Being the odd bird

Today at the course I presented myself as the odd bird. This is because I am the only one who is not from Sweden and who does not have a engineering background. (and becuse I have participated in voodo rituals, been swimming with giant turtles and I don´t always follow the societys rules of what is correct)
There are consequences of being the odd bird. The positive ones are that you can help people open up and help them feel more comfortable in letting their personalitys show. You can also make people laugh quite easily by just letting frogs jump out of your mouth. But the downside is that to be taken seriously, you really need to show that you can be diplomatic and that you are a hard worker that deserves respect.
This is something I have been able to do at my ordinary workplace, but in this course I think people are quite suspicious against me. It is interesting how afraid people are of how other people are going to percive them. We had a discussion during the course about dress codes. Most of the people in the course are dressed like engineers and business people usually dress, a preppy shirt and neat pants. I don´t dress like that, I have a more street, slappy style that does not bring that much respect in itself. But does clothes really do the person? Or is it the person that does the clothes?
We have a red headed very bohemic woman in our organisation. She looks way more like an artist than a business woman. But the way she carries herself and the way she talks, shows that she expects respect from other people. And she gets the respect.

Respect.
...........
sociala normer