Going Back & Looking Back

Made this in Blender. It's one version of something I made for J. It's the most obnoxious of them all!

So, break is winding down and I'm realizing that I haven't done... anything, really. I didn't get back to my high school, I didn't see anyone aside from J, and I didn't really accomplish any of the things I wanted to accomplish (like getting a cello... shut up, J).

But that's okay. I've done quite a bit of writing and learned a significant amount in Blender/GIMP. Break has been nice. Not having to do stuff is really nice, actually. So I just spent a good portion of my time letting the creativity run rampant. Oh, and video games. Did some good catching up on my excessively large backlog of games. Other than that, I hung out with J three times, and spent a bunch of time with my parents. Not too shabby.

Definitely haven't done as much blogging as I'd like, but I'm finding that pumping out a post a week is a bit of a challenge. I need to post when I feel like it... if that means two days apart, fine... if that means two weeks apart, that's fine, too.

As for going back itself, I'm not really overly excited about having to do stuff again. With that said, I get to see J again (it will have been two whole weeks since I last saw her!), and that's my favorite part of the whole thing. Aside from that, I'm going to fall back in love with the excellent university Internet connection and, I won't lie, I do like having some structure in my life.

I get back to campus on Sunday and classes resume on Wednesday. Between now and then, I need to start figuring out my sleep schedule. Last sleep cycle (I can't even use calendar days anymore), I was awake from 1:15PM to 8AM. That's just not gonna work! Especially since J has so kindly asked me to be her breakfast buddy this semester. That means getting up and being ready to eat breakfast by 8:20am.

This will be interesting...

- E.

Winter Break & Break from Blogging

Entirely unrelated: Burg-Eltz Castle in Austria. Looks cool; I like castles.

You know, I really haven't done as much blogging as I thought I would. I've been home for several weeks now and the blogging just didn't really take off. I've been busy nearly every weekend and I've somehow managed to fill the rest of my time with entirely useless activities.

Break has been pretty good. I've seen J a bunch, which is awesome. We've gone swing dancing, ran around the city, hit a museum, and saw Trans-Siberian Orchestra. I also took her around to some of the stuff out here in "boo foo land." I later found out that she liked it here more than she thought she would. Guess she'll have to come back sometime soon!

Quick thing on TSO: the show was awesome. Shut up, J, I did not sleep through any portion of it. I'm sorry that I only had like six hours of sleep. We watched two of the greatest movies ever, remember? Men Who Stare at Goats and Hot Fuzz? Yeah, it was kinda late when we went to bed. Anyways, TSO puts on killer live performances. Lights, pyro, lots of movement on stage, etc. Really fun, really entertaining. This one was titled The Lost Christmas Eve and the storyline component of the show revolves around an angel trying to find the human who is most like God's son. It develops in to something a bit more interesting, though, so if you haven't seen it... I'd recommend it. Word of warning: don't let the word "orchestra" fool you. It's loud. My dad said something along the lines of "If I had known it was going to be that loud, I would have brought earplugs." But if you're in to orchestral rock... well, it's probably right up your alley. (For those interested in seeing more: http://www.trans-siberian.com/)

Oh, and one more thing before I sign off. Since I last posted, you'll most likely have noticed we now have fancy artwork. I've got the tiny version in the upper right there and the bigger version as the blog background. A friend of mine is a programming student and he helped me out with a little HTML to keep the background fixed rather than scrolling. I think it looks better this way. As for the image itself, I used GIMP (akin to Photoshop, but free) to create it. Dark gray background... downloaded some fun brushes... had J pick out a nice color combo... figured out the font... and there you have it.

I really hope someone finds my excessively long posts entertaining, though. J is under the impression that less is more and I might be inclined to agree... but at least I give people something to dig in to. I also actually post on this thing, so y'know... there is actually stuff to read.

At any rate, late as it is... Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. Hope everyone had good times!

- E.

Salutations.

Hello there. 

I thought I would make an appearance on here, considering I'm one of the writers on this amazing blog. Also, because we've almost hit 100 page views! Woot! Have to enjoy the simple things in life...

Anyways, I suppose I'm referred to as J. This could be an initial or my secret agent name. Who really knows? 

So who am I? I'm a girl. I am an introvert. I am a musician. I am a writer. I am a dancer. I am a wannabe theatre kid. I am an INFJ. I am obsessed with quotes. I am curious. I am optimistic. I am me. 

I feel as though one of the most difficult things is introducing yourself to complete strangers, so...that's all I have to say for now. 

