I've taken personality tests before because I clearly have no idea what I'm like and, after the few tests I've taken, I've developed a pretty clear image of myself that just further proves what I thought of myself before I took them: I am the type of person that doesn't like structure and would rather work in a creative environment by myself rather than in large groups. Honestly, not much of a surprise.
I've known for a long time that working in a large company with regular hours, a boss looking over my shoulder at everything I do, and working on the same thing everyday was never something I would be willing to do. Much too constricting and too many boundaries. It's a strange kind of claustrophobia, being trapped in a routine like that. Having to work a job all year round, doing the same thing every single day without even a summer break to give me time to breath, would make life pretty unbearable.
So I wasn't all that surprised when my score for the Holland Code test was AIS/SIA. It was pretty much exactly what I thought it would be. What I was surprised by, though, was that my Artistic score matched my Social score. Both tens. That definitely threw me for a loop. Me? Social? Since when?
I didn't really have a clear idea of what I would expect out of the Meyer-Briggs test but if I think about it, the result I got makes sense too: ISFJ. This type of personality is described as quiet, friendly, responsible, conscientious, loyal, thorough, and a lot of other phrases along those lines. Looking at it like that, I sound like a golden retriever. There was once a time in my life when "quiet" was never a word I would even consider to describe myself. When I was about seven. Maybe eight. And responsible is probably a trait that I'll grow into. Thorough, only when I have the energy for it.
Apparently, I know myself pretty well. And yet I still end up surprising myself. I wonder what I'll learn about myself next year. Or even tomorrow.
Oct 28, 2013
Oct 21, 2013
Talking Isn't My Thing But It Is JK Rowling's
Not exactly a TED sponsored speech but since it's on the website I am using it: JK Rowling addressed the graduating class of Harvard 2008 in a commencement speech about the fringe benefits of failure (the title of the video) and imagination in a much broader sense of the word than that of wizards and magic. A speech that more people should watch because these are things that lots of people struggle with and what one of the most successful woman of our generation has to say about them is not only a little comforting but also completely inspiring.
Before she became richer than the Queen of England, JK Rowling had been as poor as you could possibly be in England without being homeless. By her definition of the word, she had failed. And so, with nothing left to lose, she had built her success up from rock bottom.
As a young woman, she worked for a foundation that helped African refugees brave enough to talk out against their controlling government (I'm pretty sure. The details were a little fuzzy). During her time there, she saw pain and anguish like she'd never imagined and the very best of human nature in people that helped those whose situation they could never even begin to comprehend. The imagination JK Rowling was talking about was the way people have the ability to imagine what other people are going through, the kind of imagination only empathy can provide. But there are also people who choose not to use that imagination, who close their minds to to ugliness of the world.
Failure and imagination. In different ways, these are some of my greatest fears.
Failure is a slightly more superficial fear in my mind because how do you constitute a failure? A high school student is conditioned to call an F a failure and an A a success. Get below a 70% on a test, you're marked for life as a failure. An A, you're clearly meant for success. But there aren't grades in the real world. Sometimes, in the little high school bubble, you forget that. Grades make up your GPA but your GPA doesn't define you. That's what sucks though, because no matter how often you tell yourself that, it never feels like the truth until after you stop getting graded and start getting paid. Even then, after school, success is still measured by how much money you make a year. So somehow, your success is always measured by something.
Then imagination, the way JK Rowling talked about it. Being able to understand people's situations and feelings and put yourself in their shoes. Cutting yourself off from all the cruelties of the world and live life ignoring what's wrong. I am terrified of both because the world is a terrible, terrible place and finding some glimmer of good in it is so hard that ignoring it all is just easier. But then, by doing that, selfishness is inevitable. And who wants to be selfish? Nobody who runs this blog, that's for sure.
I just--AH. Feelings and thoughts become too much when you're not sure whether to be inspired or scared. Because everything that JK Rowling was what keeps me up every other night and it's nice to know that I'm not the only one. But still, knowing what's wrong doesn't mean anything gets better. Things just are and you just sit with that for a while until you finally get a chance to form an opinion on it and then you cry because feelings just feel like too much.
Before she became richer than the Queen of England, JK Rowling had been as poor as you could possibly be in England without being homeless. By her definition of the word, she had failed. And so, with nothing left to lose, she had built her success up from rock bottom.
As a young woman, she worked for a foundation that helped African refugees brave enough to talk out against their controlling government (I'm pretty sure. The details were a little fuzzy). During her time there, she saw pain and anguish like she'd never imagined and the very best of human nature in people that helped those whose situation they could never even begin to comprehend. The imagination JK Rowling was talking about was the way people have the ability to imagine what other people are going through, the kind of imagination only empathy can provide. But there are also people who choose not to use that imagination, who close their minds to to ugliness of the world.
Failure and imagination. In different ways, these are some of my greatest fears.
