Personality test after every term

I’m a big fanatic in personality differences.  I’m intrigued by the power of personalities in shaping the decisions one makes everyday.  Last year, my friends introduced me to the famous Myer-Briggs personalities test.  There are 16 possible personalities as 4 characteristics are evaluated.  

My friends showed me a website called 16 Personalities, which is the same evaluation as the Myer-Briggs method.  You take a 100 question test and based on your answers you are given percentages for the following 10 characteristics.

Introversion/Extraversion (I/E): Introverts are recharged by spending time alone.  Extraverts gain energy from other people.

Observant/Intuitive (S/N): Intuitive people are visionary and tend to think outside the box.  Often, they are the most creative ones in the room.  Observant people tend to be more drawn towards practicality and they focus on facts and observation.

Thinking/Feeling (T/F): Feeling people are emotionally driven, while Thinking people are driven more by logic. Feeling people also tend to be more empathetic while Thinking people often see being efficient and rational as more important.

Judging/Prospecting (J/P): Prospecting people are the improvisers.  They like to think on the spot and are extremely adaptable.  Judging people are highly organized, and like to create clear plans.  

A final characteristic describes identity which is on a scale of Assertiveness/Turbulence.  Assertive people are self-confident, manage stress and work well under pressure.  However, this characteristic doesn’t influence the personality one gets on this test.

I’m planning on retaking this test at the end of every term to track how my personality is changing.  The test incorporates some very interesting questions that really made me question my own values and work ethic.  Last year, I was a Protagonist, which is ENFJ, meaning I was extrovertive, intuitive, feeling and judging.  This week, when I retook the quiz, I got the Executive personality which is ESTJ, meaning I am extrovertive, observant, thinking and judging.  My results suggest that I am coming more practical.  The decisions I make are influenced less by my emotions, but more by logic.  I will keep taking this test since it only takes about 10 minutes, but I learn a lot about how I work and make decisions.  More so, it’s about tracking how I’m changing from year to year.  

Screen shot of my results

What are you dipped in?

In sixth grade, I read a touching teenage romance book called Flipped by Wendelin Van Draanen (who is one of my favorite kids book novelists!).  After reading the novel, I watched the movie online.  I was touched…by both the writing and the screenplay.  This past week, I began thinking about one quote that is important enough to make both the screenplay and the novel as I was thinking about staying true to my sometimes peculiar self this past week.  

“Some of us get dipped in flat, some in satin, some in gloss.  Every once in awhile, you find someone who’s iridescent.  And when you do, nothing will ever compare.”  

As I was thinking about this quote, I added more categories to what is mentioned in the movie of coatings that each individual can be dipped into. I believe our this partially shapes how we are perceived by other people as it closely correlates with our personalities and thus, should be fairly specific.  I’ve added “sparkles”, “matte” and “dichroic” as in dichroic glass.  

It’s really up to an individual to define these categories and they will be defined differently from person to person.  I like to think of the images and textures of these various coatings. Then I like to put them into context with personalities.  

I see “matte” people as mentally strong, as people who have a thick skin and rebound well from failure.  I see “gloss” people as refined, perhaps a little introverted, but there’s always something about a “gloss” that distinguishes them from every other “gloss”.  I see “satin” as people who are extrovert, a blend of diligence and fun, and people who are overtly kind. I see "sparkles" as people who are extrovert, fun loving, easy going, and laugh a lot; they're often the life of the party and the spirit lifters. "Dichroic" people are introvertedly brilliant, they know more than they let on, but everyone knows there's something special about them. Of course, all these interpretations are up to individuals to make and will differ greatly from each other.

I’m positive I’ve met people of all these coatings, but I also have yet to find someone who’s iridescent.  And I can’t help but wonder, what am I dipped in?

How I'm staying true to myself

As a freshman at a boarding school that has kids who may be up to five years older than me, I’m beginning to feel the struggles of being the youngest.  These past two weeks, I’ve been trying to come to terms with myself upon recognition that some students in the school were talking behind my back.  I've been thinking about how to approach this situation and I've been formulating how I'm feeling this past week.

I think I can fairly say I’m a daring freshman.  I’ve been outspoken during club meetings [especially investment club], I’m not afraid to talk to upperclassmen, I still wear my BlueCard on a lanyard around my neck, I study in the tacitly circumscribed “upperclassmen” area at the library, I performed in Grasshopper, which is 95% esoteric to upperclassmen.  Last week, I was told that these traits are what make me an easy target.

