Become Someone Else

I’ve been having a hard time with this assignment, rewritten almost three times with still no clear path to take. Oftentimes I do not understand who I am on a normal day. My identity morphs day to day, constantly having new additions and deletions to it. We learned that identity is not flat, static, or preexisting; rather identity is dynamic, fluid, and thoroughly social. Using the five central principles from Mary Bucholtz and Kira Hall, I decided to challenge myself and change something not physical. I changed my attitudes and personality for a weekend to one part of myself, a more extroverted, say yes to everything personality.

Growing up, I have always struggled with identity and truly understanding who I am and what I want to do. This identity crisis stems from being the oldest in my family friend group, put into the role of being the responsible one who took care of the younger kids. I became a role model and an entertainer and continued in that path till today, where I feel like I am faking it to make it. In just one semester of being on campus, my thoughts on switching majors to new things I am exposed to everyday astound me.

For my new “personality,” I decided to change my attitude and see the best in everyone, saying yes to any opportunity starting Friday. On my third weekend on campus, I came to campus this semester and still had not been used to the environment yet and made a solidified friend group. Since COVID-19 hit the U.S, I have not had many human interactions outside my immediate family and was quite confused about what to do. My roommate was leaving to go for an event with her boyfriend and I had no plans for this Friday night. Walking through the fourth floor of my residence hall I ran into two girls I briefly met on the weekend. They invited me over to their dorm for a small get-together and movie night and I said yes. I can say now in April that if it were not for that night and me saying yes I would not have had this great adventure this semester has led me in. One of the girls was also in the process of rushing business fraternities and had given me a lot of advice on the rush process. Another fun fact I learned was that both girls lived in the area I moved to in Illinois. The next morning, I grabbed lunch with two guys on my floor who were from the Bay Area and also did not know anyone on campus yet. In the dining hall, we ran into more people and I took after a more bubbly and positive attitude during these interactions. My roommate eventually joined us in the dining hall and had an unexpectedly large reaction to my change in personality that afternoon. She thought I was being “fake and too bubbly” and I felt even less confident in myself than before. She assumed that I was trying too hard to make friends when in reality I was being myself. At least, taking a part of myself.

Relating this to the five central principles of identity, I believe one of the principles I hit on is relationality. Relationality represents a role-relationship, in college my role is a student, but when meeting people in my dorm room it was a friend-friend relation. Meeting these new people with a slightly changed personality from my outfit to my attitudes, allowed me to express myself better and have a lot more fun than I could expect. The emergence principle was present when I actively tried to act more happy and open when

I talked to all types of people. My identity came out seeming more outgoing and cheerful. Doing this sort of change to myself felt a bit off at first. I was nervous due to the fact I was putting myself in environments I had not been in. My transformation was small and subtle but the people I am close with like my roommate and my friends from back home who I would relay my adventures to could see the difference. The openness I had during the week allowed me to make new connections that I will foster and grow in these next 3 years on campus.