Children of Men

This was my first time seeing "Children of Men" from beginning to end. I had seen most of it with my mom when I was back home and I distinctly remember how it made me nervous. Honestly, the first time I saw the movie, it had a greater impact on me. This could have been because I was really tired on Wednesday. I remember hoping throughout the entire movie that something like this would never happen to me. The violence and darkness everywhere was really depressing. When I think of the people who had the 'privilege' of living in Britain, I wonder if that is any life worth living. It just goes to show how we value our lives; they are willing to live in the streets and dirty buildings rather than be killed. Makes you think about what you would do if you were in that situation.

ENFJ represent!!

I think we all agree that the most exciting part of the presentation on personality types was the ending when we received our results from the Meyer Briggs assessment. After doing the activities our guest speaker gave us and looking over my assessment results, I found that they matched perfectly. This was really cool because it showed me I had a pretty good sense of who I was as a thinker and as a person.

I have an ENFJ type. This means many things, but an aspect that stuck out for me was that I am a big people person and I am good at understanding people. On the list of careers ENFJ personality types would do well in, the list was: facilitator, consultant, psychologist, social worker / counselor, teacher, clergy, sales representative, human resources, manager, events coordinator, sales representative, politicians / diplomat, and writer. Out of those listed, the social work/counselor, teacher, events coordinator, and psychologist stuck out to me. For someone who has no idea what I want to major in, these seemed the most interesting. I had already thought about being a social work for at-risk teens and families or a counselor of some kind. Now that I saw that these careers were good for people with my personality type, I felt a lot better about not knowing what I want to be.

I have been thinking a lot about what my future is going to look like. I still don't know what I want to do specifically, but I'm really glad I took this assessment because now I have careers I can picture myself pursuing.

On a different note, I started taking notes on for my ethnography (in the airport) but I suddently had no idea what to take notes on...any advice??

Cult of Personality Profiles

This was not the first time most of us had taken the MBTI. We had a general idea of what it was looking for, and we had every chance to front and get whichever letters we wanted out of it. What the woman who came to talk to us about the test would have said, had she had longer to speak, is that your real MBTI letters are not the ones that came out of the test, but the ones that you wrote down in what you thought you were.

No one can tell you who you are. It was a Greek ideal, a Renaissance ideal, and individualism has bloomed into one of the defining characteristics of an American-style democracy. Those who may or may not hate us for our freedom, often really do dislike our rugged individualism. This self-made idea allows the MBTI to give you information on how you act in certain situations but, as she said, you can change you personality, act often outside of your profile, so nothing too definitive comes from these letters.

Aside from helping people who have not done a lot of intraspection figure out why they are not getting along, I find the potential to help for the MBTI to be limited. Our visitor told us that she and her husband, who both know a significant amount about the test, argue over whether he is unfairly pegged with his letters and whether he has changed recently. She herself said that she can no longer take it honestly because she knows the consequences of each of the questions towards her letters.

As I come down, I find that the MBTI is a useful tool for understanding yourself and maybe even how you relate to others, but it must be taken with a grain of salt, for you can define yourself to an extent that no test can match or measure.

Reflection: Why yes, I do love college, thanks for asking!

Thinking on identity and putting up fronts, as always, coming home for my home's homecoming (haha, that sounds funny!) was really interesting. The new freshmen, trying to act all grown up now that they're in the high school; the new seniors, pretending they're so ready for college when they haven't even finished their applications; and then me and my friends, the newly graduated, who have to make sure they look well-put-together so that people can tell that we're happy and healthy.

I walked down the road with my best friend, stopping to hug basically anyone and everyone we knew, each time the same question being asked, "How do you like college?!" We would say we loved it, that we were having a great time, that classes were incredible, and that no, we weren't homesick. While perhaps most of that may have been true for me, it wasn't for my friend. And as we walked away she said to me "I love telling people how much I love college. It's so much easier than explaining why it sucks."

