Friday, July 27, 2007

Do you love taking tests to learn more about yourself?

Obviously! I love the intelligences test, which I've never taken before but which I've heard a lot about since my mother teaches K-12, where I guess they pay more attention to the varying abilities of students (perhaps though, now, with No Child Left Behind, pay it lip service) than in the academy.

Click to view my Personality Profile page

Though getting into Myers-Briggs helps me understand why some freshman comp students (especially) seem to demand step-by-step instructions. Writing isn't a paint-by-numbers kit! If only! Ahh, I can tell I'll be in the classroom in six weeks. I'm totally not packed or ready or have made a syllabus (though Adventure U's program is quite structured, so the unfolding of my classes will be structurally the same as other people's teaching the same class -- this actually makes me more nervous, makes me think I need more prep rather than less). I'm not even done with the Works Cited of my dissertation, nor some typos that Peppy Advisor is going to tell me about today. ACK! Less than a month! I can't think about it. I was once so excited about it; now I don't want to go at all because OPL can't come with me. So we'll be the kind of long distance that means that weekend getaways are totally impossible. I'll be lucky to see him every couple months. And even that's expensive! Gah!

You can see that all of these things are so close together in my head that I can barely think about one without thinking about the other. So today's plan to not go insane includes the following:
  • Therapeutic yoga. (Probably only fifteen minutes.)
  • Therapeutic sushi-eating with Angry Young Colleague and Ex-Writing Partner (yes, one person, though he might bring his not-so-wee bairn).
  • Working on Works Cited and typos.
  • Doing dishes, eventually, so that OPL is fooled into thinking that I can actually keep my own nest clean.
  • Begging Fabulous Friend to go and do something silly with me, which may include coloring in coloring books (go ahead and laugh: you're just jealous I have such fabulous coloring books), painting, roller skating, or some other thing FF's cooked up in her head that I haven't even thought of yet! I wonder if the Children's Museum would paint my face, since I've gone off makeup entirely.

I should look at some of the materials that Adventure U sent me about my classes. I should do a lot of things. I went and bought file boxes yesterday. Doesn't that count for something???

Anyway, to get back to the point of this blogpost before all this anxiety shoved and elbowed its way to the fore, is that it's very odd and interesting to me that Naturalist came up so high. I haven't gone camping in ages and didn't like it when I went last. (In all fairness, though, I went with the most depressed man who had just broken up with his long-time girlfriend. And I hadn't yet figured out my health concerns so that camping could be easy. I'm better now. That was over ten years ago. Camping is probably like yams: I hated them for years, then suddenly tried them, as I am wont to do just to make sure things haven't changed, and then I went crazy, unable to get enough of yams.) But here's a crazy thing: when I was in high school, I had to take those assessment things of your interests. I so wanted those things to say that I should go into writing. I was looking for any little encouragement, especially since I got kicked out of Honor's English (I know, I know -- do you know how hard it is to write a really effective essay on why Hamlet really did love Ophelia when you're in tenth grade?). Guess what my top was? Agriculture! What am I doing in English? (The next two, which were about equal, were clerical and the arts.) I do love plants and cottage gardens and have long dreamt about planting one of those wonderful front gardens that are really fruits and vegetables organized to look pretty? Can I just ask why it is that I'm going to Adventure U, where I'm not going to be able to plant the roots (French Kiss, I know, I know: I don't have an original thought in my head) I so long for? OY! Yogatime!

4 comments:

k8 said...

I'm a comp/rhet person and I received a C in my high school composition class. Of course, the teacher was beyond strange and I was a slacker. She required us to write a detailed outline before we were allowed to write any sentences for our papers. I refused to do the outlines. Outlines were half of each grade, and the final written paper was the other half. I received an A on every paper and an F on every outline (since I didn't do them). I thought it was a ridiculous rule then, and now that I know more about writing, it seems like it could be downright damaging to some students.

This same teacher (seriously) told my sister's class that if they didn't get all A's in college they would want to commit suicide. She was a little unhinged.

Sisyphus said...

Coloring books?? I want to color in coloring books! Hmm, now I feel I need some cool coloring books. Sigh.

Anyway, the stuff will all get done, somehow, so just keep pluggin' away at all the little bits and try not to list all the stuff to do in one big clump. (Course, maybe freaking out will _help_ you as I'm so calm and working so slowly on my project it doesn't seem to be going anywhere, but whatever.)

Anonymous said...

"INTPs contribute a logical, system-building approach to their work. They like being the architect of a plan, because of the scheming and thinking involved, far more than being the implementer of that plan. Implementation tends to be drudgery. "

For me, it's mostly the scheming. I hate doing. I wish my boss could understand that.

Earnest English said...

K8: I actually got a C+ in my first-year writing class -- yes, that class I now love to teach. In fairness, it was a computer-based class and I couldn't type then worth a damn. Who knew that Engl 155CMP meant computer class? Certainly not me three weeks after I graduate high school. I did write outlines in high school, but never had to turn them in. Ridiculous!

Sis: I swear by the Dover Coloring Books. Really great ones with good paper and sometimes even educational stuff in them. And they never get old. A friend of mine bought me The Victorian House one -- little did she know I already had it and had colored in it. I was so happy to have another copy.

I do think I have to get a bit of angst to light a fire under my butt. It's my theory of counterirritants. I just have to panic about something else, and then packing will seem totally effortless. I'm scared about what that other thing might be. I'm hoping that soon OPL will be here and will guilt me into packing. He's one of those highly detail-oriented people who can't sit still but he's arranging every little thing. No doubt he already has a system in his head for packing things up that I will only have to grudgingly follow. Personally, I just want to sleep through the next year.

Shelley: Maybe you could put a little note about Myers-Briggs on your boss's desk. You know -- a little hint about how to use your talents the best. Right now, I feel like I should go to the English department and tell them that I made a mistake -- I should've been in horticulture all this time. Frankly, horticulture sounds great right now. Though as my fave Dotty Parker said: "You can lead a horticulture, but you can't make her think."