In one of my groups, someone posted a link to The Four Tendencies Quiz. I love taking personality quizzes, so I clicked over there ASAP. My result surprised me and I took the test again. And again. Four times and I got the same result every time. I still don't think it fits me.
The four tendencies are:
Upholder - this person meets inner and outer expectations
Obliger - this person meets outer expectations, but resists inner expectations
Questioner - meets inner expectations, but resists outer expectations
Rebel - resists inner and outer expectations
I scored as a rebel. Four times. For real.
Where I see myself is as an obliger. I take care of whatever I'm assigned at work and almost never resist. The one exception was when one of my co-workers wanted me to be a stenographer. I don't have the skills to be an admin or the temperament for it. But in general, tell me you need something done and I do it. I'm very good at meeting expectations.
However, when it comes to my inner expectations, I often fail to meet them. Not all the time. I make To Do lists every weekend and I always finish the critical items like groceries and laundry.
I am contrary, though. I like to do things my way, and as long as it gets done correctly, why can't I do it the way I want? I'm also notorious for asking for someone's opinion and choosing the opposite. Like there are two pairs of shoes I want to purchase, but can only get one. If I ask someone which one I should buy and they say pair A, I will end up buying pair B.
So I'm not sure where this leaves me. A rebel in denial? A mis-characterized Obliger? Hmm.
Thursday, November 10, 2016
Tuesday, November 08, 2016
Cubs Win! Cubs Win! Cubs Win!
Last week my beloved Chicago Cubs ended 108 years of futility and won the World Series! For those of you who don't know, I'm a huge baseball fan and hardly a day goes by during the season when I'm not watching a game. Even though I grew up in Minnesota, I got hooked on the Cubs because both my parents are originally from Chicago and WGN used to broadcast all the games and that channel is a staple on cable systems.
I have hung through the Cubs through bad seasons, through good seasons where they fell short, and everything in between. This year, though, had to be THE YEAR. This team is good. They won 103 games during the season, the most in Major League Baseball. Nothing in the post season was easy for them (or for me) though.
As tough as the two early rounds were, the World Series was the most stressful of them all. So stressful for me that I pretty much couldn't watch. It just meant too much to me. And the Cubs did their best to keep my blood pressure high.
In a best-of-7 series, they fell behind 3-1. That meant if Cleveland won one more game, they were world champions. Every game became a must-win.
The odds of winning three games in a row, including two in Cleveland? Including a game against one of the best pitchers (Kluber) in the American League? The chances were slim and it left me sad. 108 years without a title and to get this close and fail? Devastating.
But the Cubs were more resilient than I gave them credit for. They won those three games. Game 7 was sloppy--with errors and leads switching--but it ended up being a good game because the Cubs won. The CUBS won!
I have hung through the Cubs through bad seasons, through good seasons where they fell short, and everything in between. This year, though, had to be THE YEAR. This team is good. They won 103 games during the season, the most in Major League Baseball. Nothing in the post season was easy for them (or for me) though.
As tough as the two early rounds were, the World Series was the most stressful of them all. So stressful for me that I pretty much couldn't watch. It just meant too much to me. And the Cubs did their best to keep my blood pressure high.
In a best-of-7 series, they fell behind 3-1. That meant if Cleveland won one more game, they were world champions. Every game became a must-win.
The odds of winning three games in a row, including two in Cleveland? Including a game against one of the best pitchers (Kluber) in the American League? The chances were slim and it left me sad. 108 years without a title and to get this close and fail? Devastating.
But the Cubs were more resilient than I gave them credit for. They won those three games. Game 7 was sloppy--with errors and leads switching--but it ended up being a good game because the Cubs won. The CUBS won!
Sunday, November 06, 2016
Thursday, November 03, 2016
Review: Limitless
***I received no compensation for this review. I saw the show as part of my paid Netflix subscription.***
Limitless is my new favorite TV show. I wish I'd known before I started watching it that it had been cancelled, but I didn't and (of course) I loved it. I always love the shows that no one else does. They get cancelled and then I swear off television.
