Personality Types...

Some on The Student Room posted a thread on personality types, which reminded me of the test I did a while a go to see what type I am. I have to say I'm usually really critical of such tests and think that they bear no real relation to the person involved as they are for too generalised.

However.

This time, I was totally surprised, taken aback, shocked, astounded, and yes, amazed. The type and the profile was me down to the very last word.

ISFP
Introverted Sensing Feeling Perceiving
The Artist/ Aesthete

So reading back through the profile of an ISFP, (Isn't it great to be just four letters... I suppose it is better than being known by a number.) and there was one point that struck me.

No it wasn't the fact that that 'life is not likely to be extremely easy for the ISFP'. Great, just wonderful.

Or the fact that 'almost every major artist in the world has been an ISFP', although that did strike a chord.

No. It was the statement that ISFP's can be 'intensely perfectionist'. Now this took me back to a GCSE Art lesson, which did make me feel quite old as it was around 2003/4, when we were having a tutorial on how to make a basic pot out of clay. While rolling out my clay, I was told by my teacher that I was 'just a little bit of a perfectionist'. I was a bit offended by the comment back then, but throughout the years it has certainly reigned true, especially through my art. Anyway, to stop me going off on a different point this led me to think about what perfectionist things I have done in general.

Now this may count as more obsessive than perfectionist, but I thought it would make a nice feature on the blog. I think only an obsessive perfectionist would actually do this...

My bookshelf in my bedroom. The container of all my lovely clumps of bound paper. The people that know me will definitely see this as a 'me' thing to do.

There is something wonderful that happens, something great bursts inside, when I can arrange my bookshelf so that different types of 'Penguin Classics', 'Penguin Modern Classics', 'Everyman Classics' and 'Wordsworth Classics' (when you fancy a book but don't really want to spend a huge amount of money on them, when I can arrange these series in their own little alphabetical order. Their spines are the same colour and design, a continuous line of subtle yet attention grabbing design.

Yes. I am aware that this is really quite sad.

Each 'series' is grouped in their own little family, with the authors alphabetical, so that for no reason apart from this, it just looks pretty.See now doesn't that just look really nice and neat. An art form of a bookshelf, sleek, sexy, easy to access, perfect design.

Now, it may be a bit shameful to admit that I find this next picture the best thing about my bookshelf (apart from the actual books of course). I just love how the line links each of the books and the bright orange Penguins just out at you.

Although, I must admit the fact that the line doesn't link completely bugs me just a tiny bit.

There is only one last thing that expresses my perfectionist attitude, and it also beings out my artistic nature. So a double-barrel of ISFP goodness. It is the fact that books that don't fit into the series, and can be done in such a way, are arranged by colour. YES, I know. But it is just one of those things that happens when an arty person is bored, it just makes things a little bit more interesting.

And to be fair on myself, there is only one section that is colour co-ordinated... (and not that greatly at that!)

So yeah, there we go.

Although people may balk at different quizzes and tests, it has to be said that these personality tests certainly ring true!

Books, Books and more Books...

Although being a literature fanatic I only recently discovered the 'Visual Bookshelf' on Facebook. Upon this discovery, I was a little too excited to be honest, I thought that I was quite sad...

However, I spent the next significant time frame updating my virtual bookshelf trawling through my literary memory trying to remember what I'd read, and what I was planning to read. I almost went into literature overload.

Updating my 'Reading Now' I realised that I was still in fact reading 'A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man' by James Joyce. It is really amazing, I love it, I just haven't had the time to pick it up for ages. Not to mention the fact that I'm like a 5 year-old at Christmas when I buy new books and have to start reading them as soon as possible, even if it means slightly forgetting about a current book I'm reading!

Well, my Visual Bookshelf, my identity through books really isn't it. It shows my tastes, my interests, almost everything about me except my face. It's quite strange really isn't it, how a bunch of paper bound in a cover, with some words cleverly organised over the pages can say so much about a person. Your reaction to a book gives you an insight into your own personality... I think I'm trying to be philosophical about it all, when really it's too late to be doing anything of the sort, and in reality I'm just talking about a Facebook application. Oh well.