Q: Adam, would you describe your appearance? I, myself, am a little under six feet1} tall, maybe, about five-eleven and... I wear glasses. I have chubby cheeks, and, I guess, some broad shoulders, and I consider myself to have 'a beer belly', which is kind of like a fat stomach, but we like to call it 'a beer belly', because that's a little bit more of a manly term. That means that I can drink a lot of beer. It's more of an adult characteristic in Americans. I had freckles when I was a young boy, but right now they seem to have, almost not all, disappeared, but I don't really have too many freckles nowadays. I wear glasses, I started wearing glasses in high school , when I was in about tenth or eleventh grade. Q: What color are your eyes? I have blue eyes. People tell me that my best characteristic is my long eyelashes, but I don't really look at them too often 'cause, of course, I don't really care that much. Q: Is your hair long or short? I like to wear my hair short, right now it's very short. A friend of mine gave me a very short hair-cut the other night with the... it's called 'the buzzcut', and he used the clippers. Q: How much do you weigh? Well, right now, I'm around one hundred ninety five to two hundred pounds . Q: What is the most apparent in your character? I think, what's most apparent in my character right away, a first impression of me would be that I'm a quiet guy. I don't really particularly say a lot, even at first, it's hard for me to get to know the people. I'm kind of the guy that likes to sit in a corner. I like to sit at a chair and watch people, and sort of watch how things go. I consider that I can feel sort of a situation in a room, maybe, more so better than other people. So, I guess, in that respect, that I sort of sit and watch and... sort of see, what unfolds before me, then I can start to make judgments about which people I then want to start talking to and get to know better, which is usually the people, who are a little more friendly, a little more... a little more smart, a little more well-traveled, a little more interesting. So, basically, I guess at first I am sort of a shy guy, but I am also very friendly. I don't really like to say negative things about people, though, of course, sometimes I will. I think everybody is their own person, and everybody acts in certain ways and... does certain things. Of course, everybody has their reasons, so I don't particularly like to be negative to people or... tell them what to do, or tell them that they are doing something wrong, because I don't really necessarily even want somebody to tell me that. I'm very easy-going, that is I like to just be with friends, be with family. I like to sit on the porch and drink beer, and talk, and tell jokes, though I don't really remember jokes at all. When people tell me jokes, I sort of laugh and then forget them. So, that's one thing I'd like to change is that I could remember jokes longer and tell them. I guess that really the one thing. Q: Adam, is this the only thing you would like to change? But in being shy that is also the one thing, that I would like to change is that I would like to be a little more aggressive and self-assertive, and explain my opinions more. I think in being shy or in being quiet, that sometimes I am not able to express opinions as much as I would like to. When I express opinions even, I don't really know how to express what I'm thinking. In talking about an opinion it helps you to more clarify, and solve like a problem. If you are able to say it aloud, and then you can hear it, and you not only hear, but you say it, and then you have other people also give you their interpretation of the idea. So, I'd like to be able to more easily express my opinions and talk to people about what I am feeling, and... express what I'm thinking, because it's not so good to be quiet all the time and shy. That's also, maybe, sometimes lonely, but I don't find myself to be lonely, because I have really good friends. And that because I am so friendly, I think people really easily will warm up to me. Everybody likes to have someone listen to them. When I was younger, in high school I felt that I listened more, and the people really liked that, I really listened to everybody's experience, but as I've become older and sort of experienced more myself, that I am more willing to express myself. But in working in a job, it's more of an aggressive environment, and so I find that, if I stay too quiet for too long, that it's not really that good. So, I would like to change this whole shyness aspect. Q: Were you shy when a little boy? Sometimes, you know, children's character tends to change when a child grows up. I'm not sure exactly where this character came from. I feel that, when my parents were divorced, they gave me a decision, and this, of course, was when I was in about... I don't know nine or ten years old. And they asked me, if I wanted to live with my mother or live with my father, and so, at that time... that's a very difficult question to ask a ten-year-old kid. So, in that respect I feel that this has in some way tainted my ability to decide, what I want. And being quiet, I listen to everybody else, so I feel that I understand everybody else. I can feel what they're feeling, and I can understand, what they mean when they say certain things, because I am very quiet, and I watch and I notice, but this, for myself, isn't very good; I'd like to be the one also that expresses a certain opinion or feels a certain way. So, I think that from my childhood I was... but I'm not necessarily sure, maybe, I was born that way. And maybe, I just sort of feel that... that was a time when, maybe... when my parents divorced. That was a time, when this characteristic arose, but, maybe, I've always just been a friendly person and... just wanted to listen to people and... I am not sure. Q: What other characteristics, do you think, should be discussed? I... I don't like arguments, and I don't like confrontation, and I don't like people fighting, and I don't like really fighting in general. So, when I see people fighting even on a street, I try to stop them from fighting. And I think, that people can always talk, because everybody has an opinion, everybody has feelings, and so, we don't necessarily always need to be fighting to see who is right or who is wrong. But I understand that sometimes people get really excited and emotional about certain topics, so sometimes they want to fight. I mean, I've even myself, wanted to fight when I've been really emotional, but I don't really like it, it's not something that I really want to do. I'm even the type of person that will avoid expressing my opinion, because I don't want to fight, or because I don't want to start some sort of an argument. And so, I think, maybe, this also inhibits me from always just saying what I want to say, saying what I want to say to people, maybe, sometimes when I want to tell them, that... that they are wrong, or that's not really right. My brother and I have had several conversations about this same characteristic, because he feels sort of the same way. So, also not only do I find myself being shy and... Being in touch sort of with other people's feelings, being very empathetic with people and what they are feeling, -I guess, that's like the big characteristics that I have. I mean that I want to be able to explain more about human interactions with each other. I'd like to be a little more experienced. I'd like to be a little more intuitive into people and life. And to be a little more knowledgeable, 'cause I think that sometimes I don't know an answer, like, for example, somebody will ask me something, and I might not necessarily know the answer, but I will go ahead and just, sort of, make something up, something that to me sounds right or that sounds logical, but in reality has really no basis at all. So, I'd like to, in some way, change that aspect of my personality, that I just sort of say stupid things in order to either sound more intelligent or sound like I know... like I know more than I do. Q: So what is the best way to behave, if you really don't know the answer? I would like to be able to just say sometimes: 'You know, I don't know', or 'I'm not sure, but... you know, let me think about it for a minute' Also, for my character, my personality, which really bothers my girlfriend is that I... sort of... sometimes I can't immediately answer a question. Maybe, because it requires a little more thought for myself. I know that some people just immediately can know how they feel. But I, myself, have to, sort of, think about how I feel, or what I am feeling, or how I would feel about it. So I, maybe, have to think about it for a certain amount of time, and this bothers my girlfriend, when she asks me questions like, you know, 'What do you think about me, or what do you think about'... For example, whenever me and my girlfriend would go out, go out to