A paraphrase of my 1st-grade teacher. And 2nd-grade. And all grades. And now, probably, German I.
I had my first quiz today. Ten vocabulary words, four verb conjugations. I knew all the answers, was probably the first one finished (except for maybe one over-eager sophomore who I'm going to have to take down at some point), and I even checked my work. But not well enough. To wit:
The verb zuhören [to listen--ha!], is irregular, and the zu follows the conjugated verb: ich höre zu, du hörst zu, etc. I forgot to add my little zus. This means that I will not get 100% in German for the semester, and I am already sliding down the slippery slope from summa to magna.
In other news, my first reaction paper for Literary Criticism is due tomorrow; 200-word summaries of two short stories (Kate Chopin's "Story of an Hour," and a boring, inane story by Hemingway, the title of which I refuse to remember). Blogmuse--and unwitting LitCrit tutor for the semester--informs me that my summaries must avoid subjectivity. Blogmuse must not realize that I'm incapable of performing even the simplest tasks without my acute powers of subjectivity fully engaged. Eating cereal, say, or driving by a really ugly house.
UPTDATE: Turns out the verb conjugations were for practice; we were graded only on the ten vocab words. I got 10/10. The world order remains unchanged.
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7 comments:
1. A good lesson to be reminded of. For ALL of us, actually. I'm a big fan of checking my work - that's when I realize how many mistakes I actually make.
2. It could be worse, much worse: http://bestpicever.com/pic-766-Failure-at-English
Those damn separable prefixes come loose and float all over the place. You have to watch out for them, I tell ya. (Or is that "You have to watch for them out"?)
Psychology has much to say on this topic.
Hmm. Where to begin? Where to begin?
Friday morning I went to an MPA workshop on the Myers-Briggs Type Inventory. MBTI. I guess that's as good as any other starting point.
As you all know, the MBTI is based on Jungian archetypes. It divides personality into four zones, each with a pair of preferences. Intravert/Extravert. Sensing/Intuition. Thinking/Feeling. Perceiving/Judging.
The test was first written by a mother and daughter team during WWII. They actually added the last pair, going beyond the original Jungian ideas.
Unlike the MMPI, which is very pathology-based, the MBTI is interested in strengths and preferences.
Let's look at the Judging/Perceiving pair. This aspect of MBTI describes how people prefer to manage their lives. In this pair, I wish we could change the terms to Closure/Process, because I think that's a better way to understand this one.
J's are interested in finishing things. They have tidy desks, don't tolerate ambiguity very well, and need to have completion. P's are all about the process, making mid-course corrections, and playing with possibilities.
The world needs all types, and J's are valuable when there's a deadline. However, P's will mess with anything they think is premature closure if the process seems insufficient.
J's crave the illusion of closure, and think P's are irritatingly random. P's think J's are probably a necessary evil, and simply don't have much internal urge for closure.
Let's pretend that Scott is a J.
OK, because he is.
And, for completeness, let's pretend I'm a P. Because I have no J.
Anyway, Scott's preference for J-ness got him in trouble because he *felt* finished with the test before he was really done. We all have aspects of the non-preferred style within us, and we know Scott has the ability to pay meticulous attention to process. He just needs to remember to embrace his P-ness before he turns in the next paper.
Sometimes I'm so funny, I even surprise myself.
Future topics include:
more on the MBTI
the MMPI
anxiety and the Yerkes-Dodson curve
mindfulness
I learn so MUCH here.
I await further entries with bated breath.
It would seem that someone [Deb] is going 50ish in a 40 zone.
No matter what, Scotty, you'll always be summa to us.
Deb - I can't wait for "Mindfulness and the Overwhelmed Non-Traditional Co-Ed."
p.s. Is "uptdate" a Deutsche-joke I'm just not getting? ;-)
Update to the update:
Scott exhibited his J when he jumped to a conclusion about the outcome of the first quiz in German.
He was able to incorporate new information as soon as it became available, and recovered equilibrium when he effortlessly transfermed into a better understanding of the test components. Easy transfermations are a P function.
He reveals some worrisome all-or-none, black-or-white thinking with his irrational belief that he must be perfect in order to be OK.
We're OK, He's OK.
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