Failure is a slightly more superficial fear in my mind because how do you constitute a failure? A high school student is conditioned to call an F a failure and an A a success. Get below a 70% on a test, you're marked for life as a failure. An A, you're clearly meant for success. But there aren't grades in the real world. Sometimes, in the little high school bubble, you forget that. Grades make up your GPA but your GPA doesn't define you. That's what sucks though, because no matter how often you tell yourself that, it never feels like the truth until after you stop getting graded and start getting paid. Even then, after school, success is still measured by how much money you make a year. So somehow, your success is always measured by something.
Then imagination, the way JK Rowling talked about it. Being able to understand people's situations and feelings and put yourself in their shoes. Cutting yourself off from all the cruelties of the world and live life ignoring what's wrong. I am terrified of both because the world is a terrible, terrible place and finding some glimmer of good in it is so hard that ignoring it all is just easier. But then, by doing that, selfishness is inevitable. And who wants to be selfish? Nobody who runs this blog, that's for sure.
I just--AH. Feelings and thoughts become too much when you're not sure whether to be inspired or scared. Because everything that JK Rowling was what keeps me up every other night and it's nice to know that I'm not the only one. But still, knowing what's wrong doesn't mean anything gets better. Things just are and you just sit with that for a while until you finally get a chance to form an opinion on it and then you cry because feelings just feel like too much.
Oct 13, 2013
A Science I Shouldn't Fail
Goal setting is a science.
You have to make your goals important and meaningful, make them in line with your values, make them just high enough that it feels like a dream but just low enough so that they're exactly within reach. You have to make them SMART. Lots of things go into setting goals and that makes it a science.
I've always hated science.
And I've always been bad at it. I'm not a scientific person. I'm not a person with lots of goals. I'm not really ambitious and my determination only extends as far as I can throw a baseball (in case you're wondering, not that far). Most of my dreams consist of man-eating scientists and green glob monsters that absorb my family (but that's a story for another post). Goals are easy to make for people who have dreams a little bit more realistic than that. Goals are easy for people who know what they want. For an aimless, ambition-less, undetermined person like me goals are hard to make.
That being said, the following goals are in order, not of importance or time restraints, but whichever ones I think of first.
1) Write a novel in November. I know, you might be thinking, "But haven't even written one in the last four years" or "Why November?" but I have a reason. November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It's a nonprofit organization that motivates people to write a novel, of 50,000 words or more, in a month. I signed up for it two years ago, actually attempted it last year, and have decided to win it this year. This is not only a matter of pride but to prove to myself that me actually writing a book is not impossible.
2) I have 14 unread books in my room and about ten of those have been staring at me since the beginning of the summer. Seven of those books will be read before the start of 2014. (If not for the main reason that they sit on my shelves and mock me with their unread stories.)
3) Straight A's. Maybe a little superficial and pointless considering I'm a senior but something in me can't help but feel irritated at the sight of different letters on my report card. So (more SMARTly worded) when the last day of school rolls around, I will be receiving my diploma with six A's on my senior report card.
Writing these goals, I learned two things about myself: 1) I am afraid of long term goals and 2) I have more pride than I thought I did.
You have to make your goals important and meaningful, make them in line with your values, make them just high enough that it feels like a dream but just low enough so that they're exactly within reach. You have to make them SMART. Lots of things go into setting goals and that makes it a science.
I've always hated science.
And I've always been bad at it. I'm not a scientific person. I'm not a person with lots of goals. I'm not really ambitious and my determination only extends as far as I can throw a baseball (in case you're wondering, not that far). Most of my dreams consist of man-eating scientists and green glob monsters that absorb my family (but that's a story for another post). Goals are easy to make for people who have dreams a little bit more realistic than that. Goals are easy for people who know what they want. For an aimless, ambition-less, undetermined person like me goals are hard to make.
That being said, the following goals are in order, not of importance or time restraints, but whichever ones I think of first.
1) Write a novel in November. I know, you might be thinking, "But haven't even written one in the last four years" or "Why November?" but I have a reason. November is NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month). It's a nonprofit organization that motivates people to write a novel, of 50,000 words or more, in a month. I signed up for it two years ago, actually attempted it last year, and have decided to win it this year. This is not only a matter of pride but to prove to myself that me actually writing a book is not impossible.
2) I have 14 unread books in my room and about ten of those have been staring at me since the beginning of the summer. Seven of those books will be read before the start of 2014. (If not for the main reason that they sit on my shelves and mock me with their unread stories.)
3) Straight A's. Maybe a little superficial and pointless considering I'm a senior but something in me can't help but feel irritated at the sight of different letters on my report card. So (more SMARTly worded) when the last day of school rolls around, I will be receiving my diploma with six A's on my senior report card.
Writing these goals, I learned two things about myself: 1) I am afraid of long term goals and 2) I have more pride than I thought I did.
Oct 6, 2013
Through the Pearly Gates
Question of the Week: Who do I want to welcome through the pearly gates and into my world?
Answer: People I like, who make me feel good about myself and what I want to do with my life and might, in some way or another, help me get there without dragging me down.