Anyway, Limitless is about this 28-year-old man who's something of a slacker. When his father becomes ill and the doctors can't figure it out, Brian Finch (our hero) takes a drug called NZT. It allows the user to access all his memories and use all of his brain. Brian discovers what's wrong with his father and the doctors are able to save him, but his dad needs a transplant and Brian kind of sells his soul.
NZT also has side effects and they can kill. There's a special enzyme that can prevent these negative reactions, but the only man who has it uses it as leverage over Brian. You see, it wears off and he needs booster shots. There's other stuff going on too that paints him into the corner and he ends up working with the FBI, but answerable to the mysterious Senator Morra.
There are no words for how much I loved this show. It's so much more than it's description. It's lighthearted and fun, not only crime drama. They did one episode that starts and ends like the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I loved that so hard!
I also loved that Brian isn't a static character. In the one season it was on, he changed and grew. There were so many cool directions to take him and what's up with Senator Morra dropping off the radar? I also loved the finale where they set up the next season. Brian is less a lackey and more of an agent, but with his usual offbeat sense of humor. Someone please air Limitless for me! It can't end this soon.
Not that the show is perfect. It's not, of course. There are definitely things I didn't like. For example, there's an episode with a serial killer, and because Brian can't handle it, he changes the word "kill" to "hug" and a few other word substitutions were made. I felt like I spent that entire episode translating what they were saying into what they should have been saying.
I also don't know how I feel about Rebecca or Naz, the two female leads on the show. I sort of like them and yet sort of don't. I'm not sure if it's because I like Brian so well (even though he starts out like a man-child) and they're harsh with him at times or if it's something more than that.
There's also Brian's family. I'm glad we get to see his family, but he ties himself up trying to meet expectations. On the one hand, yes, he needs to grow up and do something with his life. On the other hand, it is his life to mess up as he sees fit. (And he does see fit.) It would be nice if there was a little more acceptance to go along with the expectations. Again, this could be my sense because of how much I liked the character of Brian. It kind of colors the entire show for me.
To sum up, I'd love to see more Limitless. There's so many different ways it can go, almost all of which are interesting. Some network somewhere needs to pick this show up.
Two enthusiastic thumbs up.
***I received no compensation for this review. I saw the show as part of my paid Netflix subscription.***
Limitless is my new favorite TV show. I wish I'd known before I started watching it that it had been cancelled, but I didn't and (of course) I loved it. I always love the shows that no one else does. They get cancelled and then I swear off television.
Anyway, Limitless is about this 28-year-old man who's something of a slacker. When his father becomes ill and the doctors can't figure it out, Brian Finch (our hero) takes a drug called NZT. It allows the user to access all his memories and use all of his brain. Brian discovers what's wrong with his father and the doctors are able to save him, but his dad needs a transplant and Brian kind of sells his soul.
NZT also has side effects and they can kill. There's a special enzyme that can prevent these negative reactions, but the only man who has it uses it as leverage over Brian. You see, it wears off and he needs booster shots. There's other stuff going on too that paints him into the corner and he ends up working with the FBI, but answerable to the mysterious Senator Morra.
There are no words for how much I loved this show. It's so much more than it's description. It's lighthearted and fun, not only crime drama. They did one episode that starts and ends like the movie Ferris Bueller's Day Off. I loved that so hard!
I also loved that Brian isn't a static character. In the one season it was on, he changed and grew. There were so many cool directions to take him and what's up with Senator Morra dropping off the radar? I also loved the finale where they set up the next season. Brian is less a lackey and more of an agent, but with his usual offbeat sense of humor. Someone please air Limitless for me! It can't end this soon.
Not that the show is perfect. It's not, of course. There are definitely things I didn't like. For example, there's an episode with a serial killer, and because Brian can't handle it, he changes the word "kill" to "hug" and a few other word substitutions were made. I felt like I spent that entire episode translating what they were saying into what they should have been saying.