Tootles

-J

On My Fascination With MBTI

Since it appeared in my first post and it's something I frequently talk about (ask J), I figure it's time to delve in to WHY this guy is fascinated (obsessed?) with the Myers-Briggs Typology system. But first, a primer. 

What is it? 

Basically, it's a system of categorizing individuals based on four qualities. They are:

• Introversion versus Extraversion
• iNtuition versus Sensing
• Thinking versus Feeling
• Judging versus Perceiving

From this we get the four letters that we use to describe ourselves. In my case: INTJ. That means I'm introverted, intuitive, thinking, and judging. Now, you also get a number with each letter that determines how dominant or pronounced the quality is. Introverted with a score of 10 is rather weakly Introverted and may exhibit Extravert tendencies on occasion. Similarly, someone who is Judging 90 would very rarely (if ever) behave in a Perceiving way.

This was developed collaboratively and with other systems as a foundation. If you want to read up on it, I think your best bet is to head over to Wikipedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MBTI). I'm not here to give a lecture on MBTI... I just want to talk about my fascination with it. So, moving on ...

Why I like it:

It's organized.

One thing I like is how organized the system is. Two introverts share common traits regardless of whatever other letters they have. Because of this, it's kind of a modular system. As an INTJ, I'm really similar to J's INFJ. We share a lot of common qualities, but the T-F split causes us to handle problems and make decisions differently. With that said, we both "hate people," we both understand the world primarily through intuition (trusting our "guts"), and we generally have opinions on things.

It's logical.

The system just makes sense. Take the E-I split, for example. Being an introvert does NOT make you antisocial or incapable of handling social interaction. It does generally mean you favor smaller groups and enjoy alone time. What it really is getting at, though, is how people affect your energy level... as an introvert, I find being social a little bit tiring. Most of the time I need to retreat to my room after a few hours. When I'm there, I can "recharge" and gather myself again. Extroverts are opposite. What I like about this is that each letter is speaking on multiple facets of personality.

It encompasses everyone.

And... everybody fits. No one gets left out. "But I don't fit any four-letter combination!" you say. Wrong! Even if you weakly register to a letter in all four categories, it still means something. Everybody exhibits specific behaviors and I strongly believe we all fit in one of sixteen buckets. It's limited but not too limited. Besides, it's really fun to try and peg what type someone is. If they've never taken the test, I like to guess beforehand and have them take it. If they have, I try to guess then and there. You can get pretty good at it. The scary part is when you start recognizing just how much people actually follow the description of their type...

It's accurate.

Which leads me in to how creepy you can come off if you start pegging people's thoughts, feelings, and motivations based on their personality type. Word of warning: probably not good to run around playing Buddha (J's term here). Unless you want to be viewed as crazy, in which case it's a great way to become the local madman. Seriously, though... It's really entertaining with the right crowd. Close friends or people who "get you" will probably actually really appreciate (and find humorous) that you can pick up stuff based on this information. I enjoy it, anyways.

It works.

And everything I have said would be a lie (and a waste of Internet space) if the system didn't work. As I've said, it's possible to peg feelings and motivations with this stuff. It's powerful, entertaining, and somewhat enlightening. I like applying what I know about INTJ's to myself to better understand why I think/feel the way I do about certain things. It's a boatload of fun, probably more than it should be, but I like spending some time analyzing myself. I'm not crazy, I swear! It's no different than any other form of reflection.

DISCLAIMER: This is all my opinion. I'm not arguing scientific validity although I'm sure I will discuss that at some point (possibly without taking a side).

So, in general, it's just fun and effective. For me, at least. And I just can't help myself.

- E.

Complaints About Home

I've been home a few days now and I've started to notice a few things which are... missing. This is a short list of the stuff I miss about college and/or dislike about home. They're in no particular order and some are, well, just awful, really. But oh well... just laugh; we laugh to keep from crying.

