The time of quiet in the soul.

As I posted before, going from teaching to being the low person on the lab totem pole has been a cultural shift. I spoke all day, every day with authority. Now, I am entering a time of quiet for many reasons:
1. I need to listen to those in the lab who know more than I do about techniques and previous literature.
2. In the lab everyone works in silence. People often come in without greeting others and silently sit down to their work.
3. Our new Au Pair is just delightful. We chose her because of her sunshine-y and outgoing personality. She is very social but still spends a lot of time at home (so far), so she chats and chats and chats. At us. Its hard to get a word in edge-wise. It's nice, but leads to quiet from me in our conversations.
4. The Au Pair fell in love with a Mega-church down the street. When I sit in the services, I feel very defensive about something, but my silent resistance doesn't withstand further thoughtful examination. So I sit in the service thinking, "Hey, wait a minute! Oh. Oh, yeah, I guess so." Thoughtful examination usually takes place in quiet.
5. I don't know anyone well enough to complain about the usual litany of political and world event rants. And see #2.
6. The grad students in the lab are pretty senior, and in the "Tunnel Vision" stage. What I have to share/ teach  isn't really interesting to them.
7. With the Au Pair, Hub and I don't have discussions anymore wondering what happened at day care to make Boy or Girl in such a mood.
8. Things are going well, there isn't much to bitch about.
9. I don't have to get Hub caught up on the weekday news he missed.
10. Because my culturally 1980s American jokes jokes are totally lost on this young international crowd: "You hit the volleyball too hard. Lay off on the Wheaties". *blink, blink*

All this is good, good, good for my soul. (chatting a bit more in lab would be fine, though)

Look for more updates to this list as I think about them.