This one had me stumped for the better part of this morning, no lie. I even went as far as consulting a few friends, because while I had some ideas, I wasn't sure I was that good at them. I felt validated when they suggested a few of the things I was thinking! Here we go - I hate bragging. But I do commend myself on a few of my skills.
Photographic Memory - My parents have always poked at and commented on my ability to remember what I wearing the night we went to dinner on vacation in South Dakota, or other very minute, seemingly small details. I think it goes along so well with my learning style - I'm a visual learner to the corner. I couldn't tell you what the answer was on that history test, but I can tell you it was in the verbiage that made up the caption for the photo in the top right corner in the middle of the chapter. It's worked well to my advantage at times, and sometimes it's just fun to yank out the memories and make people wonder how I remember that I was wearing that purple flowered tank top with black shorts that night in South Dakota.
Empathy - If you know me well at all (and let's be honest, even if you've just met me), you probably know I wear my heart on my sleeve. And, more than that, I wear everyone else's hearts, too. It's in movies, when I connect to the person with a 2-second role who comes back later in the story, or a character in a book. The tiniest, smallest emotional disaster that hits them becomes the biggest, emotional roller-coaster to me. It's imagining that pain, the tears, the agony that someone could go through; I feel that I've been pretty lucky in my life to not deal with some of the worst emotional and personal disasters out there. I think my ability to feel so much for others, at times, contributed to my successful relationships with students and my staff as a hall director; at times, I know it definitely contributed to the stress and emotion I put on myself - especially when it came to letting a staff member go (Could I have done more? What did I do wrong? How is she/he really taking this?) or after a judicial conversation. I think it really is part of what made me a great staff member in working with so many first-year students who were faced with so many more emotions than they often knew what to do with. Welcoming Others - I credit this to a few sources. While I scoff so often at my grandparents' desire to talk to anyone and everyone, I've realized more and more that I do the same. It's that desire for me as an individual to connect to someone, but also to feel that they're connected as well. Whether I strike up a conversation with a new friend at the dog park, or comment on someone's fun socks at last week's 5K, it really is all about anyone just wanting to belong. I feel that when new co-workers come into the scene, or new people come into collaborate on projects, I just want everyone to feel like they belong and they have a purpose in being here. Deep down, it's a feeling I think we all want, so I do my best to make sure it's passed on to others and maybe in the end it'll be passed on to me, too.
This was harder than I thought it'd be. I'm glad I had to think about this one a bit. Thanks for making me think, #reverbbroads11!
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