Enneagram Obsessed

I have always been fascinated with personality typing systems. The first time I took a Myers-Briggs test and got my type (INTJ), I took every test I could find online just to confirm, and then I read everything I could about my type. My obsession did not stop there either. I would have my friends take the test while I anxiously awaited the results and then read everything about their type. I would make poor Matt answer each question on the questionnaire--occasionally annoyingly chiming in with are you sure that is what you would do? You don't do that!--while I ticked off the boxes to get his results and then I would read aloud the descriptions of his type even though he was not all that interested. 

I went through the same phase when my friend Kim introduced me to my natal chart (double Capricorn, rising Taurus). I've spent days of time on Cafe Astrology and Astrodienst reading about the minute details of my horoscope. I also had Kim calculate the natal charts of all of my siblings and closest friends. If you have ever received a text from me asking where and when you were born, I've probably read your natal chart! I am just fascinated by this shit. 

Enter the Enneagram. 

The Enneagram is a personality typing system that is especially beloved among Progressive Christians. I know the Enneagram number of pretty much every Christian public figure I follow on social media (Rachel Held Evans-3, Nadia Bolz-Weber-8, Sarah Bessey-9), and when they were all talking about a new book about the Enneagram: The Road Back to You, I bit the bullet and ordered the book to find out my number. Of course, I then read every book I could find on the subject, took every available online test (even though they don't encourage tests as an accurate measurement) and listened to several different Enneagram podcasts. True to form, I also texted all of my closest friends and family with a link to this test asking them to take it and tell me what they got. 

According to the Enneagram, there are 9 types of personalities: 

1. The Perfectionist/ Reformer

2. The Helper

3. The Achiever/Performer

4. The Artist/ Individualist

5. The Observer/ Investigator

6. The Loyalist

7. The Enthusiast

8. The Challenger

9. The Peacemaker 

Ones, Nines, and Eights represent the instinctive center, meaning that they operate mainly from the gut. Twos, Threes, and Fours, operate mainly from the heart, or the feeling center, and Fives, Sixes, and Sevens operate predominantly in the mind. 

ONES: 

The perfectionist is marked by a strong inner critic that is always telling them that nothing is as it should be and everything can be improved, including themselves. They suppress their anger so much so that they wouldn't identify as angry, but they actually feel more rage than almost any other number. They are rule followers with a strict ethical code and they always endeavor to appear polite, which can make them seem distant and inauthentic to others. The One's main motivation is to live the right way and improve the world around them. Their biggest fear is that they are corrupt. Their "deadly sin" is anger, which they feel as a smoldering resentment because the rest of the world will not conform to their high ideals. Hillary Clinton is a One. 

TWOS: 

The helper is is friendly, caring, and generous. They are the people who bring treats into the office for their coworkers' birthdays and they are probably the person you go to when you need someone's contact information, because they are in contact with every one. They present the image of being the one who takes care of others' needs but secretly they wish for their caretaking of others to be reciprocated. The Two's motivation is to be loved and needed. Their biggest fear is that they are unloved and unneeded by their loved ones. Their "deadly sin" is pride. They believe that they alone know what everyone around them needs and so consider themselves indispensable. Princess Diana was a Two. 

THREES:

The Performer is high-achieving, image-conscious, and productive. They enjoy leadership roles and they seek out careers that can offer them accolades, status, and prestige. Threes are extroverted and know how to perform for whatever room they are in at the time, which means that Threes can seem very different to people who know them from different contexts. Threes are motivated by their desire to succeed or at least appear successful, and they fear being seen as a failure. Their "deadly sin" is deceit because they will deceive others to preserve their image and they will deceive themselves to the point where they cannot tell the difference between their image and their true self. Beyonce is a Three. 

FOURS: 

The individualist is marked by a desire to be unique. Prone to melancholy, they are moody and feel emotions more deeply than any of the other numbers. They are drawn to artistic endeavors. Fours are motivated by a desire to be understood and understand their identity, but they fear that they will never find their personal significance or be truly understood. Their "deadly sin" is envy because they believe that everyone else possesses something that they cannot have and without it they are incomplete. Jackie Kennedy was probably a Four. 

