Friday, December 19, 2008

Personality Test



So I finally got my PSAT back! I didn't do that well on the math (most of it I hadn't learned,) but I did alright on everything else. With my result information, I was told to go to a certain www.collegeboard.com/quickstart to register myself for future help for college and practice tests. While I was searching the site, my dad told me to take a personality quiz on the website. The test is supposed to describe me, and tell me what kind of things I should be looking for in my future profession. It was a really scary, and extremely long personality quiz that was nearly 200 questions. The scariest part was the result... I never thought that I would hear anybody describe me so accurately and well as the personality quiz did! Take a look at my results! If you don't really know me that well, I think you will learn a lot about me from this. And if you do know me well already, this might tell you a lot more about me that you didn't know.

According to this test, I'm similar to a startling 5% personality-wise compared to the rest of our planet. 5% which is a shockingly small percentage compared to the rest of the percentages. They call my personality type ENFZ (which stands for Extroverting, Intuiting, Feeling, Organizing.) In their even simpler words, "The Communicator."

"ENFZs are social, compassionate, and creative. As an ENFZ you take an organized approach to helping others overcome their problems. In fact, you prefer structure and predictability in all your activities. You are particularly concerned with expressing and living up to your personal beliefs and values, and you tend to understand the world in emotional terms. Your attention is most often focused on improving conditions around you. In that regard, you strive for harmony within yourself and peaceful coexistence with others. You value personal growth, authenticity of expression, and loyalty to others.

You like to talk things over with friends and family members, but when you sense potential conflict, you tend to change the subject in order to avoid unpleasant interaction. You care a lot about what people think of you and try to please others through deeds and actions; likewise, you have a deep concern for the welfare of others and enjoy talking with and helping them whenever possible. You make friends easily and quickly share your feelings, opinions, and ideas. Your openness enables you to establish deep and lasting friendships.

Your greatest task is to find a fulfilling path, and once identified you will pursue it to the end. You have an abundance of energy and enthusiasm for your vision, but little patience with those who don't share or support your goals. You excel at communicating ideas verbally, which facilitates your capacity to get along with many different types of people. Your attention is drawn to a broad range of interests and activities: you love to study and learn and can find value in almost any topic although intellectual, theoretical, and spiritual subjects interest you the most.

ENFZs are often found in career fields where they can forge meaningful relationships with people and generate creative solutions that make the world a better place in which to live. As an ENFZ you will be most satisfied and productive when you're involved in work that allows you to work on projects and tasks with other people you like and trust. You are most interested in jobs that allow you to achieve your personal mission."

Strengths include...
Energy, warmth, enthusiasm, and cooperation.
An ability to draw out the best in others.
Efficiency.
A systematic and orderly approach to planning and reaching goals.
A positive attitude.
A commitment to finding mutually beneficial resolutions to problems.
Effectively motivating and leading others.
A sense of personal integrity and high moral standards.
Turning the ideal into reality.
Predicting future trends and seeing potential problems.

Learn Best with...
An energetic and friendly classroom atmosphere.
The big picture rather than the small details.
A focus on issues having important applications for the future.
Group study and personal interaction with others.
Imaginative and people-oriented teachers.
People-related and inspirational topics, such as those within the humanities and social sciences.
Assignments that promote verbal expression.
Topics about how to help others.

When interacting social with others...
Speak with energy and excitement.
Give impromptu responses.
Prefer face-to-face conversation to written communication.
Use metaphors, analogies, and symbols to communicate ideas.
Read between the lines.
Discuss solutions to future problems.
Are persuaded by emotional or personal insight.
Communicate using personal experience to make a point.

In order to maximize potential and decrease weak personal areas...
Monitor and control your emotions.
Let go of plans and ideas that don't work.
Keep dreams and ideas anchored in reality.
Confront conflict early so it doesn't grow into a bigger problem.
Be more cautious when making new friends.
Don't overcommit yourself.
Look at criticism constructively.
Think things through before you react.


I never thought that somebody would know me that well, let alone a computer. Do you think it's accurate? I sure was shocked.

Wednesday, December 17, 2008

The Stories of King Arthur and Don Quixote

     If any of you finish reading this essay, then you are an Arthurian legend! I was rather proud of myself for this one, so bare with me. This was a thirty point part of a test that we had thirty minutes to write, and here was the result; my essay comparing the tales of King Arthur, and the parody Don Quixote (also known as Man of La Mancha.) Good luck, may Excalibur be with you!