Upon leaving BB&N, my advisor from eighth told me “stay true to yourself.”  This is me; the double Patagonia, public speaking loving, BlueCard wearing girl who doesn’t let age determine whom she can make friends with.  That is me.  When I found out that some upperclassmen and kids in my grade were talking behind my back, it was hard to continue to follow this advice, to stay true to myself.  I was targeted for not sticking to the freshman norms.  

I talked with my advisor from Andover.  We had a long conversation about how to combat this and at the end, we thought the best plan of action was to help me build mental fortitude.  

My advisor told me a story that is meant to act as guidance for helping me combat hurtful criticism.  My advisor played ice hockey for Harvard and later in the Olympics, and she remembered how when she was an ice hockey player, she was always frustrated when her coach called her out.  Her coach would always tell her what she should do in each play, and what she should do to improve.  My advisor was very annoyed by this, and she asked her coach why me?  Why tell me this?  Why not talk to other players?  Her coach replied, “because I know you can do it.”

It’s because some people feel that I can do it, I can break the well established social norms for freshman at this school and they feel threatened by my assertiveness and my confidence in what I do.  I genuinely feel that freshman are very separated from the rest of the school: we’re like our own clan.  My advisor told me it’s all an act of protection and safety.  When someone [me in this case], finds the gut to step outside of this clan, of the school norms, people feel threatened.  And for many people, their method to combat this feeling of unsafeness is to bad mouth and bring down that person who’s trying to step up.  

If other people are trying to take me down, it means I’m doing a good job, both stepping out of social norms and staying true to myself.  If others are trying to take me down, it means they feel that I’m succeeding.  If I’m succeeding, I can’t give up now and turn back into that freshman clan; I’ve got to keep going.  

To the indecisive

I have a friend who is indecisive.  Decision making is not a strong suit and it’s something he does not like to do.  Even the simplest decisions cannot be made by this friend of mine.  I’m trying to encourage him to make decisions.  Yesterday, when walking back from town, I asked him, do you want to go to the library or back to Isham?  I am not exaggerating: this decision took him 5 minutes to make.  There were both pros and cons to going back to Isham or directly to the library, and I felt ambivalent towards both.  Nevertheless, this decision took him at least 5 minutes to make while we were walking back. When he made the decision to go to Isham so I could sign in and pick up some sheet music, I asked him, which route should we take [there were three options].  This decision took him less time to make, but he continued to go back and forth between which road we took back to Isham.  At last he’d made a decision.  

I’m a proponent of the power of decision making.  There are simply too many opportunities and options in life of which route we are to follow each and every day.  Sean Covey sums it up perfectly, we are the pilots of our life and we drive which direction we want to go each day.  Decisions from when to wake up, to what order to do finish my homework, to what equipment to use at the gym.  I like to think that each decision I make today will impact tomorrow; everything is interconnected.  

Yet I understand that not everyone is like me.  Not everyone has an unequivocal plan of daily action, and even though I do, it doesn’t always unfold the way I’d plan.  But for my friend and for those who are indecisive, through rumination, I think I have one thing to say about decision making:

it doesn’t have to be complicated, but if we make the best decision each time we are put into that box, in the long run, we won’t be faced with as many critical, precarious decision making moments.

How my bad week relieved itself

This week was indisputably stressful.  It began on the wrong foot, continued on the wrong foot, and yesterday, everything was resolved.  When I look back on this past week, I keep turning to something I wrote about earlier this year: nothing is as bad as it seems.  Too often, I

Photo I took when I was trying to convince myself that life is beautiful

find myself overdramatizing the outcomes of a situation.  I let myself dream up all the worst outcomes, and these potential outcomes add additional, unnecessary stress to me.    

I believe attitudes are contagious, which is why I try to avoid sharing negative thoughts on this blog.  However, this is quite relevant to my life right now.

My week in a sum [or more, all the bad things that have happened this week]:

• Monday: woke up to find I’d knocked over my bamboo plant on my desk when I was sleeping.  Soaked my phone and my iPad.  My iPad case wasn’t functioning.  I was very worried about that.  I stressed I would have to buy a new one and that I wouldn’t be able to use my iPad for a long time because it was broken.  That was too extreme: I can still use my iPad even if the keyboard case doesn’t work.   
• Tuesday: I found out I’d lost my music binder.  This binder contains approximately 5 years worth of music learning in it.  It has two music books and tons of random music sheets.  I had lost it all.  I felt I had lost all the hard work I’d put into the instrument because that was my last connection to what I’d learnt from my old piano teacher, who taught me for almost 10 years.  It wasn’t the music that was valuable to me: it was the fingerings and the notes and the ideas that were written on them about how to play the music.  This incident made me realize how much my music means to me.  I don’t think this epiphany would have come to me if I didn’t lose my music.
• Wednesday: I thought one my friends was talking negatively about me behind my back.  I was hurt that this would happen.  I ignored my friend for a solid two days until Friday.
• Thursday: I worked on my math homework that afternoon, but found I had a question.  I went to math study center at night to ask for some help.  I didn’t get the help I needed, but the worst part was when I returned back to my dorm, I found I’d left all the math homework I’d completed that afternoon in the math room when I went to ask for help!

