Tell me about yourself

We were doing some chatting in the comments about the Myers-Briggs personality test, and our results.

I have an unhappy memory connected with Myers-Briggs, so I do a little mental cringe whenever I hear it. When I was a freshman in highschool--coming off of some difficulties in elementary school, and ready for a whole new group of people, a new start--my math teacher announced that we were going to start off the year by doing Myers-Briggs, "to get to know ourselves and each other." Fine idea, right? Except that part of this "getting to know" involved revealing our results by physically separating out for each dichotomy. We start with E/I, and there is a mass movement to the 'E' side of the room.

There was only one. other. 'I'. And the other was one of those ultimate smart math-geeky people who seems perfectly happy to never talk to anyone else. {sigh} Way to fit in!

Anyway, we did the test 4 years later, again with the same teacher, and I got the same results: INFJ/P. By that time I was rather proud of the classification, and could recognize its truth for me. But it still rankles.

It was interesting that several people popped up in the comments column as INFJs, INFPs, or even both like me. Wow! It's supposed to be only 1% of the population for each type! But...ahem...look at the description for INFJ (from the "Personality Test Center" website, linked to below):

INFJ: "Author". Strong drive and enjoyment to help others. Complex personality. 1% of the total population. These are serious students and workers who really want to contribute. They are private and easily hurt. They make good spouses, but tend to be physically reserved. People often think they are psychic. They make good therapists, general practitioners, ministers, and so on.

"Author". Yeah, baby.

I looked up the Myers-Briggs tests this morning, and was surprised to see that the real one is not only NOT free, but expensive--up to $170 at some places. However, there's an approximation test at the Personality Test Center, for your enjoyment--either for a re-take or for the first time.

You can also learn a lot more about Myers-Briggs at the Wikipedia article. (It IS Wikipedia, so take it with a shaker of salt, but this one seems more well-researched than most.)

Please do comment if you take the test, or you have an experience with it. It appears to be self-analysis week!

Gotta run now, I have my first grad school class this morning!

Medieval Word of the Day: smoterly: Besmirched in reputation.