Internal Musings

Well, I feel like I never really stopped the job hunt, and it's starting right back up again. To gear up this time, I'm reading, "How to Win Friends and Influence People." The tips are pretty common sense things that I've heard my whole life: Don't criticize, smile, give honest appreciation, fake it 'til you make it, etc. I just wonder if I can put them into practice.

I guess one thing that has always bothered me is the idea that people like it when you remember their name. I think sometimes yes, but sometimes no, because if they can't remember your name, then I think they feel bad. I've been generally pretty good with remembering people's names and random facts about them, but I often pretend that I don't remember as much as I do because I don't want to seem weird. This was even before facebook helped me keep tabs on what everyone was doing without asking any questions. I try to remember a good amount of information to match what the other person knows. For example, I met a person a few weeks ago and knew a lot about them. Then I ran into them at a group function and he asked someone else my name because he couldn't remember it. So I asked him his name again, even though I knew it, so that he wouldn't feel like he was supposed to remember my name. Is that a good thing or a bad thing? Do you like it when people remember your name, even when you can't remember theirs?

In other randomness, I've been thinking about how interracial or intercultural relationships could ever work. It's a mystery to me. I've been asked out by two different men of different races/cultures than me and I've turned them both down. I'm just not interested. Dating is hard enough as it is. But to add the fact that we basically come from two different worlds... how is that going to work.

Sometimes I think globalization makes life much more difficult rather than having everything at our fingertips. I wonder what my life is going to be like in a few years and how the world will have shaped it.