• The kitchen is really far away from my room. At school, I can stand up at my desk and almost all of my food is right in front of my face. Whatever isn't there is in the fridge which is about five feet away. Here, the kitchen is downstairs. There is probably twenty feet of horizontal distance and ten feet of vertical distance between me and the kitchen...
• All of my friends are someplace else. At least J lives fairly close but like... ~80 miles is a little bit of a trek compared to a short five minute walk across campus. And the average distance between me and my friends has got to be well over one hundred miles. As for my high school friends... well, there are like... five of those. But that's not the point! Most of them aren't even back yet anyways.
• I'm far more accessible to my parents when I'm here. Don't get me wrong, I love my parents. And they're also 100% of the reason I am able to go to the university. But dealing with everything once or twice a week when we talk on the phone rather than being bombarded with unnecessary questions or comments all the time... well, it's just nice to have that distance.
• Being the center of attention is annoying. It hasn't happened too much yet but generally-speaking, everyone wants to know how the college student is doing. What am I, some sort of alien? Is the world of higher education some crazy planet that's light years away? I realize part of it is an active interest in my life but I feel like the other half is some form of gawking. Like those people who drive really slow past an accident to see what happened even though it's just an accident.
• There's nothing to do. I'm sure if I really looked, I could find some fascinating things to keep myself occupied with. But not really. Because out here in "Boofooland," as J would call it, there's not a damn thing going on. That leaves hanging out with my friends who - wait for it - are either not back here yet or live a gazillion miles away.
• I'm hungry all the damn time and there's no fast food within a short distance. At school, I can literally go downstairs and walk across the street to the student center. Here, I would have to get in my car and drive a minimum of ten minutes to get something to eat at 2:00am in the morning. Laziness, maybe... but geez. It definitely gives perspective. Also, I should probably eat less because it feels like all I do is eat.
• Internet is slow. It's not just slow, it's unreliable. I think I completely lost my connection three times earlier. It's not a huge deal but when you get accustomed to a rock-solid, super-fast university connection... it's a little irksome to have to stop what you're doing and wait the five minutes it takes your ridiculous radio-based Internet to sort itself out.

Anyways, that's enough ranting for now. I'm going to go to sleep because it's nearly 6:00am here and I'm trying to get on a more normal sleep schedule. I was going to visit my high school tomorrow (well, today) but that's definitely not going to happen now. By the time I wake up, it'll probably be close to school letting out anyhow. Hopefully someone out there finds this entertaining.

And yes, I realize I have a fantastic life. I don't need to be told. I just like to complain.

I'm a university student; aside from eating, sleeping, and working... it's what I do.

As J would say, "tootles."

- E.

Some days, feels like I need a little bit of this... and no, I don't even drink.

Winter Break

Winter Break starts up soon (I go home tomorrow) and I'm really not that excited to go back home.

Same as before, I just don't feel like there's that much there for me anymore. I'm going to miss all of my new friends! Our break is around six weeks and that's an awfully long time to put my new life on hold and sit around at home. Hopefully I can see a friend or two from high school. I don't keep up with many of those people anymore, but there are a handful I wouldn't mind sitting down for lunch or dinner with. I've got some plans brewing but nothing too much...

Awesome close-up of a snowflake.

I am particularly excited for a few things, though... I'll be picking up the cello over this break and I'm going to a swing event with J. Also will be seeing the Trans-Siberian Orchestra (J - you going or not?!). So I have a few things to look forward to. I suppose I look forward to Christmas, but only in the sense that I like the atmosphere for those few days.

All in all, I could use a break... I'm just not sure being home for those 40-odd days is exactly the break I want or need. But, in light of the season, to anyone reading this: Happy Holidays! I hope yours is fun, fancy, and fulfilling!

- E.

Finals: In the Rearview Mirror

We laugh to keep from crying...

Finals have been going on here at the university recently. I had my lost one today at 9:00am... so early! Not to mention that I got about an hour and a half of sleep and ended up showing up 40 minutes late to the final. Luckily my teacher is one of those guys who will just smile and shake his head. I finished the thing with plenty of time to spare, at any rate, and the class is a guaranteed decent grade. Would have been nice to dominate the test and get that A, but what can I say?

Anyways, I've made some observations about myself and about finals over the course of my three-day finals adventure:

• I am kind of lazy. Really. By the time I hit study day (Wednesday) I was budgeting study time 50/50 between actually studying and taking breaks in alternating one hour increments. In retrospect, that was an awful system and I should have started way earlier... because my studying was actually somewhat effective in two of my classes.
• Finals aren't that bad. They really aren't. I know it depends a lot on the course and instructor, but were I to sit down a good two weeks before finals and actually planned out legitimate study patterns... I probably would have shredded every one of my finals. So my goal for next semester is to do just that: shred every final.
• Swing dancing does NOT equal studying for a business exam. I went over to a nearby university last night for a Christmas ball... it was a fabulous time but it really didn't improve my knowledge of business at all. Needless to say, that final at 9:00am was a rough one but... well, y'know, when your grade can't go down due to the grading structure of the course...
• J is good at reading my business book to me at 3:30am. Such a trooper. I was falling asleep half the time...

In general, I feel okay about my finals. I really could have done better but for my first set of finals, I think I did pretty damn well. GPA concerns are starting to come up but as long as I do my job correctly (read: better) next semester, I think everything will be fine.

Let's hope so, anyways. P-O-S-I-T-I-V-I-T-Y! Positivity!

- E.