Persona

I've been having some issues lately in dealing with how I am received in professional situations. I started graduate school this fall, and I'm finding it hard to negotiate the fine line between "colleague" and "friend." The fellow students in my program, who entered the course of study at the same time as me, have been invaluable allies in dealing with the pressures and uncertainties of graduate school and future career options. It's almost like we're caught up in a whirling storm of newness, so we're just holding on to who we know are also feeling as lost as we are.

Yet, there's also this weird competitive nature to the world of academia that focuses on "networking" as an integral facet of every single interaction. I find myself always second guessing my interactions with professors and other, more established students in the graduate programs because I wonder about whether they are judging my value as a graduate student or judging the level of my intelligence. I often find myself leaving a conversation wondering if that person appreciated me. I know that not many of the people I'm interacting with on a daily basis even know the cool, funny, corny, Melissa. Instead, people are going about their days behaving all "academic" and treating each other as "colleagues" because all interactions (on elevators, at coffee shops, in hallways, in classes, in meetings) are about behaving "smart." Yeah, I can be smart, and I can hold my own in class discussions, but I also want these people to know how funny and cool I am too. Why bundle up our personalities in these pretentious facades??

Thank God for the people who I do see everyday because they behave in a real way. We're not worried about impressing each other, so there is not awkward moment in elevators where we see each other and don't know whether to just nod or reach out and shake hands. (This happened to me earlier in the week: I got onto an elevator with a professor I had only met in passing once, but I felt compelled to greet him. He didn't remember me, so my half of the handshake turned sour quite quickly because I then had to awkwardly remind him why I had recognized him.

No matter how I am perceived, I know I'm cool, and I know I'm fun to hang out with. I just get tired of 8 hour days on campus where I'm interacting with people who base their personae on pretenses/networking/condescension/saying "poo-poo" to the tiger in the zoo. (Yes, I did just make a reference to Madeleine.)