Here comes a feeling you thought you'd forgotten.

In Twelfth Night, the social order comes undone--women fall in love with women, gender becomes malleable, nobles marry servants, servants imagine that they could become nobility. To parallel the end-of-Christmas festival after which it was named and at which it was performed, Shakespeare's play effects a mood of licensed disorder--and things get more than a little crazy.

Life mimics art. Not that our last day of classes (affectionately called LDOC by all those who care) is the same as Twelfth Night, but in a way it performed the same function: loosened everyone up, broke social customs, made everyone rethink friend circles and habits. People I knew in completely different ways found their way to my room and met each other and mingled, we played a stream of trashed up music, tried our best to stay in a comfortable stupor (difficult to maintain for more than five hours straight), etc. Rarely are so many people so willing to get completely messed up, and rarely do we all find ourselves so devoted to having a good time. In the end, I came out with new and unforeseen conceptions of everyone, of social relationships, of how life could be if only academic stress didn't interfere with the living of it.

And the effects have not worn off. Reading period has been a time drain: last night in the library until sun-up with hardly any work done (talking, instead, to good and new friends--rehashing the year in perspective), today four hours at dinner off-campus and bantering forever.

Now to study? But how could I? LDOC is still in the air and with it a sense of non-urgency. At the end of this journey, I feel very much the way I did at Oxford last summer--looking back on a period of my life with a vague sense of having grown in as-of-yet still inexplicable ways. But that time I was only able to construct the narrative months afterward (at the expense of having by that point already made a few missteps), and I hope I'll be a quicker study this time around.

ENTP.

I'm always wary of the MBTI because I wonder why it takes a test for me to understand the answers I already gave.

Nevertheless, I spent more an hour today trying to figure out why the type I presumed I was (ENFP) didn't really make any sense. And then I realized it was wrong.

So here it goes for who I suppose I "actually" am, now:

ENTPs are usually verbally as well as cerebrally quick, and generally love to argue--both for its own sake, and to show off their often-impressive skills. They tend to have a perverse sense of humor as well, and enjoy playing devil's advocate. They sometimes confuse, even inadvertently hurt, those who don't understand or accept the concept of argument as a sport.

ENTPs are basically optimists, but in spite of this (perhaps because of it?), they tend to become extremely petulant about small setbacks and inconveniences. (Major setbacks they tend to regard as challenges, and tackle with determination.) ENTPs have little patience with those they consider wrongheaded or unintelligent, and show little restraint in demonstrating this. However, they do tend to be extremely genial, if not charming, when not being harassed by life in general.

In terms of their relationships with others, ENTPs are capable of bonding very closely and, initially, suddenly, with their loved ones. . . . ENTPs are also good at acquiring friends who are as clever and entertaining as they are. Aside from those two areas, ENTPs tend to be oblivious of the rest of humanity, except as an audience -- good, bad, or potential.

Source: Typelogic

The ENTP personality type is sometimes referred to the "Lawyer" type. The ENTP "lawyer" quickly and accurately understands a situation, and objectively and logically acts upon the situation. Their Thinking side makes their actions and decisions based on an objective list of rules or laws.

Under stress, the ENTP may lose their ability to generate possibilities, and become obsessed with minor details. These details may seem to be extremely important to the ENTP, but in reality are usually not important to the big picture.

With their thinking tied to the myriad possibilities they see in the world, they act swiftly and decisively upon those angles, choices and combinations scarcely noticed by other types, but through which they can build whole new frameworks or completely redefine an existing external situation in such a way that it appears new, revitalized and once again full of promise. Sameness, stasis, conservatism - even daily routine - can be loathsome to fervent ENTPs, whose drive is always to be into something new, different and full of fresh possibilities.

ENTP people measure their success by their “aha” moments, by the sense of satisfaction which comes as they spread their newly written maps before them and contemplate the new adventure, design, investigation or conquest which has now become their road ahead. What has gone before, previous achievements, ways of living - even people met along the way - are often now forgotten or considered passé, mere steps along a path which has now brought a new frontier to be exploited for its gifts.

Without a solid thinking function, the ENTP can easily discount or fail to notice the essential ethics of social and interpersonal relationship, often considering themselves “above” or untouched by such limiting values and often discounting the possibility that their actions might be or hurtful or seen as unethical by others. It is not that the one sided ENTP is deliberately hurtful, but simply ignorant of the effects which can flow from their often compulsive need for change or need to show how clever or individual they are.

Source: Personality Page

For ENTPs, falling out of love, which may not always occur, results when their vision of the relationship does not square with reality. Sometimes they will select someone who offers stability and comfort and ENTPs later will become bored with the stability. When scorned, ENTPs use their powerful and broadreaching analysis to explain the reasons why the relationship was not good in the first place; additionally, they may become competitive with their former partner and work hard to win. ENTPs do not like to lose at anything they undertake.

Source: Some random site

All right, enough of this nonsense.

Lab.

What I will miss most about lab: my postdoc and the lab techs.

I tried to describe my postdoc to a close friend today and all he said was that I had "tried [my] best to make her sound as boring as humanly possible." But I find her interesting precisely because of her lack of surprising quirks: she's steady, driven, singularly interested, diligent, trust-worthy, deferential. This, I think, is what a scientist should be. It's how my PI is too.

It's also exactly what I'm not. (Not a coincidence.)

One of the lab techs is anomalous. She's vibrant and affable and is reading Lolita right now and entertained us with stories about her previous romantic snafus today. Her eyes flash when she says she will never let a guy get in the way of her career. She has a way of smiling that I've never been able to master. I think she wants to be a pediatrician, but she doesn't find herself capable enough to go to med school. She really could be a great doctor--she seems to genuinely genuinely care about others instantly, upon meeting them.

I'm glad I met these people. I like adding character types to my repertoire of the human race. I just realized how creepy that sounds.

The wind-up before the wind-down.

Skyped with a friend last night who I haven't talked to for weeks--he's been busy traveling Europe, and in that interim I find that I have grown to miss him.

I don't ever miss people, not really--not in a way that means anything more than "where are you so you can once again reassure me of myself?" So that in most people what I miss is a reflection of myself or who I think I want to be, but in missing him, I missed more than just companionship (I rarely see him anyway, and maybe will see him once this summer if at all). Our friendship has always been a process of my understanding too late everything he's already known for a while -- I think he realized we could be good friends long before the thought even entered my head.

Because I know my own deficiencies, I'm easily impressed by pragmatists, logicians, those level-headed enough to understand exactly how the world is not falling apart. With this friend, I find that I am instantly put at ease by his cool attention to solutions.