FIVES: 
The investigator is analytical, detached, and withdrawn. They prefer thought to action and can get caught in a pattern of endless deconstruction and reconstruction of their beliefs, philosophies, and theories. They are drawn to scholarly work or any work they can conduct independently. Fives are motivated by a desire to acquire knowledge and maintain their independence, and their deepest fear is that they are actually incompetent. Their "deadly sin" is avarice because they will hoard their personal time, belongings, and ideas--because they want to be independent and because they can find other people to be draining and invasive--which in turn causes them to withhold love and affection from their loved ones. Dr. House is an example of an Enneagram 5.

SIXES:
The Loyalist is devoted, practical, and hard-working. They're basically Hufflepuffs. They like clear rules and boundaries and they appreciate consistency in their home and work life. Loyalists are motivated by their desire to feel secure and they fear anything that jeopardizes their security. Their "deadly sin" is fear, because they can get caught up in worst-case scenario thinking, and they can find themselves blindly loyal to authority figures and systems if they think that authority will protect them. All of the sources say Frodo is a six, but I think Sam is an even better example of the Loyalist. 

SEVENS: 
The Enthusiast is the pleasure-seeker of the Enneagram. They are fun-loving, energetic, and spontaneous. They live for tomorrow, constantly seeking the next adventure, and they suppress their own negative emotions. The most annoying thing for a Seven would be someone who likes to dwell in their bad feelings or meditate on past mistakes (so a lot of my blog posts would make a Seven very uncomfortable😉). Sevens are motivated by a need to feel happy and stimulated and they fear feeling pain. Their "deadly sin" is gluttony because they have a hard time believing that there can be too much of a good thing. Miley Cyrus is a 7. 

EIGHTS:
The Challenger is independent, strong, and powerful. They tend to be loud, energetic, and physically dominant. Eights are the most confrontational number on the Enneagram, and they like to take on the role of defender of the underdogs. They make good advocates and activists for this reason, but unhealthy Eights can also pick fights just to prove they can win. Eights are motivated by a desire to be in control and they fear vulnerability or losing control to others. Their "deadly sin" is lust because they lust after power and intensity. Alec Baldwin is an 8 (so is the asshat he's been impersonating on SNL, but we won't talk about that).  

NINES: 
The Peacemaker is easy-going, self-effacing, and accommodating. It can be hard to type Nines because they are so used to adapting their needs and desires to those of others so as not to rock the boat. Peacemakers possess an inner "tranquil ocean" to which they can retreat when the outside world has become to overbearing or upsetting. They are motivated by a need to keep the peace and avoid conflict and they fear anything that might disturb their inner calm. They also fear being separated from their loves ones. Their "deadly sin" is sloth because their inner calmness and easy detachment can lead to an extreme passivity, almost as if they are sleeping through their life. Mr. Rogers was a 9. 

There are other cool features of the Enneagram, like the "wings." Each number is influenced by the numbers on either side of it and people are said to have one dominant "wing." So, for example, an Enneagram One could be a 1 wing 2 or a 1 wing 9. The 1 wing 2 would be a little more social and actively involved in peoples' lives, earning them the nickname of "the advocate," while the 1 wing 9 would be a little more withdrawn, earning them the title of "the idealist." So, when figuring out your number, you also want to pay attention to the numbers on either side of it. There are also numbers that you "move towards" in stress and in security, but I won't get into that now. 

So, that's the Enneagram in a nutshell. If you want to take a test to see your number you can do so here, and if you want to read more about all of the numbers you can do so here. 

Now, the Enneagram peeps strongly discourage typing other people since someone's number is supposed to be determined by self-reflection and self-identification, but to make things fun, I'll let you guys guess what my real number is. I first took the test right after the election, so I was filled with a boiling anger and outrage at all of the the injustice in the world, so I mistakenly typed myself as a One. I am an oldest child, straight-A student who was raised with a strict moral code, so it was easy for me to see myself as a perfectionist, but I no longer think that is my real number. I don't fear that I am corrupt and I am not really much of a rule follower. I think this post contains a lot of "tells" for what my real number is. Also, if you wanted to share your number so I can geek out about your type, I would love that. 

