Thursday, June 11, 2009

Things to Do While Awaiting Blogger Inspiration

Find out what color your mind is? Yup, it seems that by answering less than 10 questions you can discover the color of your mind. Turns out mine is Green . . . and that means . . .


Of all the mind types, yours has the most balance.
You are able to see all sides to most problems and are a good problem solver.
You need time to work out your thoughts, but you don't get stuck in bad thinking patterns.

You tend to spend a lot of time thinking about the future, philosophy, and relationships (both personal and intellectual).


My, didn't that make me feel all terrific. I'm balanced! Whoo-hoo. Well, on to the infamous FaceBook. FB is infamous because it's not a particularly bereaved-mom-friendly place, and because if you need some time sucked out of your life you can take a quiz about your favorite internet subject---yourself!!!! So I took one that would tell me what career I was.



Ouch, I say. I do think about the problems of others--in fact it is an essential component of my career. I am no longer attracted to needy people. I gave that up for life many years ago. I still respond to people who need my help, but I have learned to say "no" to protect myself. Ouch, though that I help others so people will like me. That one hurt. It's a nice natural result, people tend to like you or be nice to you for a bit when you help. It starts with "thank you." But, many times people are not responsive, but I still like helping, because sometimes the feeling of doing something nice is about me and not them. Weird, huh!

OK, this one doesn't fit into the "fun" or "ridiculous" category, it's actually quite serious. Project Implicit has several tests one can take to discover what thoughts you may hold implicitly even though those thoughts may state explicitly something to the contrary. So, I took a test to see if I prefer white or black people, and if I had positive or negative associations with either group. Here was my result:

Your data suggest no difference in your automatic preferences for White people vs. Black people



That was pretty cool to see, because I'd taken this test several years ago and both times it came back with slight preference for white people, and so this time I felt like there was evidence that I've grown and become more intune with what I consciously strive to achieve. BTW this test gained a good deal of attention when it provided data that suggested that even African Americans had a preference for whites and associated negative words with blacks. The data was disturbing to many, especially to those of us in the field of education. What were we teaching? Were our actions promoting tolerance? Are there equally positive and negative images and messages of both blacks and whites in our media?

But, I digress.

2 comments:

  1. Ok, so I'm embarrassed to even tell you how much time I spent doing these things today! Just know it was too much time. :)
    Surely I'm not avoiding anything, say for instance...packing?!?

    But, it was fun and very interesting!

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  2. These are all very interesting, but mainly the last one. And, I couldn't help but think of a Friends' episode regarding doing something for somebody else because we end up feeling good. If you haven't seen it, it was all about how people who help others are selfish because you can't help somebody without getting something in return. It was quite the conundrum. I know, I just know I spelled that wrong. :)

    Peace.

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