Brains and Neurons and Personality Disorders, Oh My.

Hello, my people. Good to see all of you again. I must admit I'm a little surprised you keep coming back. Sometimes I feel like I just ramble. Like, I just type and type and write and write and type and type and say a bunch of stuff without really saying anything at all. You know? To warn you, I'm probably going to do a large amount of rambling on today's post, so feel free to check out right now if you don't think you're up to it.

Two weeks ago we started the "Mind, Brain & Behavior" system, which is fancy-talk for the "Neurology & Psychology" system. So far, I've thoroughly enjoyed the system. The human brain is incredible. I remember the first time I held a real brain in my PdBio 220 class way back during the winter of 2010. As odd as it sounds, it was a very spiritual experience for me. I can't help but think that the designer knew what He was doing when He made it.

Ok, enough serious stuff. I've got some funnies for you. You know when people say, "Well, it's not brain surgery?" Well, neurology isn't brain surgery, but it's getting pretty close. As you might imagine, some of the things we've been learning about are incredibly complex. Sometimes (and by sometimes, I mean every time) my professors open their mouths, this is 110% how I feel (skip to 0:40 for "Dr. Cleese's" "explanation" of the brain):

*Video-scavenging credit to a classmate whom I cannot remember. Makes me laugh every time.

Anyways, that's how I feel. But in a good way. Like I said, I'm really enjoying the system. So that's the neurology. As far as the psychology goes, I've enjoyed it, not so much because I like psychology, but because 1. Dr. Cohen (the psych teacher) is hilarious, 2. We get to watch videos of crazy people during every single psych session (see below for my reaction when Dr. Cohen turns on a video),:

 Aaaaaaand 3. Because we get to take personality tests and psychoanalyze ourselves and every person we've ever met. Example. Last Thursday, we had a 2 hour class on personality disorders. As preparation for the class we were assigned some readings (if you're into that sorta thing) AND a personality test. If you've never taken a personality test, you should. They are almost always a good time (assuming that you have a good personality). The most commonly used personality test by psychologists is called the Big Five. It assesses your extroversion, orderliness, emotional stability, accomadation, and inquisitiveness. Here are my numbas (click picture to enlarge):

Apparently, I'm super orderly (Which, I think, is pretty accurate, though the articles of clothing tossed haphazardly on my bedroom floor may disagree) but only moderately emotionally stable (Which, is also probably accurate, seeing as I have never committed a hate crime but I did tear up at the end of Toy Story 3). At the bottom of the page (but cropped out in the picture above), there was a link for a more detailed description of my personality. Here that is:

And here are my thoughts on my the above description of my personality:

The good: "Believes in human goodness (Preach it, Global 5 Type Descriptions!)," "believes children need firm discipline (Hello, of course they do. I don't want my future children to end up on Judge Judy.)," and "physically affectionate (haha. No comment.)"

The bad: "Overly nice (Maybe that's not a bad thing)," "finishes most things they start (Only most?), and "prone to panic (Guess that means you shouldn't yell "Fire!" around me.)

The ugly: "Manipulative (So I'm overly nice AND manipulative? Those seem exclusive to me.)," "swayed by emotions (So you're saying I'm not a robot? This is actually good news)," and "prone to addiction (Well then, good thing I'm too poor at this point in my life to buy 100 kilos of cocaine)."


The personality test also included careers I should and shouldn't go into:

I'm glad they added this to the results. This really cleared things up for me. Number two under favored careers? Medical doctor. Yessssssss. I'm doing what my [likely inaccurate] personality test thinks I should be doing! I feel good about that. Plus, becoming an assassin is listed under my disfavored careers. I also feel good about that. I'm not really into the whole killing people thing, so that works out well. Anyways, I had a good time taking my personality test. If you want to give it a try, here's the link: Big Five Personality Test.

 Last thing. Use your brain! Not everyone does. And be grateful for it! Not everyone has one.