'J'

Recently my group of friends here got into a discussion about everyone’s Myers-Brigg test results. For those of you who aren’t familiar with this, it’s a Personality Test based off of Jung, a predecessor of Freud. A person is classified by where they fall on a series of 4 continuums. The first is Extroverted verses Introverted. The second Sensing verses Intuitive. The third Thinking Verses Feeling. The last is Perceiver verses Judger. A perceiver is one of those people who always fly by the seat of their pants, and a perceiver is a super anal planner (my university chemistry professor being a prime example! Chemistry boot camp clad in pink and green strips!) I recall myself being ‘ENFJ’, but don’t put much stock in it, as personalities are far more complicated and unique than any test could classify. How could one’s personality possibly be classified between 4 continuums? I rather find that it’s the interplay between the situation and where the person ends up on the continuum that’s interesting. We are all situational people, are we not? No test can account for that, but merely take the average, and thereby miss all the deviations that cause the interesting quirks that we posses.

My friends were attempting to guess each others’ classification. When it was my turn, a friend that I’ve known for less than a year, who I always had thought ‘she’s a ‘J’ like me,’ piped up and said ‘You are definitely a ‘P’!’ I was rather taken aback. My whole life I have been an obvious ‘J’. I’ve been teased about it countless time, told to relax, not try so hard and let things flow, breath a little, not worry about all the details but take it as it comes. Shudder -they might as well have sworn at me for the way those things sounded. I never missed a day of High School for goodness sake, and everything on my desk had a place – don’t you dare turn my stapler sideways! I realized that it’s been part of the way that I have defined myself for a long time.

I know that this culture has had an effect on my life – but apparently more than I thought. I do remember how much of a struggle things were at first – I’d plan to meet a friend at 6 and stand around for half an hour waiting. Or I’d get a call asking if I wanted to go away for the weekend, at 4:00 on Friday. They were leaving at 5. People cancel at the last minute. Waking up on Friday thinking I’d have a relaxing day on Saturday because I had no plans, only to find that by Friday night my entire Saturday was chuck full. I couldn’t even walk! Not in my American speed anyway. I think I remember the day I broke – just flat gave up. I was trying to make a quick stop in at the mall. I just needed to buy one thing, some flour or something. There I was trying to walk with a purpose, while the rest of the world was sauntering along and blocking my way! I’d finally get around one group, just to be stuck behind another. I felt like those jerks in traffic jams who keep changing lanes only to end up in the same spot at the light. And so I just gave up. If you can’t beat ‘em join ‘em! And apparently that is what I have done. When I was at home I don’t know how many times my Mom said to me ‘You just can’t hurry up anymore.’

Well I am still a ‘J’, yes I checked, took a little online test. However, I’m not nearly as ‘J’ as I used to be, but ya know what? I’m okay with that. In fact I rather like it this way. This change has definitely been for the better. Guess I have to change my definition of myself. Thanks Malaysia and all your sauntering folk!

Want a rough, free idea of your Myers-Brigg? Try this site: http://www.humanmetrics.com/cgi-win/JTypes2.asp

Time

I needed to see how much time had passed – to have a tangible feel of the distance traveled. Once I left here it was as if time was placed on hold – as if here ceased to exist while there came alive – as though I was the catalyst that brought things to life. I came back thinking, expecting to feel the passage that I had missed but instead my illusion of frozen time has only been intensified. Of course there has been the occasional surprise of a new building or closed shop, but nothing substantial enough to break the bubble of my illusion. In hopes of destroying this illusion, I drove myself to wash away beach. The beach is so named for its most noticeable quality – it’s washing away and at no slow pace. This process began in 1890 and in these 100 odd years over 3 miles of land has been claimed by the waves, taking with it a lighthouse, a school, and countless homes – the remains of which can be seen in the forms of rusted pipes reaching up out of the surf, and odd shapes of cement – hollow reminders of homes. The sea seems to be long and flat – breaking twice – once a long ways out and again at the edge of shore – creating soft and gentle caressing waves. The sea seems much to gentle to cause such destruction, but it too is only an illusion.

Two years prior I would have driven to the end of the road, passing between a friend’s house and garage which sat on the edge of the beach. I would park secluded between two trees on the very edge of the beach and walk down the short cliff. When I arrived the road was blocked off and I was forced to park at the junction. As I began to climb down to the beach I could see why. Not only was the garage gone, but so was most of the road. My friend’s house now sits on the edge of the cliff. The beach was completely unrecognizable. Trees that had fallen lay scattered on the beach along with broken pieces of homes and other possessions now nothing more than litter. I felt like I was coming there for the first time. Walking along I found what must have been the foundation of a round building and some sort of metal structure that looks like the cab of a backhoe. The beach holds an eerie stillness and a sense of foreboding. I’m not sure that this trip accomplished what I had set out to do, but it certainly left me with the feeling of the imminent nature of change and the ever present shadow of the past.

Journey

As I sit in the rising plane staring down at the lights of the place I have learned to call home, I try to wrap my mind around all the things I have seen and learned in these last two years. I am startled to realize I can see the sign for ‘Giant,’ a store not unlike ‘Wal-mart,’ shimmering green in the darkness. I was there just hours before buying some tea to bring home with me. I had spent the entire morning right next door to Giant in the hospital with a friend. She had fainted at work and been taken to the hospital the night before. She had called me this morning from the hospital and asked me to return her ‘tungku’ which is a large stone shaped like the pestle from a mortar and pestle, only much larger. Heavy little thing. It’s used after a woman gives birth to help heal and re-shape the stomach. It’s heated, wrapped in special medicinal leaves and a cloth, and then pressed down on the stomach while lying on the floor. It may sound far fetched, but looking at my friend’s flat tummy might change your mind! She’s told me many times not to forget to use it when I have kids. ‘You’ll shock all your friends at home!’ she tells me.
When I dropped by the hospital to return her ‘tungku’ the doctor came in, he told her that instead of being released like she had thought, she needed an operation which would take place in an hour. The rest of her family was working, so needless to say I ended up staying. Another friend came and I was able to run a couple errands and be back just as she came out of surgery.
Looking back now I can’t believe that was me. What would have been a very stressful day, was just another day. Gone was the usual anxiety a huge change of plans would have created. I guess the relaxed nature of this culture has finally taught me something. Time spent with friends is never wasted.

Home

As I waited for the lift on my way up to work tonight, I glanced back down the hallway and out to the street. The evening light lit the blowing palm leaves and a soft breeze blew past. I was suddenly struck at how comfortable this place has become – momentarily indistinguishable from memories of home. Moments like that are becoming more and more frequent and each time it leaves me with an odd feeling that I try to shake – as if these two worlds that I once thought irreconcilably different are slowing melding into one. The gaudy signboards on all the shops, which I used to find so annoyingly hideous, have slowly found their similar counterparts in my memory and have ceased to be foreign. Instead they have been given a nice nestling place in the box in my mind where I hold acceptable signboards - Blending into my understanding of the way things work. Not only have things become familiar – it’s more than that – they have begun to earn an irreplaceable place in my range of ‘the acceptable’ to the point that I have moments like those – moments were I forget that it’s not the same, nor that it isn’t what I’ve always known. It’s becoming comfortable – mine even. I find this intriguing and at the same time a little disconcerting. What affect will this have on my return? Will the incorporation of this place into myself somehow lessen my love and awe for the place where I grew? Somehow making it no longer enough? Or will it only serve to enhance? I am uncertain of the outcome, but somehow I fear I am on the verge of finding out.