Life as an ENFP

The thought of thinking that four categories can completely describe who I am seems weird to me. More than seven billion people are on the planet and every one is completely different. Some people make the comparison that people are like snowflakes but I think it is even more amazing than that. Not only are we different from each other as a whole, every little quirk that we each have that makes us different is significantly different than any quirk anyone else has. It just astounds me. I know this test in no way is supposed to tell me what kind of person I am. It is just a guide to show how you tend to handle things in different situations. With all that being said...the test was pretty accurate.

My main preferences were Extraversion, Intuition, Feeling and Perceiving. I guessed all of them correctly except for extraversion. I had always thought of myself as shy person that doesn't usually initiate communication. I tend to wait for someone to start a conversation and then I let loose with everything was swimming around in my head. Once I read why they placed me as an extrovert, it made quite a bit of sense. It said I was a receiver rather than an initiator and I chose to be more private than self revealing. Both of those make a lot of sense to me. The reason I am an extrovert is because I scored relatively high towards extraversion in joining groups, interaction and enthusiasm. Overall, I think the test nailed it on the head. Looks like I was an Extrovert the whole time and didn't even know it.

I leaned heavily towards Intuition in every category. I had fives in intuition for both abstract and imaginative. I completely agree with that. I find myself constantly analyzing everything and then asking the question "What if..." I found myself doing this one time when my sister used the phrase word vomiting. The normal person would just laugh and move on...but not me. I spent a good twenty minutes thinking about what word vomit would look like if it was a literal thing. I came to the conclusion that you would suddenly feel sick during a conversation and then some embarrassing or private phrase would slip out. I thought it was hilarious, my sister thinks I'm crazy. I may be too abstract and imaginative for my own good because I just realize I went on a long tangent about word vomit. I guess this test is pretty accurate.

I am a F instead of a T even though three preferences were towards T (including a 3 for questioning) and only two towards F (both of them were only a 1). I guess I have tendencies for both sides in each category. This is about how I base conclusions so it makes sense that I am both a thinker and a feeler. I think that every situation is different and therefore requires a different type of solution. I like to take everything I possibly can into account before making my decision. I think that's what the results are trying to show.

Finally, I got perceiving instead of judging. This one was extremely lopsided towards perceiving. The only category that I wasn't in perceiving was my 1 towards methodical. Every description of perceiving fits me almost perfectly. I'm very easygoing, flexible, motivated by pressure and spontaneous. I feel that when you make concrete plans you already ended countless activities that could have been better than the plans you made. I think every second is spontaneous and important so I like to let life come at me and lead me where it wants me to go. I understand this method isn't for everyone. I still make sure everything gets done when it's supposed to, I just don't map out exactly how or when it will get done. To me, spontaneity is the spark of life. I hate having pre-made plans because most of my favorite memories happened at the spur of the moment.

Overall, I don't think I was giving this test as much respect as I should have. It was fairly accurate in describing my tendencies. I'll use these results to remember what my strengths and weaknesses are as a leader and grow from them.

Jeopardy and Johari Windows

There was a lot to process this past week. I had never attended a leadership learning session before so I wasn't sure what to expect. The amount of information I received during the Friday and Saturday sessions was insane.

The first one I attended was multicultural jeopardy. The speaker did a great job of mixing important helpful information into a fun and entertaining format. I had no idea how little I knew about the resources for multicultural students on campus. I guess I had never needed to use them so I never got around to learning about them. I found all of the information during this session very useful because it was mostly new to me. I feel much more confident in helping multicultural students now.

The second session I attended on Friday discussed community building, something I thought would be extremely useful next Fall. The speakers had some great ideas for different types of events to get students together and interact with each other. Having a variety of activities to get they students involved is important to me. I get bored when I have to do the same routine over and over again. I'm all about mixing things up. The speakers also had some good tips for dealing with someone who feels alienated from the group. This kind of information will be very useful next Fall.

I went to some ISLE sessions with the president of my fraternity. He went to it last year and found it very useful. The session I enjoyed the most was the Johari Windows presentation. It was about analyzing how much of yourself you let others get to know. It was also about learning new things about yourself as well. I learned that I definitely could share more with others right when I initially meet someone. I still consider myself an introvert for the most part so it can be hard to show my personality to people I've just met. This is something I intend to work on a lot during the semester. I really like who I am so I shouldn't be afraid to let other people get to know me.

Peer Mentor Role Playing?!

Excuse the title, I'm not sure where I was going with it. It was either that or "The Question Ball: Friend or Foe?" Neither of them make much sense, but I digress.

I found this week's class to be both fun and informative. Starting things off with naming our strengths and skills that need improvement got me into the right frame of mind right away. This class is about bettering ourselves and I think that exercise helped me realize it.

