The group chat had been more lively than ever as we are all excited to meet each other in person in DC. The past two days, I've had four, four hour Skype conversations with some fellow Nanjingers and ACIE kids. It's been fun getting to hear everyone's voice and actually seeing what their face looks like instead of staring at the tiny facebook profile icon. It's always nice to be able to associate a name with a face. It'll make PDO a little less intimidating for me as I'll already know 20ish of the people traveling with ACIE.
Honestly, if I hadn't been part of the "original group,", or even a member for at least a month out, I would be a nervous wreck right now. Personally, I find it hard to make friends when I think there's already a well-established group of people. And that's not to say I'm going to make someone who hasn't been in the group chat feel that way; it's just to say that's how I would personally feel.
Also, I'm just not good with meeting new people. Or at least, I'm not good at initiating conversations. I would consider myself an extrovert since I gain energy from being around people (which is why I like theatre), but I absolutely hate starting conversations. If someone else approaches me, I'm fine because then I know that the person talking to me actually wants to be talking to me. When it's the other way around, I find myself second-guessing a simple "what are your interests" type question because I fear I will sound stupid when asking.
And I get that it's kind of an irrational assumption that someone wouldn't want to talk about what they're passionate about, but I'm just utter garbage when it comes to these situations. Oh well.
The other reason I'm glad we've gotten to have Skype conversations is because a fellow ACIE member (hey Will if you're reading this) mentioned having a Mario Kart battle at PDO.
Now, I wouldn't consider myself a Mario Kart master, but if there's one thing I love, it's wrecking people in Mario Kart. I will admit, I'm a bit of a rage gamer when it comes to Mario Kart mainly because I rely on skill rather than speed. I would rather choose a kart with good handling than good speed because I know that I can drift well enough to surge into first place. Also I hate getting wrecked by shells and what not. Mario Kart is not a fair game because of the stupid random items, but I digress.
The point is, I have a dumb superiority complex, and I feel the need to be better than everyone at Mario Kart. And thus, Will and I had our first Mario Kart battle via the internet. It was quite fun, and I did in fact win thanks to technical skill. I do need to practice my racing skills on 150 CC, but I'll take my early victories as I will always have those to fall back on.
This entire post has absolutely no point besides me realizing my social phobias and my rantings about Mario Kart. I know for a fact that when I got back and read this, I'm going to cringe, but I do that with 90% if my writing, so it's nothing new.