotional processor. It took me a few nights to realize that just because she was talking, she wasn't necessarily talking to me.
What I'm trying to say here is that a protip for introverts on working with chatty extroverts is that, unless their words are actually biting in nature, they don't really mean to annoy you. It's important for you to mention if you really need them to be quiet for a while; it may take a while to explain why you're so quiet or, like my roommate on the trip, they might have an introvert sibling and know exactly what to do when you ask for some head space.
The second major type of person I learned to work with is very vocal in her opinions. I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing to speak up when you don't think something is working with you, but sometimes I could hear her negativity very easily. When she sat down and actually talked something out with people, she was fairly reasonable about trying to point out the positives - even if the only positive she could find was something like "well, I'm glad I tried, now I know I don't like this food," or something. Protip for everyone: try to bring in the positive and the negative into an analysis of something.
The third kind of person I encountered regularly was similar to the second, but far girlier. The second had been in the army for several years; when it comes down to it, the second girl knows how to tough things out. This third girl does too, but I only learned that through talking to her. She once wondered why people think she's stuck-up and rich when she grew up on a farm and has had several jobs over the past few years, often working a few over the summer in order to supplement her tuition. She's hardworking, but not necessarily in the army-strong way. I think the reason she often gets mistaken for being in the 'sorority trope,' for lack of a better term, is in the way she presents herself. When I say she has a full face of makeup on, I mean that she rarely leaves the room without foundation, concealer, blush, eyeliner, eyeshadow, lip gloss, and mascara. While I could easily learn a thing or two from her about how she get her eyeliner so damn precise, I think she's also someone from whom I learned a bit about self-presentation. People are going to make assumptions about you based on how you present yourself, and I'm glad that I realized that I present myself in about the way I want to be seen.
In all, I think this trip taught me as much, if not more, about how to deal with people as I did about ancient sites around the Aegean Sea. Both are important lessons.