Just so everyone knows, I love the question ball. As soon as I was selected as a Peer Mentor I thought to myself, "I am so using the question ball as an ice breaker in my recitation sessions." I remembered doing the activity during my freshman recitation session. It not only lets everyone learn more about the people in class, it also helps the group to become more familiar with each others names (which we all needed a little bit of). I found myself giving my own answer to most of the questions everyone else got. I was really hoping to get the "What is your dream job?" question because I've had an answer to that question for quite a while now. Since I was in elementary school, I loved doing comedy and making people laugh. It is definitely just a dream at this point but I want to host The Tonight Show. I would be in heaven if that ever happened.

The role playing exercise was very useful. Although you can't exactly recreate a student problem situation, it helped to at least practice handling a similar situation. Listing all the possible stresses for a first year student definitely made me realize how many different questions the students could ask me next Fall. It seems a little overwhelming at the moment but I look forward to being much more prepared to handle their questions and problems by the end of this semester.

Peer Educators

I was not aware how useful and necessary peer mentors are. I had no idea that 75% of universities used peer mentors in helping students. I was completely new to the term until the hixson seminar my freshman year. After that experience I learned what a valuable resource they can be. Peer mentors give the students someone to talk to without them feeling intimidated. A peer mentor was in the same position as the student not too long ago so they understand what the student is going through. Not only can the mentor tell a student how they dealt with similar problems or questions, but they also know the resources that a student can turn to for more help. After reading these chapters I kind of feel like I took my peer mentors from the hixson seminar for granted. I looked to them to answer all of my questions without thinking about all of the preparation that they had to do. I have a new found respect for all of the previous peer mentors.

I really like that the first chapter outlined the duties of a peer mentor. I had an idea of what they did but it helped to see everything that goes into being a peer mentor. I like to see exactly what is expected of me in the future so I can focus on properly covering all of my responsibilities.

I really liked the Borton approach to learning. Gaining knowledge, and skills is best achieved by looking back on the experience and thinking about what worked and why. Asking yourself questions is the best way to tailor information to how you best receive it and use it. I'm looking forward to getting lots of practice in this learning model during the course of the semester. I think it is a very effective technique and I would like to understand it well enough by the end of the semester to incorporate it into my mentor sessions next Fall.

Week of Twitter: Tweetastic or just plain Twitiful?

When asked to create a twitter account, I was unsure how to feel. I have always had a deep hidden fear of birds. A social networking site that has a blue bird as a mascot and whose name resembles the sound birds make did not seem appealing to me. I eventually faced my inner terror and joined twitter. After a week on twitter, I realized that twitter may not be a bird at all but really a place where friends, colleagues and strangers can share ideas, quotes, and updates with eachother. Once I distinguished twitter from the disgusting, disease-infected, soul less animal know as the bird, I grew to like it.

I liked having a creative outlet that not only my friends would see but also others that are well respected in their fields. Take for example Conan O'Brien. Each day I could count on getting at least one good laugh from a Conan tweet such as this classic, "I was carving pumpkins with my five year old son when I swear I heard him say, That's what happens to snitches."

After this experience, I plan to continue using twitter to follow my favorite celebrities and to tweet funny ideas myself. Yes it is much easier for people to stalk you on twitter but that is not a problem for me as I am the least interesting man in the world. I don't always share pointless information with strangers online, but when I do I use twitter.

NWC Diversity Event

I went to the Diversity Event called NWC. It focused on racial discrimination. The actors used humor and music to convey a message of unity. The main point of the presentation was to show that there is only one race, the human race. I really enjoyed this event because it was edutaining. Not only was it informative, but you were also entertained. I have always felt like this is the best way to teach a large group of people new things. Like most people, I usually feel uncomfortable when discussing these kind of issues but the actors in this event made the atmosphere relaxed and fun. Honestly, I was dreading going to a diversity event but NWC really surprised me. I am looking forward to another event like that in the future.

Me at my best

I have been very fortunate to have been a part of so many successful teams during high school. My football team and jazz band each won two state championships while I was a member. However, speech contest was where I really shined. Speech gave even a weird misfit kid like myself a chance to succeed.

It was my junior year in high school when I was truly at my best. My friend and I performed a short play for speech contest. The play was called World Wide Fans, and was about two sports anchors reporting news about outrageous events such as the World Toe Wrestling Championships and the finals of the worst things to say on a first date contest. We took the script and made it our own. We inserted new lines, gestures, and even choreographed a dramatic fight scene at the end that involved me flipping my friend over a table.

When it came to the state contest, we performed perfectly. We knew we had performed well when the entire room erupted into applause as we finished. I will never forget the feeling of standing in front of that room and looking at everyone laughing and clapping and thinking to myself, "We made them feel this way!" My friend and I were selected to the All-State speech contest which was a huge honor for us.

After this experience, I learned many things that I still incorporate into my life today. I learned to enjoy all of the little things in life and to never be too serious to laugh. I also learned to be creative and think outside of the box. These skills will help me in college and perhaps in my future career.