I also don't know how I feel about Rebecca or Naz, the two female leads on the show. I sort of like them and yet sort of don't. I'm not sure if it's because I like Brian so well (even though he starts out like a man-child) and they're harsh with him at times or if it's something more than that.
There's also Brian's family. I'm glad we get to see his family, but he ties himself up trying to meet expectations. On the one hand, yes, he needs to grow up and do something with his life. On the other hand, it is his life to mess up as he sees fit. (And he does see fit.) It would be nice if there was a little more acceptance to go along with the expectations. Again, this could be my sense because of how much I liked the character of Brian. It kind of colors the entire show for me.
To sum up, I'd love to see more Limitless. There's so many different ways it can go, almost all of which are interesting. Some network somewhere needs to pick this show up.
Two enthusiastic thumbs up.
***I received no compensation for this review. I saw the show as part of my paid Netflix subscription.***
Tuesday, November 01, 2016
Bedtime Shock
With this latest iOS upgrade from Apple, my iPhone has a new feature called Bedtime. You tell it when you want to wake up in the morning and how many hours of sleep you'd like to have and it will tell you when to go to bed. Cool, I thought. Sign me up for this.
So it chimes like 15 minutes before the time I should go to bed and in the morning, it plays an alarm that when you're awake in the middle of the day sounds soothing and as if you'd sleep right through it. Early in the morning when it wakes me, it is not soothing. In fact, I find the chime in the music annoying. But I didn't know that to begin with and so I didn't trust it. I kept my regular alarm turned on.
And even though I sleep with an air cleaner on and even though I have my radio alarm set super loud, I still heard the Apple wake-up chime over it all. After using it for a couple of weeks, I gave up my regular alarm clock all together and only use the app. It's so much more pleasant than being jerked awake by blaring music.
But I found something that shocked me. As I was changing the setting to wake me up at a different time on Saturday, I decided to touch the little graph at the bottom of the screen. It took me into the Health app and I clicked deeper yet. Guess what I discovered?
Bedtime is monitoring my sleep and it knows exactly when I wake up to use the bathroom. Say what??? I'm trying to figure out how it can be that accurate. It's not as if I take the phone with me in the middle of the night. I'm going to have to do an online search to figure out how it knows what it knows because this is a little disconcerting. I never would have known that it had that kind of monitoring capability if I hadn't found it by accident.
I'm not sure this is a good shock, but I like the Bedtime app too much to give it up. I just wonder what Apple is doing with my sleep patterns.
***I received no compensation for this post of any sort.***
So it chimes like 15 minutes before the time I should go to bed and in the morning, it plays an alarm that when you're awake in the middle of the day sounds soothing and as if you'd sleep right through it. Early in the morning when it wakes me, it is not soothing. In fact, I find the chime in the music annoying. But I didn't know that to begin with and so I didn't trust it. I kept my regular alarm turned on.
And even though I sleep with an air cleaner on and even though I have my radio alarm set super loud, I still heard the Apple wake-up chime over it all. After using it for a couple of weeks, I gave up my regular alarm clock all together and only use the app. It's so much more pleasant than being jerked awake by blaring music.
But I found something that shocked me. As I was changing the setting to wake me up at a different time on Saturday, I decided to touch the little graph at the bottom of the screen. It took me into the Health app and I clicked deeper yet. Guess what I discovered?
Bedtime is monitoring my sleep and it knows exactly when I wake up to use the bathroom. Say what??? I'm trying to figure out how it can be that accurate. It's not as if I take the phone with me in the middle of the night. I'm going to have to do an online search to figure out how it knows what it knows because this is a little disconcerting. I never would have known that it had that kind of monitoring capability if I hadn't found it by accident.
I'm not sure this is a good shock, but I like the Bedtime app too much to give it up. I just wonder what Apple is doing with my sleep patterns.
***I received no compensation for this post of any sort.***
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