Friday was the big hitter when everything I thought could possibly go wrong regained itself.  I found my music binder that night in the practice rooms at Graves.  Then I found out my iPad keyboard was still working after completely drying out for a couple days.  And my math homework was short enough that I had time to redo it all [it was good review].  As for my friend, I found the gut to approach and talk about the situation.  It was a crucial conversation that we had, because there was a misunderstanding between us.  I’m still grateful that I read Crucial Conversations this summer, as I’ve once again found myself employing the tactics used.  

Few things in life are as bad as they seem.  When I have a lot of stuff to do, I make lists using Reminders on my phone.  There always seems to be a lot of things to do in my head, but when it’s written down, the same mental checklist seems shorter.  This is how I’m going to approach Finals week.

Fall's the Saddest Season

A lot of people say winter is the saddest season of the year.  It’s dark at 4 in the afternoon, you awake to darkness, and your jacket never comes off.  Every year, I always find fall to be the saddest season.  It’s an odd time of year: the days are shorter but it’s always very bright.  But when I stop and observe the quality of the light, it’s different from the light of summer; the light of fall is more golden, it falls at a more indirect angle, and when it shines on the red of the maple tree leaves, it creates the most sensational golden red hue.  

Fall provokes memories.  When I walk outside in the afternoon, with the sun glinting off the red trees, hearing the crunch of the fallen leaves underneath my feet, buried underneath my warmest jackets already, memories of the closing year come into my thoughts. I think about what I’ve accomplished this year.  I think about where I’ve gone this year.  I think about how I’ve grown this year.  I think about where I’ve come from.  All these memories pour into my head in fall.  It’s interesting, rarely does it happen in summer.  Fall has a cool and crisp taste to it that’s simultaneously warming.  This time of year passes by ineffably fast.  And it’s hard to say why.  That makes fall the saddest season.

Maple @Peabody Museum

Along the Great Lawn Wall

Grasshopper 2017

This past weekend marked Family Weekend at Andover.  Parents and guardians are invited to the school to get a condensed day-in-the-life of an Andover student by going through all the classes students take. At night, there were several concerts.  One of them was the annual talent show, Grasshopper!

2 weeks ago, I auditioned to be in Grasshopper.  In late September, the word about Grasshopper had already started spreading, as GHOP has been running for many years.  When I heard the news, I thought to myself, wow, this is really something I want to do. But I wasn’t sure what I’d do.  I wasn’t part of any of the big dance/sing groups, and in the past, GHOP has been 90% big group acapella or dances.  There are usually only around 2 solos and they’re all related to music.  The theme for this years show was Back to the Millennium: 2000’s.  All the acts had to be relevant to the theme in some way.

I auditioned to give a talk………about talent……by myself, but moreso, how that word has personally affected me.  I auditioned at 5:15 on a Sunday.  I felt bad for the judges, because they’d been watching 15 minute auditions since 12:00, and there were still 3 more groups behind me when I auditioned.  That next Friday, I found out I’d made it into GHOP!! It was very exciting, since not only is it difficult for freshman’s to make it [especially solo], but it’s a very anticipated show!

I was very excited until I found out the time commitment.  3 hour rehearsals every day this past week.  We had two show nights, this Friday and this Saturday, and we performed twice on each night.  In total, I must have spent almost 24 in Tang Theater rehearsing.  It was difficult to find time to do my homework, as practice started at 6:30 usually.  Oh, did I mention I didn’t practice piano for a solid week?  It was hectic.  

But my 4 performances of my speech were my highlights of this week.  I think the time I spent preparing, memorizing my speech, and learning the finale dance with the 13 other groups in GHOP was a good bonding experience and well worth the time I’d invested.  It was interesting to me as a performer as well.  I have never been in a show where I’ve had to perform it more than once.  At GHOP, I gave a memorized speech 4 times and each time, it was different.  As the speaker, I observed how the vibes of the audience contributed to the meaningfulness of my performance, and I noticed how my preparation strategy influenced my performance.  When I felt rushed to get onto stage, I spoke more passively and with a less clear meaning behind every word I was saying. When I prepared ahead of time, meaning I was on the wings of the stage well before my performance, I performed more smoothly, having more time to think everything over.   

