think, write, share

this post doesn’t have anything substantial…just a test to see if the latest version of my xanga syndication plugin is working…

Here’s a poem that I read to my teens every year during Advent which I’ll share here:

Let the Stable Still Astonish
Leslie Leyland Fields

Let the stable still astonish:
Straw-dirt floor, dull eyes,
Dusty flanks of donkeys, oxen;
Crumbling, crooked walls;
No bed to carry that pain,
And then, the child,
Rag-wrapped, laid to cry
In a trough.
Who would have chosen this?
Who would have said: “Yes,
Let the God of all the heavens and earth
Be born here, in this place”?
Who but the same God
Who stands in the darker, fouler rooms of our hearts
And says, “Yes,
Let the God of heaven and earth be born here –
In this place.”

it’s funny how other people’s perceptions of you are often quite different than your own.

a few weeks ago, i was talking to carol about something or other and she said that i was a “people person”. i looked at her and was taken slight aback. a “people person”? i don’t think that i would ever call myself that. then a few days later a good friend of mine said the same thing.

this got me wondering…why is it that our self-assessment of our personality traits are often at odds with others?

i really don’t think of myself as a people person. my sister is a people person; former publicity chair of her sorority, active in all kinds of sports teams and generally someone you would classify as a social butterfly. i remember a few years ago when she was still in school, she estimated that she knew approximately 25% of the total student population, from freshmen to grad students. she is always surrounded by friends, always out and about at bars, restaurants, sporting events, etc. it’s almost impossible to catch her at home.

i, on the other hand, spend a lot of time at home. it’s not uncommon for me to spend either friday or saturday night at home, just relaxing with a good book or more often, catching up on the previous week’s TV. i don’t think it’s sad or an indication of a boring life; i think that i’d probably be more inclined to find something to do if i wasn’t always so busy weekday evenings. tuesday, wednesday and sunday nights are always filled with some sort of activity (thursdays too, for a couple of years), and with all the traveling i’ve done this year, i relish being able to stay at home and do nothing.

i’m not really good when it comes to meeting new people. when i’m at a party where i only know a person or two, i tend to hang around them instead of going around introducing myself to strangers. large social gatherings are somewhat frightening to me, especially if it involves expectations.

but oddly enough though, i can become comfortable with people very quickly. carol calls me an extrovert and thinking about it, i guess she’s right. i tend to be very open with people i hardly know, revealing personal facts without a blink of an eye. i’ve been told that i disseminate information too easily but it never crosses my mind when i open my mouth. so far i’ve been lucky in that the friends i have are loyal and haven’t made my decision to confide in them backfire.

i think that one of the reasons that our views of ourselves are different from others is because we are often much more critical about our personality traits. we know how we are when we’re not around other people, we know what we’re thinking behind the smiles we show other people and the motivations behind our actions. we know what makes us tick and where our desires lie. we can see past the person we project to others around us and sometimes that person is very ugly.

so when other people say that i’m an extrovert, does that mean that they’re wrong? i don’t think that it does. when asked for reasons why others say this, i can understand how they came to that conclusion. and it made me think about how to recitify this discrepency between my own self-assessment and others. i can either a) try to project more of the insecure, rejection fearing, acceptance craving traits that i believe is more my personality or b) try to change myself to be remove those traits and be more of the fun loving, friendly, chatty, open person that other people know.

and looking over those options, the choice is simple.

i will be me.

(i have no idea what that means, but it sounds good)

finally got my christmas cards out…

oi, writing 38 cards in two days is too much…i didn’t use my traditional red & green markers this year, due to time constraints. with everything that’s been happening this year, i’m just happy to get them out, even if the content wasn’t the best.

i remember when i used to get by with one box of cards…this year, 2 wasn’t enough. either i need to get more cards next year or start trimming down my card list. i think i may have forgotten to send some to my family, but i did those all yesterday, so i have no idea.

next year i need to a) buy more cards, b) start earlier & c) space out the writing better

and make less friends

today was exhausting. and outside the minor flood i had in my bathroom when the toilet overflowed after everyone left here tonight, today was great.

i got almost everything i wanted to do accomplished. hair was cut, bowls were purchased, christmas gift was procured, good coffee & amazing conversation were had, paper was written, house was cleaned, friends were over, much food was consumed, white elephants were exchanged and kitchen recleaned.

phew!

i don’t think anything could have gone any better and i’m really excited about how things went this afternoon. i can’t wait until i get into the office on monday and talk to jan.

tomorrow consists of dropping off christmas gifts at my aunt and uncle’s, service of lessons and carols, evening mass, christmas party.

phew!