In which I do things.

No usual crafty weirdness from me today, unless you count one of the pictures at the bottom of the post.

It dawned on me, after reading my last post a few times, that I don't really "do" anything, or at least, not what people would typically consider "doing something".  Which, yeah, is fine in a way.  It just makes for really boring conversation.

When people ask me if I did anything "interesting" over the weekend, I feel like what they want to hear is that I went sky-diving over the tallest peak of Mt. Kilimanjaro with a flock of peregrine falcons strapped to my arms instead of a parachute.  Or.  Whatever.  Maybe something a little more tame like, went to a concert. But 90% of the time, it's just:

Friend:  What did you do this weekend?
Me:  Oh.  Just hung out at home.

Which is all well and good.  You realistically can't do something every weekend.  But here's the thing - what I consider "interesting" does not register for most people as the typical conversation-worthy pastime.  I mentioned the other week that sewing gives me a high.  Sure, that sounds kind of funny on paper, but imagine using that in actual conversation.  "I HAD THE BEST EFFING TIME WEAVING A NEEDLE IN AND OUT OF FABRIC."  It doesn't really fly.  But, I guess everything is relative.

Anyway, the point of all that was for me to tell you that I DID actually go out and do something for once.  Two weeks in a row, in fact!  And both (partially) happened in New York.  One was just for fun, the other, for work. The former, I'll save for another post.  For now, let's proceed with the latter.

So, as many of you know, I'm in a rotational field program, which means that I switch business units every few years.  In the first year of this program, all the engineers gather in a new employee seminar (cleverly acronym'ed "NES") so we can meet our peers from around the country.  My class' NES was this past week at the all-too-swanky Hotel DuPont.

I feel a little more inadequate as a human each time I step into this lobby.

I met some very cool people and visited some incredible locales, including the home of one E.I. DuPont:

Unfortunately, they wouldn't let us take any pictures of the actual interior of the house, but needless to say, it was really very fascinating to learn about the founder of the company and the kind of home life he lived.  According to the stories, M. DuPont specifically moved his house to the mills to show that he believed in the safety of the black powder production.  That is to say - he wanted to keep his workers as safe as possible, and if the mills were safe enough for the men, then they were sure as heck safe enough for his family.

That might be the most noble thing I've heard in a while.  Or the most foolhardy. 

Anywho, these are just a few snapshots I got of the surrounding lands.  The grounds were quite well kept, including the gardens that were built in the style of ruins and regularly hacked at with a sledgehammer (that I conveniently forgot to photograph.)

The view from M. DuPont's porch.  Amazing.

Along the Brandywine

(Btw, if you want to see the rest of my relatively small photoset, you can find the album here.  I am bad about taking pictures, and also bad at taking pictures.)

But as interesting as all the tours were, evidently the point of this seminar was to teach us about ourselves.  I took a metric pork-load of personality tests and sat through at least 5 hours of classes, which were meant to teach us how to analyze our results.

And I did a VERY good of paying attention the entire time.

The tests specifically that I took were DiSC and Myers-Briggs Personality Type.  My results were High SC and ISTJ, respectively - which, in short means:

• I'm analytical and logical
• I'm introverted
• I'm a cold, unsympathetic bitch (my T element was so extreme, it's a miracle that I have a heart).  

I probably didn't need a test to tell me these things, but hey, it's always fun to compartmentalize.  Say what you want about the fallibility of personality tests (and I'll probably agree with you), but they are an interesting way of looking at your work methodology, if nothing else.

What was kind of weird was, what came out of was that I met two TX-based engineers who, on a whim, decided to visit Manhattan (about an hour north of me) while they were still on the East coast.  That in itself isn't weird.  The weird part is, according to my test results, I should have 1 - declined an invite to spend time in such a population dense area, especially after having been at a seminar with so many people already, and 2 - declined an invitation that was extended so last moment.

And yet, lo and behold, a few hours after they texted me, I found myself hopping a train into the city.  And you know what?  I felt a million times more refreshed after our little jaunt. 

I think there's something to be said about self-assessments.  Yeah, you're supposed to know yourself better than anyone else, but you're also way more biased about yourself than anyone else.  There's also something to be said about personality tests in general.  Humans are mutable, hugely multi-faceted creatures, ever-changing, and always interesting.  Maybe at heart I'm an introvert.  But then again, just because I'm pants-stainingly terrified of talking to people, it doesn't mean I don't enjoy it.

Or maybe I'm getting too much out of a psychological assessment that's not even officially recognized by the National Academy of Sciences or the field of psychology as a whole :P

Until the next.