Sometimes the things you dread the most actually turn out to be good for you

Okay, so I wasn't exactly dreading the Holiday party last night, but I had almost blogged yesterday about how one of the stresses of the holiday season is going to all the parties and such - they might be good opportunities to network but they aren't necessarily relaxing. I suspect that's why so many of them involve alcoholic beverages as well... but that's another post.

There were two parties last night, so we had to choose between networking with my new colleagues and networking with hubby's colleagues. We went with his. Partly because I had forgotten our party was on the same day and he RSVP'd to his before we'd realized the overlap. But I suspect the fabulous four course Italian meal we had was far more delicious than the potluck my workplace was having.

I'm sorry to have missed the chance to get to know some of my colleagues a bit better socially, but there was one thing that happened at the gathering last night that would never have happened at my staff party.

I got a chance to interact with people who weren't academics.

It was neat to talk to people who didn't deal with students everyday (though many of them deal with patients everyday, which yields some very similar frustrations). It was also nice to talk to people who are in fields entirely unrelated to what either hubby or I do and remind ourselves of the wonderful variety of fields outside of our own experience. I found out things I hadn't known - for example, I met a woman who is a commodity trader and she was telling me that although they do a lot of communication electronically, they still need to yell across the floor at each other sometimes. I thought that was one of those things that would've gone the way of the dodo. Apparently not!

The other neat thing was that I got lots of opportunities to practice the "elevator speech", you know, where you try to summarize what you do in 30 seconds of less. I think I did pretty good, and phrasing what I do - especially for a non-specialist crowd - meant I had to think carefully about what parts of my work I could make relate to their own work or experiences. Although I don't tend toward jargon-laden writing or thinking about my topic, there are some assumptions we make as academics when we talk to each other that we need to adjust when talking outside our disciplines.

Getting the chance to explain what I do in a way that expresses why it's a worthwhile endeavour was a really good experience, and I needed that to ground me and give me the chance to look up from the writing and remember the world out there!