Brandon and Andrea should switch jobs

(Andrea's musings!)
I'm not one to appreciate a strict adherence to stereotypes or gender definitions, but when it comes to who is the talkative one among us, I have to admit that it is me. Somewhere I read that women tend to talk 25000 words per day, and men closer to 10000. I realize that that is not true across the board (life could be boring and overly predictable if it were so!), but I have to say that I generally like to talk a lot more than Brandon.

I've always loved words. I remember having long conversations with friends and family, not to mention with myself inside my head, about specific words - how they sound, what they mean, why they matter or not, why the bother us or not. And I generally like to find the best word to describe things and situations - which sometimes results in me using a lot of words. (I also can follow complex grammatical structures with specific punctuation in my head, which is another story, and often leads me to use very long sentences!) So now, I jump at the chance to write, no matter what it is I'm writing (I often have to "beg" for writing projects at work, even though my boss knows and appreciates my writing and use of language). I credit a lot of my writing ability to my British English teacher, Mrs. Pearson (3 years in her classroom, hearing at least once each year about American being an "ugly, lazy way of speaking English" !), but also to my parents who willingly (I think?!) read and edited several drafts of high school English papers, no matter how late it got.

So now: I think Brandon and I have the wrong jobs on the basis of words. He is in a lab, where people coordinate and work independently yet very much together and in each other's proximity. I work in a place where each person has their own office. Mine is all the way at the far end of the building, and people don't come down the hall for anything unless they need something specific from me - and then they disappear again. We don't even have a common "break" room, or even a common bathroom. Each pair of offices has its own bathroom. People furnish their offices (and bathrooms) with a microwave, mini-fridge, snacks, mugs, coffee pot - I've even seen a toaster in one person's office! So we isolate ourselves, making it difficult for me to get to know anyone (besides my boss) at any level, because most people I see just at the departmental meetings that happen (I think) every other month (maybe less frequently). When my boss is gone (as she often is), it's not uncommon for me to go through the day without saying more than 500 words, less than 100 together at any one time. (I'm including ALL words in that count!) When I get home, naturally I'm ready to chat (despite the fact that I may not really have anything from my day to talk about, unless I taught lessons). If Brandon didn't have to talk at all in his job, and I got to talk a lot maybe we'd be better balanced for our evenings together. :)

If anyone has job suggestions for me (for after I finish my Master's Degree in voice, of course!), I'm really open.