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I am an ambivert. This does not mean that I have a civil-war- era disease; it is the strange land between the world of introvert and extravert. I often feel that no one else quite understands how I feel in social situations or when I am by myself. I like both, and need both, in moderation. As I understand, other people tend to need one and tolerate the other. The last Myers- Briggs type test I took placed me one point over the introvert line. The close call really puts me in this other category of ambivert.

Two weeks ago, I decided to try to be different. Being an introvert is easy enough. Locking yourself in your room with books or television is just an everyday part of college life. I wanted to see the world as an extrovert. I identified several behavior changes that I could make so that I would look and feel more like one of this strange breed. I decided to try these five strategies for the first two weeks of school.

1. Always use names.

I never ever use names. I used to, but at some point I realized that they are not really necessary, and if you do not use them, you avoid the risk of forgetting someone's name or absently calling them by the wrong name. I am not sure that anyone really has noticed or cared, but I think it does change the interaction.

2. Obnoxiously greet everyone.

When I see friends, I smile at them or give them a head nod. As one of my friends says, I am casually saying, "welcome to my space." Now, I will try leaning to the opposite extreme. Jumping around, waving, running up to every person I know. If I get thrown out of school for being completely socially awkward, someone takeover the paper for me, okay?

3. Never do things alone that could involve other people.

I expect this to be particularly difficult. I have found myself eating, running errands, running or doing homework alone a lot over the past few years of school. I do these things with other people as well, but sometimes I am in a hurry and do not have time to see if anyone else is available. I am going to try to do these things with other people, which will require a lot of planning on my part; however, I do expect it to get easier as I start to find particular people who are available during certain times and who like to do certain things.

4. Create or join rituals with other people.

This is something I learned in sociology (thanks to "The Minton"). Rituals, which for the sake of my argument, we will define as activities, especially unusual ones, that people participate in. Events such as funerals, weddings and church services provide a stabilizing effect in society, and I expect they could do the same in providing me with increased social connections. I have learned this so far with choir; some of my best friends at school have come out of choir. Also this past semester I got much closer to a few different people through the ritual of enjoying boba tea.

5. Participate inconversation no matter how little I have to contribute or how stupid it seems.

I have difficulty participating in most conversations. People often have an uneducated position on a serious topic, discuss very specialized topics that I know nothing about, discuss matters I do know about and they do not, or discuss something that really does not matter at all. I know a lot of random facts and have a lot of random interests, which annoyed my chemistry partner when I suddenly understood new concepts due to these random interests. In conversation, these random facts tend to make me look like a know-it-all, which nobody likes. I have avoided this by withdrawing from conversations where I fear this may be an issue.

On the other side, conversations that I know nothing about, I feel dumb trying to add anything and insincere if I try to make a joke. As for the final situation, just because I am a philosophy major does not mean that I need to spend all day discussing whether a chair really exists. Just saying. But, in the interest of being more social, I am going to attempt to drop all of these aversions and speak up. A lot.

These five rules should guide me for the next two weeks. By the time I am done, I will either have a nervous breakdown or be one of the most popular people at California Baptist University.
Look for the results of my experiment in the next issue of The Banner!