And honestly, how many random people really want you to come home only to hear how miserable you are? They don't, because it's a downer, and frankly it's also none of their business. It's said out of politeness, to show that you recognize someone's situation, but you're not really concerned about their well-being.

It leads itself to the question, Is it considered putting up a front if the person asking how you are, isn't really all that interested in your honest answer?

Fact v. Fiction in Autobiographies: The Million Little Pieces Effect

It is easy to draw comparisons between Augustine's Confessions and Ellison's Invisible Man. As Professor Jackson said, they both were "written in a retrospective way, they are recalling past events and imbuing them with a significance that they might not have had at the time. In addition, both write autobiographically, in the first person; the main actor is "I" in each work." However, the significant difference, that one is fact and the other fiction, creates a rift between these two works in the parameters in which they can be effective. The limitation on Augustine's work is that his teaching stories and remembrances must be confined to the truth. On the other hand, Ellison is not confined to the truth and may twist his story here and there to convey his intended meaning. However, if Ellison crosses the line of believability, he loses his audience who would perceive it as ridiculous. Augustine can cross this line (though he does not really do so) because it simply makes his story more magnificent. Though if either stray too far from fact in their autobiographical works, they risk what I like to call the Million Little Pieces Effect.

The Millions Little Pieces Effect occurs when one's fact-based book or story strays so from fact so as to be unbelievable, yet, based on its genre, people believe it for a while. Eventually the story comes out, however, and the potential that the book would have had is a true piece of fiction is destroyed by the public outrage at it being published as fact or near-fact.

Based on these past couple of paragraphs, one can see where this blog is leading. Of course it makes a difference if something is fact or fiction. Fiction has potential that fact does not and vis versa. However, fact has the potential to make the unbelievable amazing, while fiction only makes it annoying. Had Augustine's work been a novel, it would have lacked any of the conversion power that it held as a true and amazing account of his life. Likewise, if Ellison's work was pure fact, it would be controversial to a fault, embarrassing and incriminating for those involved, and very likely repulsive to much of the general public. The fictional mask that it puts on allows Invisible Man to teach a lesson to all those who read it without bringing in the obvious extra issues that a true personal history would entail.

Analysis Question #6

I think that Augustine's confessions/autobiography would have done much better if it were more like Ellison's book. I don't believe it really matters if a memoir is fictional or nonfictional as long is it is believable easy to read. Most of the reason I didn't like Augustine is because he spoke in a language that was hard to understand, and for me, the religious aspect was hard to relate to and I couldn't follow it as easily. The Invisible Man, on the other hand, is still not relatable but much easier to read because Ellison makes it sound more like a story. Even though the story is fictional, it is believable because at the time, this way of life was common. I also like how it is a memoir all the way through, whereas Augustine was much more philosophical. I Augustine, he complains about how he feels guilty for stealing pears and such, but in The Invisible Man, the main character is dealing with much more serious issues. This makes me like Ellison's memoir much more. How could I be interested in a man who feels guilty about stolen pears when the man in The Invisible Man is dealing with racism at its worst?

Analysis Question #5 (forgot to do this earlier...woops!)

I have read other autobiographies before, and I have to say, not every single one was full of dramatic experiences or life-changing moments. Yes, there are the autobiographies about celebrities or other famous people that do contain these dramatic experiences, but what about all the autobiographies about friends or family? I have had to write autobiographies almost every year and had to peer review for them, so I have read a lot that were not by someone famous. One thing I found was that even if this person did not have the most exciting life experiences, it was still interesting as a reader to see their "back region" Writing can make anyone's guard come down, especially in autobiographies since it is about that specific individual's own life and experiences. They can be as honest as they want without worrying about seeing the reader's reaction. This is what grabs me as a reader. The more truthful the writer is and the more I can relate to the writer, the more I am interested in reading about their life.

I guess what I am trying to say is that you don't have to be the president of the United States or Oprah Winfrey to have an interesting autobiography that is worth reading. I think any kind of life would be exciting to read about because it lets you see how others perceive themselves and the world.