Who are these people? Well, due to my strong dislike of the human race, finding these kinds of people is much harder than you might think. But, after thinking long and hard about this, here is a list of five people that I was able to scrounge up:
1) My mom: This is kind of a given, honestly. She's never read a thing I wrote, she knows even less than I do about liberal arts, and yet she still has complete faith that I will succeed in whatever I want and supports me no matter what. So even if she weren't my mom, I wouldn't mind having her around.
2) My sister: A lot of people don't really have a good relationship with their siblings, and when we were younger me and my sister definitely fit under that category, but now that we're older we've reached a level of what we like to call "toleration." She's always on my side when my mom has no idea what I'm saying and she has the same fears and anxieties about the future that I do. Having a nice Panic Partner is always helpful.
3) Mrs. Bonagura: This is where thinking of this list gets a little hard. Mrs. Bonagura is my iQuest teacher and just the fact that she accepted me into the class means that she has some sort of faith in me and, even though I don't know her that well, someone who's practically a stranger who has faith in me is a definite confident boost.
4) Mahek, Mari, and Karly: And this is where I hope that none of my other friends find this blog. Nothing against them, really, but sometimes I just don't like being around them. These three I sort of think of as a unit, because together they make me feel better about almost everything.
5) Kristen Cashore: I don't actually know her, but she wrote one of my favorite book series ever (have a chance, check out Graceling and the other books in that series, AMAZING). I wouldn't exactly call her a role model. More of a goal in life. If I write a book that someone loves half as much as I love her books, then I'd call myself successful.
And while this post is already much longer than I'd like, there's a Part 2! What should I be doing right now that I'm not doing? I'm sure there's more than five, and if someone reminded me that I had to do them it'd be very obvious, but thinking of five things I have to do is a little hard. So here they are:
1) Finish college apps! Sure, they're not due till November, but I'll be procrastinating on them for that long anyway. Might as well add them to the list now.
2) Talk to my counselor about college apps. Can't actually finish them without talking to my counselor.
3) Write college essays. This is the part about college apps that I really hate. I have to think of reasons for you to accept me into your school that set me apart from the rest? I hardly know why people talk to me in real life.
4) Put my clothes away. Because I always have clean, folded clothes on a chair that I might actually use if there weren't clothes on it all the time.
5) Write. Because I've reached that point in my writing-in-progress (from this point on called WIP) where I deleted half of what I wrote because I didn't like it and after that point I never feel like writing for three months. Gotta work on that.
Answer: People I like, who make me feel good about myself and what I want to do with my life and might, in some way or another, help me get there without dragging me down.
Who are these people? Well, due to my strong dislike of the human race, finding these kinds of people is much harder than you might think. But, after thinking long and hard about this, here is a list of five people that I was able to scrounge up:
1) My mom: This is kind of a given, honestly. She's never read a thing I wrote, she knows even less than I do about liberal arts, and yet she still has complete faith that I will succeed in whatever I want and supports me no matter what. So even if she weren't my mom, I wouldn't mind having her around.
2) My sister: A lot of people don't really have a good relationship with their siblings, and when we were younger me and my sister definitely fit under that category, but now that we're older we've reached a level of what we like to call "toleration." She's always on my side when my mom has no idea what I'm saying and she has the same fears and anxieties about the future that I do. Having a nice Panic Partner is always helpful.
3) Mrs. Bonagura: This is where thinking of this list gets a little hard. Mrs. Bonagura is my iQuest teacher and just the fact that she accepted me into the class means that she has some sort of faith in me and, even though I don't know her that well, someone who's practically a stranger who has faith in me is a definite confident boost.
4) Mahek, Mari, and Karly: And this is where I hope that none of my other friends find this blog. Nothing against them, really, but sometimes I just don't like being around them. These three I sort of think of as a unit, because together they make me feel better about almost everything.
5) Kristen Cashore: I don't actually know her, but she wrote one of my favorite book series ever (have a chance, check out Graceling and the other books in that series, AMAZING). I wouldn't exactly call her a role model. More of a goal in life. If I write a book that someone loves half as much as I love her books, then I'd call myself successful.
And while this post is already much longer than I'd like, there's a Part 2! What should I be doing right now that I'm not doing? I'm sure there's more than five, and if someone reminded me that I had to do them it'd be very obvious, but thinking of five things I have to do is a little hard. So here they are:
1) Finish college apps! Sure, they're not due till November, but I'll be procrastinating on them for that long anyway. Might as well add them to the list now.
2) Talk to my counselor about college apps. Can't actually finish them without talking to my counselor.
3) Write college essays. This is the part about college apps that I really hate. I have to think of reasons for you to accept me into your school that set me apart from the rest? I hardly know why people talk to me in real life.
4) Put my clothes away. Because I always have clean, folded clothes on a chair that I might actually use if there weren't clothes on it all the time.
5) Write. Because I've reached that point in my writing-in-progress (from this point on called WIP) where I deleted half of what I wrote because I didn't like it and after that point I never feel like writing for three months. Gotta work on that.
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