Yeah, so I suppose you all noticed that I’ve fallen off the fail wagon pretty hard.  Not only have I not had time or energy for NaNoWriMo, I have been seriously lacking in my NaBloPoMo duties.  There are plenty of things to blame that on, like jaunty weekend trips, visitors, and getting acclimated to new clients at work.  What it comes down to is a bunch of excuses.  So what if I was exhausted?  So what if I didn’t have a creative drop left in me at the end of the day?  Yeah.  I know.  Excuses.

So today there will be a Meme post.  And tomorrow will be The Friday 5. So, on to the little Meme experiment from RebelliousFlaw.  It would appear November is a Meme-y month… My answers are in bold:

Below are 10 words. I would like you to take these 10 words and write the first word that comes to mind which you associate with the words. Post it up on your own blog and ask your readers to do the same.

Please make sure to link back so that we can all see the progression.

1. Pineapple — Prickly
2. Hammer–Pictures
3. Guitar–Strings
4. Telephone–Gossip
5. Swiss Army Knife–Eddie Izzard
6. Hamper–Full
7. Dolphin–Gram
8. Lighthouse–Haunted
9. Camera–Exposed
10. Oven Mitt–Cookies

So there you have it!  If you want to play along, do what I did and just C & P this on your own blog.  The word associations I’ve seen so far are quite interesting and give some new insight to folks for me.  Have fun!

Tags: Memes

It’s Friday.  Again.  THANK GOD!

That means it’s time for Friday 5!  I haven’t been participating in the Friday 5 for a while, but there was a lot going on.  You know, Podcamp, illnesses, drama, elections, you know… the norm.  So, in keeping with the NaBloPoMo spirit, here it is!  You can find the original prompt at Friday 5!

1.  What usually marks the middle of your day?  Uh… Lunch.  That’s pretty standard, I would think.  Or isn’t it?  Am I missing something?  What’s going on, please?

2.  From whom (or to whom) was your most recent middle-of-the-night phone call?   Ha.  You’d love to know, wouldn’t you?  Wouldn’t you….

3.  On what social, political, economic, or moral issue are you in the middle of the road?  I am not middle of the road about anything, really.  I have my opinions, I look at issues and evaluate them based on the facts, and what side of the argument/issue/crisis/debate I think is most logical and fair to those involved, and I choose to defend it.  That’s the problem with being able to see multiple sides to most conflicts/arguments.  I’m all about finality and decisions, and I don’t really understand how people can waiver or be “middle of the road.”

4.  How likely are you to give someone your middle finger?  Not likely.  As Mah Daddy used to say (hell, still says), “You went to school for most of your life, and you can’t come up with a better way to express yourself than through vulgarity?”  Flipping someone off always seemed… childish and unladylike.  That’s just me though.

5.  When were you last caught in the middle of a disagreement that really had nothing to do with you?  Really?  Really?!  How about all of 2008?  Yeah, that sounds about right.  If it wasn’t one thing, it was another.  Whether it’s someone throwing blame around without taking any of it, or someone calling me every night to try and “persuade” me that a third person is wrong about an issue I have nothing to do with, and couldn’t care less about, I tend to get dragged into things pretty quickly.  What have I learned, boys and girls?  The drama of others can only affect you if you allow it.

Tags: drama, Friday 5, Memes

Recently my brother and I had a conversation about his company bringing all the executives and management together to take a personality test in the hopes that it would help each of them how to better understand what motivates their colleagues.  I started out my education in psychology — criminal/abnormal psychology, to be exact– and as soon as he mentioned what was transpiring in his offices I knew which test it was he had taken.  The Myers-Briggs / MBTI test is a fairly common personality assessment tool (and has gained popularity in the past decade).  He shared with me his results, and it had been so long since I had taken that test that I promised him I’d take it again.  I can’t say I’m shocked by the results, and my close friends and family would see these results as a,…. “Yeah…. so?  We knew this already…. NEXT!” kind of thing.  If you haven’t taken the test, you should give it a go.  I’ve taken the test once a week for about 6 weeks now, and only once I had varying results.  I’d say that makes them pretty secure conclusions.

I often threaten joke that I’m going to start handing out applications to people who want to interact with me in any way, and I think I might just need to make them take this test.  The logic behind groups taking it is that you can better understand the motivations, responses, and thought processes of the individuals who surround you.  It becomes a dangerous person, though, who understands how to use these bits of insight to their advantage.  Even scarier is a person who can discern the elements in this test that are present in other people by just being in a room with them for an hour.  Or 5 minutes…. Whatev.  Sometimes those people have to remind themselves to use their super powers for good.

…Just sayin’…

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  Update:  Apparently Jung is more terrifying than I remember. But look at it this way– Apparently I would make a fantastic Dictator.

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Tags: Machiavelli may have been a genius., Memes, Meyers-Briggs, motivation, My Superpowers, Psychology