A Curious Girl: You are the kind of person who hates personality tests

You never quite realise how silly personality tests are until you realise they're done in official contexts. I'm quite happy to play around with The Spark and Emode and other fun things, but most of them aren't going to tell me anything that I don't already know. The most interesting thing I've discovered via this medium was probably one test which concluded that if I was any character in Babylon 5, I would be Vir Kotto. Which depressed me somewhat, but I think I learned more about Vir than I did about myself - ie. despite being timid and every now and again being voted the worst character in B5, he's actually an interesting character - has a sense of humour and can be loud but is also quite shy and has trouble standing up to people, he's conscientious and willing to be radical on matters of conscience, such as wanting to marry for love (unheard of in his culture) and taking a stand against the barbarism of his culture against other races, and he also has a destiny - like all characters on B5, he's four dimensional (meaning his character has depth and breadth and length and also changes with time :) ). So yeah, he's not such a bad character after all. At least, that's what I tell myself :)

We had a careers workshop yesterday. The careers adviser asked if anyone had any ideas of what they wanted to do. I dared myself to say, "I want to become a goatherd in the Hebrides" (actually I'd prefer the Apennines - much warmer) but didn't. She directed us through a couple of personality exercises yesterday. I discovered that I am apparently one of the "quiet observers. Idealistic, loyal. Important that outer life be congruent with inner values. Curious, quick to see possibilities, often serve as catalysts to implement ideas. Adaptable, flexible, and accepting unless a value is threatened. Want to understand people and ways of fulfilling human potential. Little concern for possessions or surroundings."

Of course, some of that is true. Some of it isn't. Some of the other 'personality types' also sounded like me. The questions were silly and subjective and I suspect anyone who happily sequesters people into sixteen personality types of being rather anal-retentive. Plus they always say that introverts are quiet, which is patently untrue - or at least, it is if I am an introvert. Although I find it rather amusing that, after my planned "goatherd" response, my first thought when I saw the description for me was "hermit".

The only good thing about the session was it did get me thinking - I have to get voluntary work next term, and I'm also thinking how I don't want to work for a big company... heck, I didn't like the Christian Union for their hierarchical system, I wouldn't last a week working for a large corporation. Of course, this possibly doesn't bode well for being a teacher, but we'll see :)

Still, if you think you're going to find yourself through a personality test, think again.

Random word for today: sequester

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