There is a girl in my Kinesiology class who is probably the most conceited person I have ever listened to! It is always interesting to me what you learn about a person as soon as you meet them. I have known people for years and not known if they speak a foreign language or play a certain sport, or even what they do for a living. It all depends on what they want to share and what you venture to ask them.
With these kids it is very entertaining to hear what they think is interesting about themselves. In my adviser Tammy’s classes we always have to make a personal statement the first day of class. Those are ok, but just listening to the conversations before class are much more telling.
This girl has stated that she speaks French and Spanish and that English is not her first language pretty much everyday for two weeks of class. Now she has no accent that I can detect and I have never heard her speak any language but English but she is quick to throw out these facts about herself. I have to say that is not something I know about most people I have been friends with for years, whether they know another language. It just usually doesn’t come up in conversation. But it does with this chick!!
One day last week she was going on and on about how smart she is and one of the girls she was talking to finally said, “You are real full of yourself, ain’t ya?” I had tears in my eyes as I tried not to laugh! The girl was very serious as she posed her question and looked at the conceited girl waiting on a serious answer!
Another day last week, I was complaining that I had bought the book for this class before we were told we really did not need the book. And they won’t take it back now. Miss Conceit laughed and said that last term she had bought all of her books online and when she went to pick them up, one was on back order. She had already paid for it but when it came in she never went to get it. “Oh well,” she sighed, “my parents have enough money. They never knew the difference. Who cares?” I don’t care how much money you have, you won’t have it long if you waste it away on nothing! At least I have the book, can sell it at the end of the term or keep it to reference health questions in the future.
Yesterday we were sitting out in the lobby waiting on our teacher. Miss Conceit was again expounding on her fluency in many languages. She said her mom taught French for a while and her parents took her whole French class to France for Miss C’s 15th birthday because Miss C had always wanted to go there. She then begged while they were there to go to Spain for a weekend so she could speak her native tongue in the land of her forefathers (evidently she is half Cuban) so they did. She told us all that someday she wants to go to Africa to teach music, she plays the flute, and help the children there be musical and multilingual like she is.
Some people got bored with her and began to discuss the test from the day before. Someone asked me how I thought I did and I said I did OK, not great. She busted in and said she didn’t get them all right like she usually did. She stated that usually she could barely glance at a study guide and ace any test because she was so highly intelligent! She continued by saying that the teacher must have done a poor job on the study guide because there were things on the test she did not know. All of us were stunned into silence on that one.
The teacher came and let us into the classroom where we heard a speaker who spoke on self- esteem.
