sea change

According to a professional Myers-Briggs coach, I am no longer the personality type that I thought I was. Or rather, I have returned to the personality type that I was in high school -- both through an open-ended conversation, and through the results of the test I took last week, it turns out that I'm back to being an ENTP rather than an ENTJ. That doesn't mean I've fundamentally changed -- I'm not super far from the J/P divide, and identify with some aspects of both -- and I'm still super stubborn, as evidenced by the fact that the first thing I did when I got back to my desk was to IM John, who originally told me that I was a J, to tell him that he was wrong (which is perhaps a rather unattractively-J tendency).

But, I had a rather interesting realization while having this discussion with the coach. I think my natural, underlying tendencies are more towards the P side (wanting to keep my options open, continuing to gather information, etc.), but I have this rather warped sense of what I should be accomplishing with my life, and so I push myself hard to be more of a J (rigorously planning, striving for control). Inevitably, the J side fails -- I make lists for what to do every day, every week, etc., but I never meet deadlines unless they're truly deadly, and if a friend offers up some sort of plan, I almost inevitably go along with it. Then, because of my standards, I feel horribly guilty for not doing what I should have done, but then my natural desire for an unconstrained life rebels and I procrastinate again.

It's a vicious cycle, and one that I need to break out of -- but that's not going to happen tonight. Other than the Myers-Briggs thing, nothing interesting happened at work (I was trapped in a list-making/procrastinating cycle). But, I did get up early this morning, and I wrote three pages before going to work. Even with a stop at a tailor to get a couple of dresses and two parts of my Indian outfits altered for Adit's wedding (it's a miracle she agreed to do it in time, but the dresses were held up in the UK by the volcano until Thursday, and I figured I'd let her try to make the Indian outfits a little bit better-fitting), I still made it to work by ten -- the power of the south bay commute is truly magical.

After work, I picked up Vidya at the Sunnyvale Toyota dealership, and we had dinner at La Fiesta while waiting for her car to get done with its repairs. We had a lovely conversation about all sorts of entertaining things, none of which can be repeated here. Then, I dropped her off, made it home by 7:30pm (again, another south bay commute miracle), debated working on the novel, and instead did some things for the day job. I also got a call from the woman who lives in the studio above the garage; she had been out of town all weekend, and so just got my note about the minor flood in the garage. She seems super friendly, and in an amazing twist of fate, says she's Julia Quinn's stepmother. Those of you in the know are aware that Julia Quinn is one of my all-time favorite historical romance novelists (and my idol, since she went to Harvard and chose to pursue a non-traditional path for a Harvard grad, which is exactly what I want to do with my Stanford degree). So that was all v. exciting and bizarre; I stayed charmingly polite, did not press for information, and will not turn into a crazed stalker, but it was interesting nonetheless.

And now, I really must go to bed so that I can get up early again tomorrow. This book, despite all the freedom I have given it to do so, is not writing itself, and I really want to finish it in the next month. That means I'm going to have to write while traveling despite any other distractions -- in other words, force myself to be a J when I really just want to be a P. I just have to keep reminding myself how wonderful it feels to finish the book and type "The End" -- and forgetting how long and difficult the submission process is. Goodnight!