Grasshopper, my first performance here at Andover.  I gave a speech…a little peculiar for a GHOP act, yet I argue that that’s what relates my speech back to the theme. I’m happy, about my time investment and about the product.  

Everything's Connected

Middle school courses were very distinct.  Each class had its own entity. Math was calculations, english was tons of reading, history was heavily writing and debate, science was notes, labs and worksheets, and art was painting.  

I’m noticing how high school courses are different from middle school courses in the sense that everything is connected.  In my first month of school, I realized how much reading biology consisted of, more than my English course in fact.  I complained about it at first, as I was used to worksheets and note taking…not an hour of reading every night from a giant, dense textbook.  My art class was a lot of note taking…creation happened primarily outside of class since I’m in a photography course.  I’m not used to art being a note taking class…that’s something I would have expected in a math or french class.    

I’m realizing how everything is connected.  Skills from one class almost always translates itself into another class.  I need to be more prepared for this, as I no longer believe that having one set of skills for one class will be enough.  I suppose the greatest learners are those who can take what they learn from one class and apply it into greater, outside contexts…sometimes those are that seemingly totally irrelevant.

Consciously take care of our planet

The weather this week caught my attention.  Last week, it was a solid 70+ degrees everyday…and it’s October.  The temperature has been slowly decreasing this week but Tuesday and Wednesday marked two very chilly days.  

Global warming is seems to be becoming a bigger issue every year.  It was unacceptably hot this year in October, with temps nearing 80 degrees.  I would usually deem that solid June weather.  

I’m trying to make environmentally conscious decisions whenever I have the option.  In my dorm, I do not eat with disposable utensils.  I have disposable plastic cups, but I reuse those as well after rinsing them.  I also allow myself only 1 paper towel for drying my hands, though in many bathrooms, hand dryers are employed instead of paper towels. When I went to the grocery store this afternoon, I brought my own bag.  

I’m honestly not sure how exactly to help the environment at boarding school.  I notice the weather changing, and the weather is almost always my first indicator that something’s going on with our planet.  It’s like how my first indicator of an oncoming cold is that I get a little tired, pale and my nose gets stuffy.  I’m busy everyday, so I suppose it’s the small, but conscious efforts that count towards slowing down global warming.  

There's a lot to learn from everyone

Today was an odd day in tennis.  Since coming to Andover, I haven’t had private lessons with a coach, and I’m beginning to feel the effect of having no guidance in training sessions.   

There’s one kid at Rec Tennis who consistently bothers me.  Over this past month at Rec Tennis, he’s been desperate to prove that he is “better at tennis than me”.  And he gets aggressive about it as well.  He makes fun of me when I mess up a shot or do something stupid on the courts.  I’ve worked to counter his negativity and pessimism by ignoring him. When he says he’s better than me, I tell myself that we’re equal.  And I honestly, from the bottom of my heart believed that; I thought that if we played a tie breaker, it would be fairly equal in scoring.

Until today, when I tried to break the ice.  I decided to hit with him after practice.  The culture of our game started out pretty similarly; he would laugh at me every time I messed up and I would get really hyped every time I hit a winner short cross court.  But after about 20 minutes of ineffective hitting, I decided we needed to change our attitudes towards the rallies if either of us wanted to improve.  

In the previous shot, I had messed up a flimsy overhead, that should have been an easy shot.  Overheads have long been a struggle of mine to time correctly and execute swiftly.  When he started laughing at my poor shot, instead of trying to roast him back, I changed my attitude and asked, “I’ve struggled with overheads.  In fact, I never had it down correctly.  Could you teach me how to hit one?”  That changed our rally: it became more cooperative.  

Turns out he had some really good tips on mastering the overhead.  He truly did and I say this from the bottom of my heart because after only a couple more mess ups, I had some more successful executions.  After, he starting giving me advice on my overall movement on the court.  I need to use my body more and move my feet…always.  More agile feet will produce more agile shots.  Soon, advice became informal coaching.  And this coaching coming from someone who always badgered me, someone whom I thought was really annoying and mean.  

And this came to me after we hit: I have something to learn from everyone, everyone.  So even when I meet someone who I really dislike, I have to remember that I still have something to learn from them.