Yesterday I met up with two of my friends today, Ian and LaReine, for lunch and to have a look at some art. On Friday I found out about the
"The Art of Dr. Seuss..." exhibit at the
Trevor Victor Harvey gallery. I hadn't heard about the gallery before, normally going to the MCA or the Art Gallery of NSW, nor the suburb of Seaforth that it is in, it turns out it's quite close to Mossman and Manley, so about half an hour by bus. It was quite interesting, he did a great job with children books, but his talents also extended to other areas.
While we was there, we talked with a 1st year Commerce/Science student from UNSW who was looking around with her mother, she told me they always buy a painting at each exhibition they go to at that gallery and as a result was running out of wall space, I guess she lived near by.
She was doing pharmacology and was trying to decide between going into a pharmaceutical company or cosmetics, we suggested cosmetics as there are fewer moral dilemmas, big pharm exists to make money, we let them be as we rather let them make money and be sick than not having them around and dying. I tried to justify CS as being a true science and that IT isn't just about sitting at the computer being antisocial without much luck. We also touched on a few other little things.
She was a very friendly, incredibly confident, knew how to engage my friends into the conversation, cultured, articulate and made me feel quite out of place. That part of society might not be any nicer as people, but my, is there a lot of polish. One day I want to be able to talk to people like her and not feel like a lesser being, I also want to know how to talk to others with her background who are older, i.e. many of the executives I'll meet at networking functions and receptions.
I doubt I will ever feel entirely comfortable around them, or that I would want that to be, but I think it's helpful to be able to talk to your boss's boss without leaving the impression that you are an idiot. I guess most people would just run away at the first opportunity, but I know I can do better than that.