     Though the lands of La Mancha and Camelot were far apart, the stories of both Don Quixote of La Mancha and King Arthur of Camelot have similar literary concepts. The stories are comparable in that they both involve a type of “courtly love” and romance as well as foils to help give characters defining characteristics. The Arthurian legends and the parody of Don Quixote still remain popular stories, because they can still inspire and entertain all ages.


     In the stories of Don Quixote and Arthur, romance plays a key part. Arthur was born to King Uther and Igraine, parents who were not married at the time that his mother first became pregnant. Although that isn’t exactly considered, “romantic”, the romantic notion of courtly love continued later in Arthur’s life when his best friend “Sir Lancelot” fell in love with his wife, Queen Guinevere. In the novel Don Quixote, Cervante’s concepts of romance are the same, even though they are skewed to make the story more comedic. The “knight errant,” Don Quixote, dedicated himself to a bar-maid whom he barely knew; she wasn’t even a noblewoman as was tradition! Don Quixote’s “courtly love” with Dulcinea was an insanely conceived way for him to try to follow the normal knight “code.” Despite the fact that his love interest wasn’t exactly ideal, he did worship her from afar, just like Tristan and Iseult, and Lancelot and Guinevere.


     A must in all medieval knight legends was the “side kicks” to the main hero, often a squire or a fellow knight. Generally foils were the complete opposite of the hero and lots of times they were everything the hero wasn’t, even though they were best friends or very helpful to their hero counterparts. In the tales of Arthur, Lancelot was the king’s counterpart. Lancelot was not as shining as his idol at first. He was a lonely young nobleman who wanted to prove that his outward appearance would one day be out matched by his skills and talents. He became who he wanted to be (while still an outsider) because of his idol, King Arthur. In Don Quixote, his sidekick (a married peasant and famer,) serves as a perfect squire to his crazy master and counterpart, Don Quixote. The short and plump farmer, who rides on a measly donkey, is completely uneducated, yet he tries to help his master see reality. Sancho provides many opportunities for Don Quixote to have humorous and witty lines that contradict him. It is significant to the comparison of the two tales that Arthur’s best friend became his foil, betraying him and in part, causing his downfall, while Quixotic’s newfound friend and foil, ironically, stays loyal to him until the end.

     Even in our twenty-first century society, there are still important parts of literature that almost every story has. There are problems that the heroes have to face, such as Arthur having to punish his wife over his best friend, and Don Quuixote being in love with a “lady” who is a common barmaid. Each individual Arthurian legend, and the novel of Don Quixote contains metaphors, descriptions, details, trials or problems, and at the end, everything is resolved (whether happily or sadly.) Because of Cervante’s, and the many authors of Arthurian tales, wonderful adventures, heroism, love stories, and humor, both stories remain popular to this day.

     Overall the stories of King Arthur and Don Quixote were fairly similar. Both stories included lots of romantic and chivalrous drama, as well as character foils to support both the plot and the heroes, and finally, because of the literary techniques and devices, both the heroes and their stories remain well known, highly acclaimed classics of literature.

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Game Time!

I wanted to have a bit of fun on my blog, so let's play a game, shall we? I'm going to put ten movie quotes from either my favorite movies, or movies that I like. I'll start out easy, and then I'll get harder. You can just post your guesses on comments!(I'll delete them later so other people can't use them.) So for now just write your guesses on a paper, good luck! When you are done guessing, look at the very bottom of my blog to complete the game.

1. "The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the water spout. Down came the Goblin and took the spider out. "

2. "I just like smiling, smiling's my favorite!"

3. "I'm a damsel, I'm in distress, I can handle this. Have a nice day."

4. "Stop it!" "Apologize to Lucy... Say you're sorry!!"

5. "Who are you, and why are you doing this?"
"We are bad men, and for the money!"

6. "What did I do? What did YOU do? Think of home? That was a GREAT plan! You thought of your home and I thought of mine and now we're halfway between the two!"

7. "Promise me something." "Anything, sir!" "Never try to save my life again."

8. "Oh my gosh he's so cute." "Who said that?!" "Um, sorry."

9. "WAIT FOR ME WAIT FOR ME"! [Two others teenagers stop, and look at her]
"Wait. Wait. No, not you - I don't even know you!"

10. "Slap it... Shoot it... Kaboot it."


Let's see how you did!