I swear I don't have multiple personalities
Have you ever noticed that you act differently around different people? I don't mean that you aren't the same person, but different parts of your personality come out when you're around people with different personalities. Right? Or is it just me?
Anyways, this makes it interesting when parts of your life collide, and you're not sure which personality to take on. Very recently, this has happened to me, and it's just been interesting to me. At the beginning of this school year, I walked into the lab where I research one day and opened the incubator, looking for my bacteria. One of the other undergrad research assistants, Taylor, says, "How was TA training?"
I respond, "Good," still looking into the incubator. Then I turned around and looked at him. "Wait. I don't think I told you about TA training."
He just shrugged and said, "I'm engaged to Alisa."
You see, Alisa is another one of the American Heritage TAs. It took me by complete surprise. I knew that Taylor and Alisa were in the same ward, but when I had left for the summer, Alisa was dating another one of the TAs. My response was a little odd, to be sure. "What?! I didn't even know that she and Brad had broken up!"
Then the Post-doc and the Grad students all said things to the effect of, "Hannah, the usual response is congratulations or something like that."
This collided two very separate parts of my world. You see, Alisa came to lab meeting today. Just sat through it, but watched us all. And it made me think about it. You see, in the lab, a lot of people have very dry, dark, sarcastic senses of humor. I can have a dry, dark, sarcastic sense of humor, but I don't have anything on a lot of people in the lab. On the other hand, I have a drier, darker, more sarcastic sense of humor than any other American Heritage TA. So, that part of me gets more intense to contrast with the altruistic, light, save-the-world, social science personality of most TAs. But only when I'm around TAs. When I'm in the lab, I am more often the voice of altruistic, light, happy, bubbly me. Even though everyone in the lab knows that I can do the dry, dark, sarcastic, it doesn't come out as much around them. We already have a lot of that.
So, when Alisa was at lab meeting, I found myself getting more sarcastic. She took the role of the bubbly, happy influence. And I found myself laughing quite heartily at comments such as, "Who's on the soil bacteria project? All the women in the lab, and then Cole. Okay, all the effeminate." Or, "What did we learn from Phil's recent failure?" "To do your research." To that one, I was the dark sense of humor even that said, "Careful. We already learned that Australians don't handle depression and mental illness well." (In my defense, not as dark as last week when we all teased the Aussie's project's entire failure when one of the other grad students said, "Suicide just past car accidents in cause of death in the US," and the Post-doc said, "But if he committed suicide, would it count towards the American numbers, or the Aussie numbers?")
But it was interesting to see Alisa's face when our Albanian (in the spirit of Taken 2 coming out), said he would be kidnapping me and then asked if I'd rather be sold for my organs or my "female companionship." I chose organs.
Anyways, this makes it interesting when parts of your life collide, and you're not sure which personality to take on. Very recently, this has happened to me, and it's just been interesting to me. At the beginning of this school year, I walked into the lab where I research one day and opened the incubator, looking for my bacteria. One of the other undergrad research assistants, Taylor, says, "How was TA training?"
I respond, "Good," still looking into the incubator. Then I turned around and looked at him. "Wait. I don't think I told you about TA training."
He just shrugged and said, "I'm engaged to Alisa."
You see, Alisa is another one of the American Heritage TAs. It took me by complete surprise. I knew that Taylor and Alisa were in the same ward, but when I had left for the summer, Alisa was dating another one of the TAs. My response was a little odd, to be sure. "What?! I didn't even know that she and Brad had broken up!"
Then the Post-doc and the Grad students all said things to the effect of, "Hannah, the usual response is congratulations or something like that."
This collided two very separate parts of my world. You see, Alisa came to lab meeting today. Just sat through it, but watched us all. And it made me think about it. You see, in the lab, a lot of people have very dry, dark, sarcastic senses of humor. I can have a dry, dark, sarcastic sense of humor, but I don't have anything on a lot of people in the lab. On the other hand, I have a drier, darker, more sarcastic sense of humor than any other American Heritage TA. So, that part of me gets more intense to contrast with the altruistic, light, save-the-world, social science personality of most TAs. But only when I'm around TAs. When I'm in the lab, I am more often the voice of altruistic, light, happy, bubbly me. Even though everyone in the lab knows that I can do the dry, dark, sarcastic, it doesn't come out as much around them. We already have a lot of that.
So, when Alisa was at lab meeting, I found myself getting more sarcastic. She took the role of the bubbly, happy influence. And I found myself laughing quite heartily at comments such as, "Who's on the soil bacteria project? All the women in the lab, and then Cole. Okay, all the effeminate." Or, "What did we learn from Phil's recent failure?" "To do your research." To that one, I was the dark sense of humor even that said, "Careful. We already learned that Australians don't handle depression and mental illness well." (In my defense, not as dark as last week when we all teased the Aussie's project's entire failure when one of the other grad students said, "Suicide just past car accidents in cause of death in the US," and the Post-doc said, "But if he committed suicide, would it count towards the American numbers, or the Aussie numbers?")
But it was interesting to see Alisa's face when our Albanian (in the spirit of Taken 2 coming out), said he would be kidnapping me and then asked if I'd rather be sold for my organs or my "female companionship." I chose organs.
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