Another high compliment

I saw one of the grad students in the course I'm taking at the community meeting about public safety. When the meeting was over, she started telling me how impressed she is by my directness in the class. I thought she was gonna say, "but" but she didn't. She told me her mentor has been scolding her about not asking for what she needs and being too passive, and she sees the value of this advice and she's really trying to be better.

This was excellent timing because I have been feeling so out of sync with my colleagues and discouraged by the reticence and indirectness of my interactions with people, as well as the lurking sense that my directness is very off-putting. And maybe it is for some people, but at least someone finds it rereshing and admirable. So there's that.

And there's this: