Wistfully Seeking Happily Ever After

photo from deviant art

Ris gave me an idea for a pretty thought-provoking, candid post without having to write too coherently. For someone who's wired on too little sleep after waking up way too early, it was a godsend.

I know, I know, you're thinking, "What another meme?" Not exactly. But humor me... it really does get interesting. And since Ris didn't really tag me, I'm not obliged to tag you either. Nonetheless, I'm pretty sure you'll want to take your turn at it after you read it, just to satisfy your curiosity about you.

Haven't you ever wondered about your image choices have to say about you? If you have, you can also take this scarily insightful little LoveDNA test.



I'm borrowing another page from Ris' blog by uploading image captures of my results to share with you guys. How on the money is it? As I said, it's scarily insightful. I'll let my results speak for themselves. (If you have a hard time reading the text on the images, you can find the results by clicking the preceding link or clicking the images to see larger versions of them.)











I guess despite everything, this closet romantic is still wistfully seeking happily ever after.

What's your LoveDNA?

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Personality Test Junkie Strikes Again

I've stumbled upon yet another personality test that I couldn't resist - and it comes with a nifty little badge, too.

Chalk it up to fascination with how people's minds and feelings - including my own - work. It was this same fascination that led me to choose Psychology as my pre-med major in college - and I loved every minute of it.

Even as a kid, I used to enjoy answering these introspective self-evaluations. It didn't matter if they were official ones given by our guidance office or those silly scored pop-psych quizzes found in magazines.

The badge above shows my personality type according to the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI), which is based on the personality theories of Carl Jung. It operates on the principle that we are born with or develop certain ways of thinking and acting. It aims to sort behavior into the combination of four "opposite" pairs: extraversion - introversion, sensation - intuition, thinking - feeling, judging - perceiving. This results in 16 possible psychological types made up of varying combinations of four of the eight components above.

While taking the "personality test" on the myPersonality.info site is hardly the same as taking the real MBTI test, which is longer, more comprehensive, and validated, it does give you a pretty good idea of what type you might fall under.

I am allegedly an INFP - Intraverted - iNtuitive - Feeling - Perceiving - also known as the "Dreamer."

"INFPs are introspective, private, creative and highly idealistic individuals that have a constant desire to be on a meaningful path. They are driven by their values and seek peace. Empathetic and compassionate, they want to help others and humanity as a whole. INFPs are imaginitive, artistic and often have a talent for language and writing. They can also be described as easy-going, selfless, guarded, adaptable, patient and loyal."

How on the money is that description of an INFP in relation to me as a person? Well, I'll leave that for my friends to decide more objectively after they read more about it here. (For those who want to comment how accurate this is in describing me, please feel free to leave your comments.) But in a lot of ways it does strike pretty close to home.

I've always known that one should take the results of these tests with a grain of salt, but when answered honestly and candidly, they also almost always contain a grain of truth.

Much as I like answering all these personality quizzes, I also love sharing them with friends and convincing them to answer them, too. So it's your turn! If you're up to it, take this MBTI quiz at Personality.info and create your own badge to embed in the comment form when you share your results. It's easy to answer - and actually a lot of fun.

I'm looking forward to seeing all of your badges! :)

(Disclaimer: This is NOT a sponsored post. I really just like spreading this kind of love around. I am even making it an informal tag - so Raymond, Ris, and Marlowe, head on to that website, answer, and blog about it! :))
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Journeys from A to B

For the past few days, I've been promising to wake up really early so I could watch the sunrise and walk along the white sand beach encircling the island before I going to work. But, despite being generally an early riser, I've been finding it so difficult to drag myself out of bed.

This lazy morning start is such a stark contrast to the frenetic pace at which I used to prepare for another day at the hospital. It was always a race against time to get into the train before 7AM and start traveling before the rush hour crowd hit. In the hospital, so much has already happened by 9AM - over here, at 9AM, my day is just beginning.

I love it.

I've always suspected that I am really a Type B person hiding behind a Type A facade. This easy slide into indolence might be proof that this is true. Maybe it's just my way of recovering from almost seven straight years of Type A living. Then again, it could just be the influence of living on an island.

I find myself spending time in between consults planning where I am going to catch the sunset this afternoon. I spend my lunch break walking barefoot on the deserted beach under the noonday sun, fed by the sight of the cool turquoise-blue ocean and blindingly white sand as far as the eye can see. And I love ending my day by choosing a spot on the beach where I sit and watch the shifting colors of the sky at dusk. Nights are particularly beautiful out here, where the only "bright lights" are the moon and the light of thousands of stars you can only imagine seeing in Manila.

It's so refreshing to go through a day without any definite plan. To watch the world and the day go by, just waiting for something to happen. To be at ease in a state of "maybe I will... maybe I won't... maybe tomorrow."

