Sunday, July 31, 2011

Williamsburg–A Summer Night in Brooklyn

If you’ve followed my blog in the past few months you’d have noticed that I keep finding myself rained out on my visits to Brooklyn. Last night was my third trip this year, and as luck would have it, I couldn’t have asked for a more beautiful night to celebrate V. and C.’s bday.

Started out the night in a lounge with couches and tons of snack foods and drinks. The range of options was incredible: pizza, pretzels, cupcakes, cookies, brownies, candies, and other party favorites filled an entire coffee table. Healthy options were also available: edamame, watermelon slices, baby carrots, nuts, and clementines. Drinks included everything from beer (light, dark, and awesome) to wine (red, white, bottled, boxed, etc) to spiritis (vodka, scotch, rum, and more). Overwhelming!

After a few hours of mingling, we moved the party to the roof top. It was a clear and cool summer night. The Empire State Building was on its regular white light schedule, meaning nothing too colorful. It was quite relaxing to sit and chat with the background of the NY skyline ESB, Chrysler Building, and some bridges that I don’t know the names of. I enjoyed how quiet the night was, one of the pluses of being in Brooklyn and not Manhattan.

One advantage of having house parties is the ability to get more people together. There were maybe 30+ of us? While I can’t say I’ve met everyone, I did strike up good conversations with new people that I would not have been able to do if we only met at a bar/restaurant. It’s interesting to see how everyone knows the host and where they’re from and what they do (actually many of them didn’t know the host directly but were invited by a friend or associate).

N. noted that it’s interesting to see V. through his friends’ lenses. I admit I also learned more about V. through this party experience. You can only learn so much about a person from one-on-one interactions. With more people and friends and family, you get a better context of who they are and how other people view them. I’m sure I’m also different when alone or with different groups of people (family, college friends, grad school friends, bf and his friends, coworkers etc). When you mix the groups, it’s always a more interesting experience. Later in the night after we left the roof top, around 7 of us went dancing at a nearby bar/club. When you go through the night like that (8pm-4am+?), you come away with a bit more understanding of how people are and what makes them tick.

Through a leadership training program at work, I learned some ways people are categorized for their personality traits/inclinations. I recall for the first category was the difference between extroverted and introverted. It was just about how “outgoing” or “shy” you are, but about what kind of activities invigorates or drains your energy. Through a series of exercises and reflections, I’ve realized that I definitely have my ups and downs throughout a night like this (even though I’m almost 90% extroverted). When I was meeting and speaking to people, I did feel more energized, but did hit a part of the night where I just shut down and wanted to listen/observe. Dancing/music made me alive again but eventually led to sheer exhaustion when I came home.

Recovering from the party and hoping to catch up on more blogging before the start of another work week.

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