I began my morning on October 22 very early. I ended up having to take a 6 am flight from my home in Boston back to school here in Baltimore. That meant I had to get up extra early so that my mom could drive me to the airport. I arrived at the airport around 4:30 am to go through security. When my mom dropped me off at the terminal, I had to remind myself to use kind and true words with her. I'm not generally an openly 'warm and fuzzy' person with my parents so the whole ride up to the airport I had to plan out what my goodbye words were going to be with her. When I left, I thanked her tremendously for my flight home to Boston and the time I got to spend in my own home. I thanked her for getting up early just to drive me into the airport. After that, I gave her a hug and told her I loved her and we went our separate ways.
I arrived back in Baltimore around 7:30 am and I got a cab ride back to campus. It was my roommate's birthday that day so I knew that I had to be somewhat nice anyway. I walked into my room around 8 am and to my surprise my roommate was already up. This was unusual because she doesn't have class until later on in the day and usually she would be sleeping. My roommate and I are very close, and the time we've had together since the beginning of the school year, we've become best friends. As soon as I saw her, I gave her a hug and wished her a happy birthday. She went on to thank me and explained that she wanted to be up for me when I returned to campus so she woke up early on her birthday. I know if roles were reversed, I definitely would not have done that, no matter who my roommate or friend was; I love my sleep. It was a good start to the day and I was actually proud of myself for not making any sarcastic comments.
I had class at 9 am so I told my roommate I would meet her back at the dorm after our classes so I could take her to lunch. We ended up eating at Boulder and I did the nice gesture of buying her a "birthday lunch". We sat down at a booth and a couple of our friends came over to meet us. The main topic of conversation during lunch was my roommate because of her birthday but we also talked about everyone's weekend. Some people went home and some people stayed on campus. I reminded myself throughout the conversation to only say nice things and not make any sarcastic comments. Although my friends know I'm a sarcastic person and they don't take my comments personally, I wanted to really strive for going a whole day with just saying nice and useful things to people. I was able to refrain from saying anything rude and to my surprise I facilitated most of the conversation by asking questions about what everyone did on their weekends.
After lunch, I returned to my dorm to take a call from my cousin. I knew that going into the conversation, it was going to be hard to say only nice and true things because my cousin is extremely sarcastic and to get back at him, I play off of his sarcasm. Overall, our conversations aren't really that productive but they're harmless fun. This conversation was different from any other because he even noticed that I wasn't giving him any comebacks and I was just feeding him positive compliments. It was actually kind of funny because at one point, he got mad and couldn't take me seriously. This kind of gave me a wake up call because I thought, "Wow, am I really always so sarcastic that when I give compliments out, people find it hard to believe it's the truth?". After that phone call, I video chatted with a few friends back home that I didn't get to see over the weekend. It was nice to get to talk and catch up, but even they noticed that I was, in their words, "super nice" today and not sarcastic. Again, this called to my attention how sarcasm plays a huge role in my personality and, apparently, my every day life.
Upon finishing the assignment, I found it helpful to acknowledge the way in which I talk and interact with people. I noticed that throughout the day, a lot of comments came to mind, but I had to be ware not to voice them out loud. The iExamen also helped me realize that even though my sarcasm is usually harmless and just playful, people who may not know me, may think that I'm not genuine or sincere. I was so thankful at the end of the day because I was able to observe a flaw of mine that I sometimes don't pay any attention to.
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