I attended a training class today and I can't help not comparing my experience in today's training class with my classes last term! Maybe it is an unfair comparison! Today's training was more casual if you will. Regular course classes, I suppose, are formal. No matter, I just wished my classmates from my department could be more like today's bunch, friendlier, approachable, inviting, helpful, kind and considerate!
I don't want to stereotype! Could students from different departments/majors behave this differently?
The students in today's training class were all CS majors, mostly graduate students, but I think one of them is a undergrad senior. Anyhow, there was such a comradely atmosphere in the training class today that I did not notice we were there for over seven hours! None of these people knew me, they knew each other though, but they considered me as one of them from the very beginning of the class, and I felt so good being part of their group!
Let me backup a bit.
I got an email from the cute guy earlier this week, telling me there is a training class for the program I am trying to learn. He stated that this training is probably going to be an all day event, and was asking if I wanted to attend?
Apparently there was a major release in November, of the software that I shall be using in one of my classes, in the coming semester. Since November the IT people have been evaluating the new version to decide if they want to install it on the campus computers. They decided that the version was stable enough to be rolled out, and so the two people who had been evaluating the program, were conducting an all day seminar/training for the people who are going to teach the training classes during the semester (the same classes the cute guy first suggested I take).
So of course I told the cute guy, if it is possible, I would very much like to attend the full day training class.
Apparently the people who conducted the training are friends/colleagues of the cute guy, and so they included me, even though I am not going to teach the short training classes, and even though I was not familiar with the program as much as others in the class were; others had used/taught the previous version of the program extensively.
Anyhow, I was very thankful that I was still allowed to attend this training.
The training was today. Of course I was not totally lost, but I was much slower than others. However, no one got annoyed, they all pitched in to answer my questions, or help me when I felt lost. The atmosphere was teamwork, collaboration, support, and I felt so comfortable. I learned a lot, and I feel I am an expert user now, lol.
So it was not me after all! lol. For a while I have been puzzled why I hadn't been able to connect with my classmates. I thought it was my age, being much older than most of other students, but then I wrote that off since I had always been able to befriended my colleagues, both older and younger than me. Age had never been an issue!
When I wasn't able to bond with my classmates or other graduate students in my department, by the middle of the semester, I blamed myself! I held myself responsible for isolating myself, reasoning that I had been antisocial, that I had been going to the library all day, that I had avoided social events, and basically I avoided them all.
When I first started school, I wasn't in a very comfortable place, mentally. I was very worried about being able to make it at school, after all these years being away. I wondered if I had the state of mind to study, to take exams and do well, and to write coherent papers! I wasn't sure if I had made the right decision putting myself in the situation that not only I could deplete all my savings, but also I could very easily lose my house as well.
By the middle of the semester, when I realized I was making it in my classes, and was actually doing OK, when I decided to rent my place, and move into my basement, when by chance I came across a web page with my info, in the school directory page, and realized there is a graduate student lounge, and when I went to check out the graduate student lounge, one of the only two graduate students from my department who actually tried to have a conversation with me (excluding my classmate of course, who pretended to want to be my homework partner, but turned she just wanted to copy her homework from mine!), told me that most of the first year graduate students hang out there, and that there is a Friday lunch social that I should attend, I decided to change my antisocial ways.
I frequented more in the department, studied in the graduate student lounge instead of the library, and attended the social Friday lunch pizzas. Tried to be accessible and approached other graduate students, to start a conversation, which truly wasn't that easy for me!
Little by little I realized maybe it hasn't been entirely my fault! Maybe I am not the only antisocial one! For example, I would start a conversation, telling the other student about my background, my concerns, and my goals. Of course they would listen, but as soon as I stop talking, it was silence! They neither showed interest in what I was saying to ask questions, basically guiding the conversation in the direction of their interest, nor did they say what their goals were, or what their background was.
As part of trying to be friendlier, I also made sure I looked at the faces, when passing other students in the hallway, so that if I saw a familiar face I could say hi. But then I noticed that my classmates that I had said hi to multiple times, when they see me and I am not the one who says hi first, they completely ignore me, as if they don't know who I am!
