Overcoming Fear

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GyriOkay. Viyasan, have you ever overcome any fears.

ViyasanOkay, that's a good question. I think there's many fears that I've overcome and I'm sure everyone has as well, but the one that sticks out to me the most was attending university after high school. I think the scariest part of that was meeting all the different types of people, different people from different cultures, from different high schools, from different areas. It was very odd to see that group all mixed together. I wasn't sure how to approach people and talk to them. Some of the classes were very tough. It was just a huge mess of interacting with people and doing well in school. But I think the best way to approach it is to find similarities that you can connect with people.

GyriYeah.

ViyasanYeah.

GyriAnd what year are you in?

ViyasanI am in my fourth year right now.

GyriOkay, so you've been for a while.

ViyasanJust one more semester here at APU and-

GyriThis is your last semester?

ViyasanYep, and then I'll be graduating, so it's pretty scary heading into the real world, the adult world.

GyriYeah, you're gonna have to find a job.

ViyasanExactly, yeah. That's gonna be a little bit stressful as well.

GyriAre you worried about that?

ViyasanFinding a job? Right now, I do have a job when I graduate university. I'll be working within a marketing context, luckily, it's something that I'm interested in, in a marketing context at a consulting firm. So that's solving problems for different types of businesses within a marketing context.

GyriThat sounds cool.

ViyasanYeah, what about yourself? What are some of your interests? Are you scared about anything when you graduate?

GyriWell, I haven't really been ... I'm trying not to think about now 'cause I still have so many years left. The degree that I'm taking, social anthropology, isn't really a degree that you get work from. Especially, only with a bachelor's degree. I'm gonna have to take more years of other stuff. I'm thinking of taking English literature and then, eventually becoming a teacher, teaching in high school. But there's a long way to go, so I'll probably not be done until I'm like 28, 29 and I'm 23 right now. I'm not really worrying about jobs yet.

ViyasanGot it. Got it. Well, that's a big relief. I know that when a lot of university students graduate, they go job hunting, or even in their third or fourth year. It's good to know that you still have lots of time before you go job hunting. You're in the clear for now.

GyriYeah, for now.

ViyasanYeah.

GyriI'll save the stressing for later.

ViyasanExactly, exactly. Gyri, so how 'bout in the past? Have you ever overcome a fear?

GyriYeah and it's similar to what you were talking about. After high school, I went to Barcelona to study graphic design and I was supposed to be there for four years, but it was very scary and I was only 19 years old living in a foreign country. The university wasn't really good. They promised us an English class, but they didn't speak English so we were the only four people in the English class and they were only speaking Spanish to us. We couldn't understand anything, so it was a very stressful situation; being in a new country, not speaking the language, and the university not being very supportive. That was very stressful, but it was a very good experience and I learned a lot from it, but I ended up going back to Norway and going to university there instead. Yeah.

ViyasanAnd how'd you like the change? When you went back to Norway, do you find things a lot more easier for you to grasp? How were the courses at university in Norway?

GyriYeah, it was much more easier. It wasn't stressful at all really. Yeah, so it kind of made me more accustomed to university life, I guess.

ViyasanGot it.

GyriYeah.

ViyasanThat's very cool.

--- PART 2 ---

Power of Personality

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AbidemiSo Rory, in the last conversation we were talking about changing your personality and you never said what you thought of that.

RoryWell, I think, I think when you learn a language often your personality does change. I notice with my students that they often seem quite different when they speak English to when they speak Japanese. I’m not sure if that’s a language thing or a cultural thing. But I mean you speak more than one language.

AbidemiYes, I do.

RoryDo you think your personality is different in each language?

AbidemiThat’s a really good question. Just thinking of it right now, I think maybe for me it’s more a question of the culture because I think when I am in an environment where I’m expected to be more extroverted, I tend to try to live up to that.

RoryRight.

AbidemiI tend to try to be more cheerful, more open, more friendly or friendlier, I should say. But when I’m somewhere where I know that it’s expected of me to be quieter, I do tend to become more quiet.

RoryRight.

AbidemiSo I don’t know. That’s a really good question.

RoryAnd do you think there might be something in languages which make them like a more extroverted language or a more introverted language? Like I think about Italians – maybe it’s a stereotype of Italians, but they seem to be very extroverted and the language seems to help them in that extroversion.

AbidemiThat’s true. That’s very true. That’s a good question because I’m just trying to think of culture and languages in general, and there’s that debate of how cultures and languages are intertwined. Is it the culture that came first or is it the language that made the culture the way it is. So I don’t know. I really don’t know. But I would love to read more research and find out.

RoryYeah. I mean, I noticed since I moved to Asia, to countries like Japan and Korea, the people do seem more introverted and the language also seems more introverted. So I wonder if the language or like you say, I wonder which came first, the language or the culture?

AbidemiAnd I think to add on to that, when I think of Asian students that I’ve noticed speaking English, which to some people is a more extroverted language, they always seem more confident.

RoryYeah.

AbidemiThey seem friendlier. They seem more open to talking about themselves, their family life. But when you talk to them in their native language, it seems like they revert back to their cultural norms which would probably be less…

RoryRight, yes.

AbidemiYeah, so maybe there is something there.

RoryYeah. And I guess the culture over here in Asian countries is people are less likely to share information. There’s less – I mean, in the West especially recently, there’s quite a pressure on you to be more open.

AbidemiThat’s true.

RoryWhereas maybe in Korea, Japan and China, people are more closed and just have different boundaries.

AbidemiI’m just trying to think of African countries, like being a Nigerian myself, we’ve had the issue of colonization and where the Western British culture is colorized. So coming from that aspect, I wonder before how we were. Were we more introverted? Because in a lot of ways we’re very similar to Asian cultures and Asian values. We have a lot of that as well.

RoryBecause I mean people often see England or British people as a bit introverted and a bit quiet, a bit cold and yet we share the same language as America. And people tend to think that people from North America are quiet brash and extroverted.

AbidemiThat’s true.

RorySo like I said it’s more cultural than language-based.

AbidemiYeah, maybe. Maybe we’ve come to a solution then. We’ve found it. It is the culture more than the language then.