I know part of the reason why I manage to stay reasonably sane in such a remote place is having a ready connection to the outside world and the comforts of city-living. I would probably be singing a different tune if I didn't have the internet or electricity for an extended period of time. I have no illusions about being cut out for a rural existence in the Filipino context. No amount of natural beauty would entice me to settle permanently somewhere with no modern plumbing. But I can imagine being happy living somewhere that is not quite as urban as Manila, but not quite as untouched and remote as this place before it was developed. And I am definitely developing a taste for this kind of back-to-nature get-away as a place to kick back and relax and find my center again.

I will come back to Real Life soon enough. But for now, I'm closing shop and am going to look for a place where I can collect another sunset. Maybe it will be a good night for stars. And maybe I will finally get to walk around the island tomorrow morning. If not... well. There's always the next day.

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Blogthings

Confession: I am addicted to on-line pop psych quizzes. :)


It's an echo of my psychology background, I think. Or maybe it's just that inherent curiosity to figure out what makes one's mind tick. I would have pursued psychiatry just to satisfy my curiosity -- only I knew enough that I didn't have the mental constitution to work with psychiatric patients without losing it myself! So here I am, satiating my frustrated psychologist with pop psych quizzes.

These quizzes are as far from science as one can get -- but they're fun and do sometimes provide you with an insight about yourself or your friends you wouldn't get otherwise.

Well... at least that's my excuse. ;P What's yours?

You Are A Romantic Realist

You tend to be grounded when it comes to romance. Sure, you can fall hard... but only for someone you've gotten to know. And once you're in love, you can be a total romantic goofball... But you'd never admit it to your friends!

Are You Romantic or Realistic?

What Your Latte Says About You

You are very decadent in all aspects of your life. You never scale back, and you always live large. You can be quite silly at times, but you know when to buckle down and be serious. You have a good deal of energy, but you pace yourself. You never burn out too fast. You're addicted to caffeine. There's no denying it. You are a child at heart, and you don't ever miss the opportunity to do something playful. You are exotic and cosmopolitan, but you are never a show off.

What Does Your Latte Say About You?

Your Inner Muse is Thalia

You are most like this playful muse of comedy. Life is all about laughter to you, and you're a natural comic. You make people laugh until their sides split. And you're always up for some play time!

What Muse Are You?

You Are Cheesecake

Rich, sweet, and simply perfect. You're not boring - you're just the best!

What Dessert Are You Most Like?

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Confessions of a Pack Rat in Training

I began cleaning out my desk at the senior's call room the other day in preparation for moving out by the 15th, and I was amazed at the amount of stuff I had managed to accumulate over the past 3 years.

I was literally immobilized by my bafflement for a good thirty minutes as I pondered how I was able to fit in so many things in the small area that is my desk and how I was to go about bringing everything home.

The inevitable solution was not pretty... I was going to have to throw some of my stuff away.


I admit it. I am a pack rat of the worst magnitude. The thought of discarding anything that can still be remotely useful or sentimental (if only in my own mind) causes a twinge in my pack rat consciousness. This explains why my college chemistry and algebra textbooks are still taking up space on my already overflowing bookshelves at home, why my obsessive-compulsive notes from high school Spanish and cans of letters from friends written during elementary school are still somewhere taking up space in our bodega. My room at home is still recovering from the impact of all the things I couldn't throw away and hauled back home when I moved out of my apartment.

Very good reasons why I have to fight my primal impulse to simply bring everything home.

Simply put, I desperately need more room, but I just can't bear to part with the stuff.

I do try to clean out my personal spaces every now and then, but the effort it takes is tremendous -- there's just so much stuff that it takes me an entire day just to sort through all the clutter and the dust. It's a painfully slow process, made more so by the time I take to examine every little thing and debate the whether to toss it or keep it. In the end, I keep almost everything anyway, making the whole process an exercise in futility.

I have managed to clean out about 75% of my desk, and of the 75%, I've managed to chuck out about 30% of my stuff. I still brought home a good number of unused prescription pads and pharma company patient record pads for future use (yeah, right!) or as scratch paper. I wanted to bring home the little notebooks, too, but thankfully, one of my batchmates asked me for them so she can give them away to her nieces and nephews. All of my drug samples are still unsorted, but I've resolved to turn them over to the incoming 1st year residents so they can use the stuff for their patients in the wards. But looking through the remaining 25% left on my desk, I anticipate bringing the rest of it home.

Frankly, if I could bring my entire desk home with me, I would.

My pack rat tendencies extend to my computer hard drive (my heart broke when my dad threw out our old DOS PC before I could rescue my files from it) and my iPod (where I have 2600 plus songs - 10 Gig worth - and no plans of deleting any of them). It makes me wonder whether there are other things, thoughts, and attitudes in my life that I am compulsively holding on to.

Having been a student of human behavior made me curious, so I did a little bit of research on it. I found this article that fellow pack rats will find interesting. The scary part about it is, while I don't think I've reached the status of compulsive hoarder, there are glimpses of me in small doses all over that article.

Obviously, it's high time to start cleaning up and throwing useless things away - not just from my desk, my room, and my closet -- but from my life. And I'd like to think that I've already started on that by refusing to take the path of least resistance. It's painful work, but it has to be done. I sure as heck do not want to end up becoming the lonely old lady surrounded by and eventually buried by all her stuff!


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