Pre-meeting notes: 9/24/2019 1pm
I’m a little bit stressed right now because my schedule is pretty tight these days. I missed last week’s class because I had a soccer game which is why I missed all the information about the social meeting assignment so I feel a bit lost and not as prepared as I would like to be. Also today I have to leave campus at 3pm to travel to an away game. It would have been beneficial to have met earlier to get to know each other. This meeting is quite last minute. Yesterday I texted a little bit with Nate and we agreed to meet up today. The third member of our group, Luke, hasn’t replied to my email but Nate said he’ll talk to him. Maybe the two guys already know each other a little bit. I’m wondering if Luke shows up for the meeting. Not only because he didn’t reply to my email but also because he hasn’t shown any activity in the fishbowl yet which makes me a little bit uneasy.
Meeting notes: 9/24/2019 2pm
Because of our difficulties finding a suitable time for everyone we decided to meet in the 24h room in the library. While entering I looked for a guy that matches the description Nate gave me about himself. Nate seemed like a cool and relaxed guy with longer red hair and a beard. I sat down and it wasn’t quite easy to start the conversation as we realized we are strangers seeing each other for the first time. He told me that Luke is running a bit late so we just started to talk a little about ourselves. Nate is a senior majoring in Entrepreneurship. He is 21 and is from East Greenwich, RI. He lives at home and works as an Independent Sales Representative for his own company called Fulcrum. We basically just had small talk in the beginning but the conversation did feel a little bit forced. Nate likes football, basketball and he recently got more into country music besides Hip-Hop and Rap. After 10 minutes Luke walked in and joined the conversation. Luke is a Global Business & Spanish major. He’s 20 years old and also a local from Rhode Island. He enjoys playing basketball and guitar. With Luke joining the conversation started to become more casual and less forced. I think it is often easier to have a conversation with two people you just met than with only one. We started to create a better connection and I started to feel more comfortable. Luke talked about his father growing up partly in Ecuador and how this made him develop an affection for the Spanish language. At times the conversation was going smoothly but there were also a couple slightly awkward moments of silence. When we talked about ourselves I realized that I don’t have many similarities with Nate and Luke. Not only that I’m from a different country and they are both from Rhode Island but also our interests didn’t really match. For example both can’t really do much with soccer. I felt like we are more different and unique than similar. What brought us together is this class. Luke asked me about my reasons to come to URI all the way from Germany and how things are different in Europe. Neither Nate nor Luke have been to Europe yet so I told them that should definitely go some time. We also talked a bit about politics and I was asked how I felt about Trump. I stated my opinion that I think nothing of him. I don’t think it is a good idea to talk about things like politics with people you have just met because it is such a sensitive topic. We also shared some parallels. None of us is completely sure yet what is going to happen after graduation. We have the same degree of uncertainty and agreed that it is not easy to make plans and to know what the best move is. After a good 30-40 minutes I said that I had to leave because of my soccer game. And although I enjoyed talking to the guys, I wasn’t very excited to keep the conversation going and stay for much longer so I thought it was the right moment to leave.
Select 6 words:
Strangers; Conversation; Connection; Similarities; Unique; Leave
Dichotomy:
Strangers – Connection
Conversation – Leave
Similar – Unique
Substitutes/Synonyms:
Strangers: unknown, foreigner, outsider
Connection: joining, linking, contact, network
Conversation: exchange of words, dialogue, observation
Leave: disappear, walk out, quit
Similar: comparable, related, alike
Unique: sole, distinctive, different, exclusive
3 sentences:
Strangers joining to make a connection.
We were three complete strangers before we met. The only reason why we met is because of this class. This class has required us to contact each other and to connect with each other. We are not strangers anymore. All of us have expanded their network.
The conversation disappeared the way it arose.
We met for the first time. Said our welcomes. Had some small talk. Put a face to a name. Got to know each other a little bit. Said our goodbyes.
Unique individuals sharing similarities.
The purpose of our meeting is an assignment. The similarities I share with Nate and Luke are things like URI, BUS 345, business undergrad students. Other than that we are different, distinctive, and unique people. E.g. I was born and raised on a different continent, in a different culture with a different language. We have different interests. Our similarities is what brought us together to be able to explore our differences. Our differences is what makes us unique.