investigative, collaborative, creative

Last year, I took these tests from the career center--a "career values inventory" and a "career interests inventory."  One of them showed me that I'd be willing to work in a coal mine, as long as I was doing work that used my skills, with people I loved, and thought I was helping someone.  The other showed me that I have an outstanding preference for work which is investigative and creative.

Knowing this is quite helpful.  With the kind of undergrad degree I'm getting, the obvious thing would be to go straight for an advanced degree at the swankiest school that will pay my way.  It is less obvious that I'd be happy living an intensely competitive and academic life.  I've started trying to cultivate the skills to do the work that will make me happy.  Since I'm pretty good at investigating things, that means becoming more creative and more collaborative.  

I have a long way to go on both of these fronts.  To become better at being collaborative, I've been trying to practice kindness. . . and particularly, to practice being open to the people around me.  I know people are responsive to this sort of thing; they want to spend time with someone who isn't going to shut them down, who is pre-disposed to be enthusiastic about their good qualities and accepting of them as an over-all package.  It is so hard.  I try to smile when I see people, but somehow it doesn't get to my eyes. 

I have a friend, L, who is exceptional at this.  People flock to her; you mention her name and people will immediately and enthusiastically mention that she is AWESOME.  They speak the truth; being around her just makes you feel good.  She threw a birthday party around the beginning of the year, the preparations for which involved baking several batches of cookies in our dorm kitchen.  It was like being transported to a farmhouse kitchen in some alternate reality, with the infinitely loving cookie-baking family that you never had. . . except that she was also nineteen and brilliant and adorable and not your sister.  Needless to say, it was a popular attraction even before the cookies started to emerge.  

Perhaps part of the problem is that I haven't worked out the ways in which I do and don't want to be judgmental.  There's boundaries to be sorted out here.  A lot of people do things that I find grossly unacceptable; what's the best way for me to deal with that fact?  

The creativity thing is also hard.  The Creative Habit has been very helpful, though I disagree with some of her premises.  Yesterday, along with my usual journaling (and now also blogging) and "professional" writing time, I made myself draw for half an hour.  It was incredibly difficult, even at the library with piles of drawing books before me, but I'm glad I did it.  Last night, when I was settled in with one of my "girl with a sword" books, I ended up putting it down and starting to write my own. . . because it was just more fun.  Hopefully, this is a quality that will slowly grow.  It's ironic that I'd shut down this part of myself, thinking it self-indulgent, being hyper-critical of my own work, on the assumption that I would never be able to create anything of real value.  I will probably never draw or paint or fiction-write anything spectacular, but being in the habit of making things--of overcoming the blank page with something interesting and new--can only better my work, whatever that work turns out to be.

I am lonely.

This should not come as a surprise.

Here are the primary things I want (lack and desire--I'm not sure how much of each) from friends:

1.  They understand most of what I am interested in thinking about without long additional explanations, because they know me well and/or have put thought into similar things.

2.  They are interested in hearing much of what I have to say. 

3.  They are just the right sort of judgemental.  I can trust that they will (for the most part) judge me only by some criteria that I understand and care about, that are related to my own core values even if I don't agree with them completely--and I know that they have some handle on what my values and aspirations are.

4.  We treat each other well.

Leaving aside how much we care about each other and how well we treat each other, very few of my Utah friends fall into the first category.  Many of my closest friends at school have the first two, but not the third. . . the right sort of judgemental is very difficult to pull off.  I would give a lot to have half a dozen reasonably bright people around me for the rest of my life who are in all four categories.  I think finding people like this--and being a good friend to them--is one of the most important skills I could learn.  I wish I had better ideas on how to learn it.

This criteria set is not perfect; my friendship with J, for example, often runs better because she's not in category 1 for me--and she's willing to listen to my long additional explanations till the end of time, which does much to keep me sane.  Also, she thinks differently than I, and has had many very different experiences, which just. . . helps.  Also, it works because she's awesome.  I should call her.  Except my phone isn't working.  Hmn.

I'm lonely, at which I should not be surprised.  It helps to acknowledge this; like many things, having acknowledged it, I can stop furiously trying to ignore it.

I've know this all along, but living St. John's style--surrounded by interesting people, several of whom are one's friends, all of whom are brought together by a common project--is really the only way to go.  This doesn't bring me any closer to knowing how to enact this outside of St. John's.

At the same time, I know that people need times of isolation.  Knowing that however much I reach out to people is unlikely to be satisfying, I can work on reaching out while also trying to make this a useful time of isolation for me.

new april things

I continue to be amazed by my friends.  Here are some:  

G is quiet, brilliant, young, and playful, with many of the mannerisms of a kitten; he wears bright colors well, makes faces, cuts my hair, points out the thing in the reading you should have noticed hours ago, and cultivates a sardonic streak.  He says he can't dance, but everywhere he does.  Except at dances, I guess.

J is like a cross between a 40s film star and a punk rock antihero, possibly the coolest and certainly the most literary person I know.  She is strong and funny and perfect, mistress of the gourmet picnic and the bon mot.  We have sisterhood in our over-aged escape from minimum wage life.

Y takes contagious delight in the intellectual world and irresistible joy from argumentative play, with a particularly agile and demanding brain.  He's unfailingly kind to humans at hand but equally ruthless to theoretical ones, a sympathetic but unruffled shoulder to cry on, and the best lab partner I've ever had.  

They are all gentle, considerate, generous, independent, and reliable.  I love them fiercely, and try hard not to breathe or wake up.

After working hard and re-starting five times, I turned in a rough draft for my freshman essay; it was OK, quite good for a first draft, and for a completed essay, OK.  I haven't yet given an oral defense, which will probably happen next week.

My lab tutor, H, is also amazing.  She's supportive of whatever weird experiments Y and I can design, gave me brilliant advice regarding my freshman paper, and has magical Aristotle superpowers.  She tells me not to consider any grad school that would care if I've published as an undergrad, but also to go ahead and start practicing for the GRE.  She tells me that she often sees people who work outside of classics as intellectually lonely--you work in philosophy and you're specialized, the person across the hall hasn't even read the same foundational works. 

SJC Social Justice Corps is up and running, though I don't expect any large actions till next year.  Transportation to DC would be really nice.

I'm getting a more cohesive philosophy for dealing with physical objects; this may be another blog post soon, I've written some about it.  My room is gorgeous (without having bought anything new for it) and my filing is done.

My three favorite misogynists, presently, are Simone de Beauvoir, Euripides, and Aristotle.  

I have learned, when I hurt, to wait it out.  Taking care of yourself is a hard but useful thing to learn.