personality type

I'm an ENFJ. That's a particular kind of personality type based on the Myers-Briggs classification scheme (check out Wikipedia for more on the scheme). First question, how reliable is the classification itself. The test involves lots of questions and redundancy, and seeing the outcome I'm reasonably comfortable with this typing.

E means extraverted. I do think a lot about other people though, how they might react to me, what they may be thinking about. If someone describes having a problem I tend to jump in with ideas or suggestions - which can be helpful but obviously not always. I sometimes jump in pre-emptively, to say that I know someone else who knows something or can help with whatever the person I'm talking with is talking about. Networking comes automatically to me.

N is for intuitive. This is a very particular sense of the word according to MB. It refers to the kind of information that is gathered and relied on, whether it's more sensory or more abstract and related to other similar information. I have a strong tendency to make connections between ideas, so that they validate each other. As a scientist (or even as a person) there always has to be validation by real observation, so it's not a matter of ignoring sensory input. But pure observation is overwhelming, I use patterns and schemes to organize it, and these come from internal reflection (as in intuition) but also as I said by cross-checking with other information. Ideally the different kinds of information are orthogonal, that is, based on really independent sources, so less likely to be purely coincidental.

F meens feeling, versus thinking (T). This too has to be understood within the language of the scheme, these aren't the common uses of the words. These have to do with paradigms of decision making. F tends to make decisions from within a situation, rather than from the outside. I'm not too clear about this one, for me to be an F seems a little bit contrary to also being an N. But for the afficianados of MB, there it is.

Finally, J means judging rather than perceiving. This seems to have to do with how one is perceived by others, as logical or more emotional and empathetic. My being a J here makes sense - although I think of myself as quite logical, I'm probably not really perceived that way by others (but feel free to comment!).

In any case, ENFJ types come with fairly specific description in the system. They are sensitive to others, they react to the general tone of a situation, and they are often organizers. In the Keirsey system, which is related to the MB system but focuses more on the practical implications, ENFJs are described as idealists, with a strong bent to being teachers. For sure I have a strong pedagogic streak, I love explaining things. That can be quite tedious if overdone or in the wrong social context. But when I give lectures I spend lots of time on the materials, and try to think about the information that I'm conveying as I want it to be perceived by my listeners.

It gets more interesting when you see how you match up with your partner. There are 16 MB types, so 256 different pairings of course. I don't think MB has something to say about each of these, but it's fun to make the comparisons ourselves.

That's all I have to say about that!

account management

How many accounts do you have? In my case, let's see, just at home I have my main email address, my previous email adddress which is still working even though we changed providers and don't have that service any more, my facebook account, my linkedin account, and my blog. These are just the personal ones, that doesn't include all the various banks and other financial and "home management" ones. At work - don't get me started. And if you're like me, many of them require regular changes of password for "security", but not on the same schedule of course. No one could remember all those changing passwords, so of course we all use shortcuts, common formulas, or even (heaven forbid) postit notes on our desks. My laptop tries valiantly to keep up, but it seems to be rather poor at it, since it tends to auto-fill in the wrong password for many sites I log on to, so I have to repeat it manually anyway. And then of course once you clean up your internet activities by deleting your temporary files, page history, and cookies, it's all gone the next time you fire up the browser. It's not that I prefer a world without computers, it's just that they do eat a fair amount of time for things that were supposedly easy, and also create new frustrations that require new coping mechanisms (besides throwing the mouse against the wall, that is).

I was going to write a nice blog about summer and the flowers in my garden, but it took 15 minutes to remember how to log onto this account since it appears to be irrevocably attached to my previous, not my current email address. This is not obvious because my current email address is there in my profile, but that's not the same as the one the account is formally linked to - and there seems no mechanism to update that, I think I would have to stop this blog and start another one. Arggh. Well, the flowers are very nice but more details will have to wait...