Future Job Plans

A few days ago, I took this little quiz.  I usually don't hold much stock in these darn things.  I took tons of these as a Psych major and the one thing you learn when doing so, is that you can pretty much get any result you want, if you try hard enough (That doesn't stop me from taking the utterly ridiculous quizzes on BuzzFeed - What European city are you?!- mind you; I still jump into those with both feet and I'm still utterly annoyed when I don't get the results I want.  Seriously!?  How can they say I'm Prague rather than London!?)

But that's beside the point.  

Anyway, I was completely honest when choosing my personality types.  Based on their choices, I decided I was an ISFJ - Introverted, Sensor, Feeler, Judger.  It's true.  So imagine my surprise when I learned what my jobs were supposed to be:

School Teacher
Librarian
Franchise Owner

These are all pretty perfect for me, right?!  I am a teacher.  I LOVE to read and could totally live my work life in a library and one day I'm hoping to own the franchise of my father's as yet un-thought-about (by him not me) restaurant.  You might be thinking at this point that this quiz is so scientific it's scary.

But then you'd see the number one job and decide whoever wrote the quiz is a moron. According to the smart people of Meyers Briggs, I should be a..........DENTIST!  I mean, honestly?!  A dentist.  That by far is the stupidest thing I've ever heard.  But it was most definitely a good laugh : )

Walk it Off

I have a crazy boss, it has to be said.  She's one of those people that think you're living inside her head, and therefore should be able to anticipate every single thing she could possibly want even when what she wants is fairly ridiculous.  She's also pretty big on the whole underlings should do her dirty work presumably because she can't figure out how to use her own computer for things like clicking on links or viewing a calendar in Outlook. Yep, crazy as a hootie owl.

And as many times as I say I know she's crazy, I can't seem to not get totally annoyed and frazzled by her when she goes on a tear.  I may know it's not me causing the issue, but my nerves are pretty shot anyway.  Up until today.  Now, I'm not saying it'll work everytime, but today a walk helped.  I literally walked it off.  Who knew every coach in every bad high school movie that yelled at his players to "Walk it Off!" would be right?

I read an article a few weeks ago that said to take a deep breath when you were frazzled and focus all your energy on something else.  That's a little yoga-y for me, but I tried it during the walk, and it really helped.  Maybe it was the cold weather to shock my brain or maybe it really was the walk and deep breath, but I felt a lot better when I got back.  At crazy lady's rate of going postal, I'll be all set for a bikini this summer : )

Shy Girls Rule

I'm the first to admit that BuzzFeed can be a fairly ridiculous website focused on odd lists and hot people doing strange things.  However, once in a while, these crazy lists can be quite helpful. Today's 40 bits of advice for shy people was one of those lists.  If nothing else, it proves that I'm not the only one in the world that has these thoughts...on a daily basis. 

People like to think that saying "stop being shy" is actually helpful in the long run.  That it's one of those things that can just be turned on or off.  But it's not.  When you think about it, there are worse things one can be, than shy like depressed or anxious but at the time, when you're feeling shy, you can't think like that.  You can only focus on the fact you've said something ridiculous, or completely blanked or are literally just staring at a person because you're willing them to fill in the gap in the conversation.  

That's why tips like these are useful.  I'm not sure what to do in social situations - as Pinterest says, "social awkwardness is my super power."  Having some things in my back pocket to bring up in conversation is a saving grace.  I'm not saying actually saying these things is going to happen, but if push comes to shove, I can.  

My favorite though is number one on the list.  When meeting people, they have no expectation of your shyness.  Basically I can be who I want to be rather than who I am.   It'd be nice to focus on that rather than the fear I'll say something stupid or embarrassing.  Why have I not thought of this before? It seems fairly simple but apparently, I've been missing this simple fact for forever : )

An Evening with the Doctor

Last evening I (and about 500 other people) had the pleasure of spending a bit of time with Doctor Oliver Sacks.  Dr. Sacks is a world-renowned physician, neurologist and expert in all things brain-y.  I've been a huge fan of his since college, when we read "The Man Who Mistook his Wife for a Hat" which contained case studies of people with prosopagnosia or face blindness.  Since then, I've been fascinated by the idea of not recognizing someone based on facial features alone.  Sufferers of face blindness, can no longer recognize even those closest to them.  Once they leave a room, and come back, the person they are seeing is now a stranger to them until they speak or use some other distinguishing noise or movement.  So while I'm sure the initial description of the book made your eyes glaze over, you have to be at least a little intrigued by the premise.

That seems to be his greatest asset, along with his straight to the point writing style: choosing fascinating topics.  His book subjects range from catatonic patients waking up after being given a drug used to treat an entirely different ailment, what music does for the brain, Temple Grandin the autistic expert on animals, and most recently, hallucinations.   "Hallucinations" was the to be the basis for his discussion at this particular event and was given to the audience with their tickets.  

Now while hallucinations are a particularly interesting concept, you (like I did) would think that the discussion would have been riveting to say the least.  Edge of your seat stuff, surely.  Stories of patients seeing and hearing all sorts of shenanigans while under the influence of all sorts.  But sadly it was not.  It was interesting but quite different than I had imagined; not bad but not what I expected.  

Seeing as he's been writing for quite some time, I should have realized he would be slightly advanced in age.  Also, given my affinity for all things British, I should have known he was a Brit.  However, neither one of these things crossed my mind.  Doctor Sacks is now 80 years old and therefore talks quite quietly and not as quickly as he used to.  Add to that the thick British accent, and you'd see where one may have some difficulty.  

Timing was another issue.  He spoke for barely 40 minutes, with 20 minutes used mostly by the moderator.  I'm assuming this was because of his age and the sheer number of people that were hoping to have their books signed after he spoke.  However, even with the unexpected speed bumps, you could tell, he's just as clever as ever.  He seemed like a very sweet man who could take on any younger experts in his field without breaking a sweat; pretty much exactly as I've always imagined him...with some added British-ness.