It seems that all I had to do was strike the O word from my vocabulary. By saying, “I will feel better,” I managed to welcome a whole lot of feeling better into my life. It started with a wonderful business trip early this week. I know that sounds strange, but it is true. I’ve made some good friends in our DC office and I always enjoy spending time with them. Even if it is just a 15 minute chat over sack lunches, I enjoy our co-worker based but real friendships.
Then the WOMMA conference was really amazing. I think having read The Introvert Advantage really helped. I felt like I had permission to be an introvert and I answered that by being quite magnetic and a bit extroverted. I used tips from Love Is The Killer Ap and kept telling people, “You must read A Whole New Mind.” I’m proud of the work I’m doing now and I enjoy the team I’m with, so it was easy to talk shop.
Granted, it also helps to work with one of the most extroverted people I’ve ever met. Rick makes it easy to meet new people and a little might have rubbed off on me. It was also great to meet so many Edelman colleagues from other offices, names I’ve seen on emails, but with voices I’ve never heard. I got a lot of feedback that people do read my company wide emails and my posts on Talkshop.
I also met lots of fantastic new people from companies I’ve heard of and companies I haven’t. I met CC Chapman from
Crayon (a marketing company based in Second LIfe) and I said, “Oh Crayon, I love your island!” (I realize that is a strange comment, just go with me here.) He was pleased and surprised that I knew of his small, new company. At the party on Tuesday night, instead of hiding in a corner, I talked to lots of new people.
My mojo, as they say, was apparently working. I love having an extroverted night with lots of fun people, but then I love getting to crawl into bed when I get home and reading a book.
I had a first night of Hanukah celebration with a few friends last night. Amy made a kick ass dinner with a mountain of latkes. After we had our fill, we took the gelt to the living room and played dreidel. So, yeah… first time I’d ever played and after 20 minutes of passing chocolate back and forth I said, “KIds really look forward to playing this every year?”
They don’t tell you in conversion class that dreidel is kind of boring. So we switched it to Truth or Dare Dreidel. Like Diane already wrote, we are writers and improv people, so our dares were silly and our truths focused on embarassing moments. We wrote the truths and dares down before the game, so there was also no upping the ante by creating a harder dare based on the last.
My dares were a la 7th grade. “Open the window and sing a verse from an 80’s song.” I sang “My bologna” by Weird Al. And “Do a magic trick with a hat and gelt.” I wound up dropping gelt on the cat during my fake magic trick. The dare that made me laugh the hardest was one I wrote, but I didn’t think would make me cry laughing. “Hold a piece of ice to your forehead for the count of 30.” Seriously, I was crying. Poor Adam.
Then this morning, I had a bat mitzvah lesson. I had been trying to juggle lessons between two bat mitzvah coaches and my modern hebrew coach. Well, I can’t juggle in English and it turns out I also can’t juggle in Hebrew. As much as I love all of my teachers, I had to settle for just studying with one person right now. I got some good advice from one teacher that working with more than one would be difficult. It was a hard choice, but I think in the end it will work out.
My Hebrew is in much better shape than my cantor expected. And when I say that, I mean she was shocked. She expected me to need much more help today than I did. “Well, you doubted me, so I had something to prove.” Nothing like doubting the skills of an Aries to make me work my tail off.
The last thing on my list is a big project that is finally winding down at shul. Coordinating sales is not my forte and I’ll be glad when every last lightbulb has been collected and then I’ll only volunteer for social events that don’t involve me cooking more than a batch of challah.
Now I need to run to the bank, put some checks in the mail, and have a rather un-Shabbat Shabbat.
Hag Sameach! Happy Hanukah! Shabbat Shalom!
*Photo is from Josh Hallet’s Flickr set of the conference. He takes some of the best conference photos on the face of the planet. Plus he’s super nice. Seriously, check him out.