My life, and other Randomocities

So here I sit at work, unable to concentrate on the job before me (which right now includes the titilating task of opening the mail and subsequently sorting it)... and I felt the need to EXPRESS. Ha... Express what, I'm not quite sure. But I know that I need to... so I've decided to blog.

I've never been good at blogging, mainly because... well... how can I put this so that I don't sound flaky and inconsistent?... I tend to be very creative-minded. I love to start new projects, and dream up all the things that could become of them. That's where I'm great. I can throw all of my passion into something for hours on end, really focus and commit... make it happen. If you're throwing a Hawaii-themed bday party and I don't own a Hawaiin shirt, I will spend hours over my kitchen table creating my own using paints and markers and maps and flowers and pineapples. If you ask me to participate in your elementary school child's "Flat Stanley" project by taking pictures with a cut out kid, I will go sooo far beyond that and create a "Flat Stanely Scrapbook" with pictures, and tickets, and colorful images and a complete narrative all bound into a cute and shippable book o' fun for said child.

But where I lack is in the follow through. Once something becomes more "process" than "inspiration", I want badly to feel that inspiration again, and therefore want to move on to something that will fill me with that once more.

I didn't know that this was a classifiable "tendency" until I took an online personality test about 2 months ago that I am now suddenly enthralled with. Most people have taken it at some point in their education or for their work environment, but I doubt many realize how much they can benefit from really examining the results. The test is a simple "Meyers Briggs" personality quiz... awesome for understanding yourself in an interesting way.

Should you be so inspired, I would recommend you take one yourself. Here's one that I've taken: http://www.kisa.ca/personality/
I've taken a few and all signs point to my personality being classified as an ENFP. If you take a moment to google that, you'd be surprised how much you could learn just by reading a few of the results. It's really pretty unbelievable how it pinpointed me... my flaws and imperfections as well as my strengths and good parts. Pretty cool.

Anyway, upon discovering my personality type, I realized that it's okay that I'm great at starting things even if I'm not always the best at carrying them out. Because I still feel the passion for them in the beginning. The passion is very real. And in many circumstances that passion is all that is needed to motivate OTHERS to want to follow through- so ultimately, mine is the role of inspire-er (haha) and motivator. I can instill my love into others, and in doing so, have the same effect as had I carried out the task on my own.

All this means basically nothing... other than the fact that I now understand that about myself. I now understand that what I could have perceived as a weakness, can in fact, when used correctly, be a very large strength. And that's just good for me to know. :)

Also, it helps to explain why I love theatre so much. It's a creative, inspiring, project-based environment where you put all of yourself into the current piece and then move on before it gets too stale. Interesting, no?

Let's see- what else? On a compleeeeeeetely non-related topic, all of my friends seem to be getting puppies! Well, not all of them. But two close friends just got new dogs in the past two weeks and I couldn't be happier. One of those dogs actually lives here in Chicago, so I'll hopefully get to spoil her and play with her and love her to pieces. The other is all the way in AZ... so not so much spoiling there...but still very cute. I am a weeeeeee bit jealous, however. I miss my puppy back at mom's and wish I could have a dog with me here. Ah well.

Life has been interesting as of late- that's for sure. I'm working fewer hours than I have in years, I'm less stressed than I was about 6 months ago, I'm doing shows when I can, and having a pretty nice time. Personally, I'm working on taking steps in new directions and trying to grow in ways that are important to me. I'm kind of proud of myself (though it seems weird) for being more open and less afraid in certain areas of life (or working on that at least), and for being proactive about being less stressed and more happy.

ANYWAY- gotta open that mail. ;)