As Promised: RA Training.

Hello dearly devoted readers.  As you will know if you've read my last couple of posts, I have been busy with RA training for the spring semester.

I mentioned before that RA training gives me a lot of material to work with.  And truly, it's nothing against the presenters or the commitment to the training, it has everything to do with me.

I am just not the typical RA.

This is why I seem to stumble and struggle through training.  I just don't fit quite right.  I'm not enthusiastic.  I'm a pessimist.

I'm certainly not a positive person.

Which is where we run into issues.  I love when we are being told to both "be ourselves" and "be positive".

....oh crap.

You see, those two just don't mesh for me.  They don't mesh at all.  I will find everything that is going to go wrong in a plan.  I just assume that shit will hit the fan and plan accordingly.

My "n" key is sticking, so if I spell a bunch of words without "n"'s then don't kill me.

Anyway, I feel like being positive is overrated.  Sorry people, but sometimes life sucks.  Pretending it doesn't can't change that.

I can pretend I have a million bucks, but it doesn't mean I can go out and buy that Jeep Wrangler I want.  It just doesn't.

And sometimes when life sucks, the only thing you can do is be honest.  Yeah, it blows.  We're just going to have to deal with it.

I imagine a positive person saying the exact same thing, but like this:
           "Yeah, It Blows!  We're just going to have to deal with it!"


Quit being chipper, you're getting on my nerves, positive person.

If I'm doing something I hate, I'm not going to pretend to enjoy it.  We're always asked to be honest.  I can't be honest AND positive all of the time.

Really.  It's impossible.

That being said, it doesn't mean I can't do my job.  My residents like me, for all I know.  I get along with most of the RA staff.  I am wicked creative, put on kick-ass programs, and I get it all done even being a double-major.

Maybe, just maybe, you don't have to be an optimistic person to be a good RA.  Maybe you can rag on yourself, spit on your life, and stomp your way to class, and have people still like you because hey: you're funny as hell, and you're real.

Maybe I get so much done because I know how much my week is going to suck.  Maybe I understand my residents breakdowns and troubles because I actually allow myself to think like that sometimes.

And you know what?  I won't promise that it's going to get better, or say it's not that bad.  Because people should have the option to feel like crap if they need to.  Because sometimes life just sucks.  Nothing I can say will change that, but I can make someone feel less alone.

If I hear one more person tell me to be positive I'm going to scream.  It's not me.  Don't tell me to change, because odds are, at least when I say I'm happy, I actually am.  I'm not that "positive" person that will pretend everything is just wonderful.

It's not.




Anyway.  Back to RA training.


We go to a conference every year with all of the other Worcester area schools and much socialization ensues.  We all know how I feel about that.

So we get to this conference and all of us Becker kids are sitting together and one of our pro-staff members is up at the podium addressing the crowd.  She's a bit of an introvert like me, but she still insists on being positive all of the time, and "stepping out of your comfort zone".

She's talking about all of the opportunities to "network" with other RA's at this conference, and she goes on to say how she expects the extroverts are like "oh yay, people!" and the introverts are going "oh crap, why me?"

No sooner are these words out of her mouth when the majority of the Becker RA staff turns and laughs at me.

Thanks guys.  I'm feeling the love.

So I hatch a plan in my head.  I'm going to prove them all wrong and actually participate.  There's a name at the bottom of our name tags, a name that goes to a pair.

For example, if you are Peanut Butter, you are looking for the person that says "Jelly".

I was Lancelot.  Looking for Guinevere.

I decided to embrace it.  I walked around the whole dining hall, full of around 300 people, going table to table with this sign:

I'm so funny.

Twice.  That's right.  I did the entire dining hall twice.  And you know what?  Nothing.  Guinevere apparently doesn't eat.

It's getting to be the end of the day and mostly everyone has found their match.  By mostly I of course mean, NOT ME.

I'm frustrated.  So I ask one of my pro-staff, who organized it, if I was actually looking for Guinevere, or if I was wrong and I should be looking for King Arthur.

I was right, of course, but Guinevere was no where to be found.  

It's closing time for the conference, and I still haven't found Guinevere.  The pro-staff member makes an announcement about it. 

Turns out Guinevere didn't show up.  

That would happen to me.

So this is what I've decided: if you participate you just make an idiot of yourself so don't bother trying. 

And people wonder why I hide in my room.