Thus feeling insecure and basically having a chip on my shoulder, lol, I concluded, with hesitation of course, that I am probably too old and too fat for them to befriend! Therefore toward the end of last semester, I decided to accept my department-mates' unfriendly ways, and tried not be bothered by them ignoring me. I opted to go back to my old ways, frequented the library again, avoided the department graduate lounge, went to my classes, and concentrated on my studies, reasoning that I was there to learn and not to socialize. It worked. I studied hard, and I was rewarded with learning a lot, and getting reasonable grades.
But now that I think about it more, I don't think I am the issue here! I think most of the graduate students in my department are the distant ones and the unapproachable ones. And being unfriendly is not just toward me. I had seen very few students talking to each other! The most conversation I had seen, maybe just before class started for example, was that if one had missed a class, he/she was asking others for notes or information about the missed class; that has been the extent of their interaction as I can remember now.
Now comparing my experiences with graduate students from my department with the students from the CS department, no matter how unfair the circumstances, I have come to conclusion that it is the atmosphere in my department that has made the students acts the way they do, I think. I don't think or want to believe that the students from my department are unfriendly, or antisocial, in general. I think maybe someone, or group of someone, at some point, have set the precedence in my current department, with this coldness and the distantness toward each other, and the new graduate students once accepted to the program, they too have adopted this unfriendliness behavior. How unfortunate for all of us!
You know I was thinking to myself, I am glad that I lost my wallet for a few hours last week, lol, since I have met these wonderful people, and I learned so much from them.
Anyhow, after the training I went to the cute guy's office to thank him once more. He asked if I wanted to go grab something to eat. I said yes, and told him it shall be my treat. I told him how grateful I was that he arranged for me to take today's class. At first he teased me about what I had said before, that I was a graduate student and I had no money, but he did not embarrass me when I took out my card to pay. We had dinner and great conversation. He is such an enjoyable person to hang out with.
He told me he completed his PhD last year. I knew that, lol. After I met him that first day, and then learned his full name when I saw his email from earlier that morning notifying me that he had found my wallet, I googled him, lol. He told me about his projects and his thesis. But I knew about those too, lol.
I asked him how he picked his thesis' topic, and how he decided which professor he wanted to work with. He told me all about his experiences at the graduate school, while working fulltime for the IT/CS department, and gave me lots of good advice.
I told him about the professor I had approached to hopefully work with, and told him that the professor keeps emailing me that he is going to arrange a meeting, but he hasn't done so yet, after four months! He told me to write that professor off. He told me to have a one strike rule when it comes to selecting my thesis advisor, lol, if once the professor didn't do what he said he would, I should consider him out! lol. He is tough!
I also told him about the professor I am going to have an independent study with. I told him how this professor has mentioned several times that the area of my interest to study is not his background. The cute guy told me that doesn't mean anything! He said as long as the professor shows interest and wiliness to supervise me, that is the indication that he too is interested in that area. He said even if the professor is not familiar with the subject area, he is going to familiarize himself with the topic and quickly. The cute guy believes that the professor is more resourceful than I, lol. He said the professor knows who in the department could guide us when he and I need guidance, and it is a lot easier for him to approach his colleagues for advice! The cute guy said plus my professor might introduce me to the expert professor, put a good word for me, and maybe I could even get absorb into the project of my interest a lot easier than if I had approached the expert professors myself.
Did I mention that the cute guy gave me lots of good advice, lol.
If you haven't guessed it yet, yes, I have developed a bit of crush on the cute guy. He is much younger than me though! I know that he graduated from college five years after I, so he is about that much younger, I suppose. He looks even younger. If someone had asked me to guess his age, I would have said he is about a decade younger than me! But that would have been my guess before we had a conversation; once I heard him talk, with such an intelligent and kind of authority, lol, then I would have added that I think he is very mature for the age I am guessing.
Coming home tonight to the empty house of my parents, I had a bit of conversation with the Lord! I am not a religious person, but I do pray, as much as the next person, and I am thankful for everything the Lord has blessed me with. I asked him to please let me meet a guy that wants me, wants to marry me, that I want him, and want to marry him. I asked the Lord to let me have a family of my own! So that I could stop feeling the loneliness that I always feel, even if I am around 20+ people. I so want to hold my baby in my arms, and know that he/she belongs to me, to us, and we to him/her. Could I have that please Lord, before it is too late for me, and I am too old to have a baby!
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