Seven Shades of Shit: A Review of Fifty Shades

I would like to start off by saying that Fifty Shades of Grey is easily the worst book I have ever read, and I read the entire Twilight series. It originating as fan fiction has nothing to do with how crappy it is. I've read much better fan fiction. Secondly, "seven shades of shit" is a real quote from the book (it's what Christian might beat out of Ana), so that might give you an idea of the author's superior writing skills. In order to limit the length of this rant, I am going to share the seven worst parts about this book:

1.) The author does not know what subconscious means. Ana is constantly personifying her "subconscious" and her "inner goddess." Her subconscious is a half-moon spectacle wearing librarian who scowls at Ana and shames her for being a slut. Her inner goddess is always doing things like jumping for joy over Ana's sex life with Christian. I would like to strangle them both. But, apart from how annoying they are, someone should tell James or her editor that subconscious means "mental processes of which the individual is not aware." You cannot know what your subconscious is thinking, much less what she is wearing. I believe she means "inner conscience," but somehow her editors never figured that out.

2.) Ana is the least believable character *ever*. This girl is a graduating English major who wants a job in publishing and she doesn't own a laptop and refers to them as some sort of inconceivable space machines. Also, she is a virgin because she has *never* met any guy ever that she was physically attracted to until Christian.

3.) The author uses the same words repeatedly to describe Ana's reaction to Christian. She "gasps" when he looks at her in "that way." Her breath hitches, she inwardly sighs, or she thinks of her hunger that is "not for food." She gasps over thirty times just in the first half. And this classic-book-loving English major alternates between saying "oh my" and "holy shit" when Christian overwhelms her, which is all the time.

4.) Christian Grey is an abusive psychopath, and it has nothing to do with his kinks. He is a controlling sociopath all.the.time. When Ana does not answer her emails at work, he has a blackberry delivered to her work so she can answer him at any moment. He tracks her phone so he can know where she is all the time, and when she pisses him off while in Georgia, he flies across the country to stalk her while she's at dinner with her mom. He is seriously the worst. If you thought Edward dismantling the engine in Bella's car so she couldn't leave her house was charming, Christian is the boy for you! I will admit that I find Mr. Rochester and Heathcliff attractive even though I know they are shit, but Christian Grey can kiss my ass.

5.) The sex scenes stop being sexy a quarter of the way in as they all are either described in exactly the same way--desire pools in her belly, she can feel it "down there"--or they get creepy abusive, i.e. I'm going to rape you and if you get aroused, I'll beat you. Sexy!

6.) The book feigns depth by continually likening Ana to Tess D'Urbervilles and mentioning all of the classical music Christian listens to. Just stop.

7.) Finally, the most repulsive part of the whole novel is that James dedicates the book to her husband, referring to him as the master of her universe, just begging readers to think of her husband as the inspiration for Christian Grey.

Beautiful Creatures

In Beautiful Creatures (2009), Kami Garcia and Margaret Stohl make the unusual decision to narrate the romantic plot through the male point of view.  Instead of being inside the head of a teenage girl, the reader views the narrative through the eyes of Ethan, a sixteen-year-old boy. At first, I welcomed this shift in perspective because I anticipated that it would be a refreshing change from the traditional, female-narrated young adult romance. However, only a few pages into the book I wanted out of Ethan’s head. It turns out that being inside this sixteen-year-old boy’s head means listening to him objectify teenage girls, rank them on a scale of hotness, mercilessly mock the girl whose body type does not fit his ideal, and slut shame girls who dress too promiscuously for his taste. As our point of view character, Ethan invites the reader to judge the girls’ bodies and sexuality in a way that is especially problematic for a book whose target audience is teenage girls.

Of course, a certain level of objectification of the opposite sex is par for the course in young adult romances. For example, Jacob Black’s six-pack abs are seared into the minds of Twilight readers; however, Ethan and his friends go beyond checking out teenage girls by ranking them in order of hotness. When Lena, Ethan’s future girlfriend, comes to Gatlin, Ethan and his friends ask if she is “Savannah Snow hot?” Ethan then describes Savannah Snow as “the standard by which all other girls at Jackson were measured,” who is “5’8” worth of the most perfect legs you’ve ever seen” (18).  We then learn that Emily is Savannah’s less-hot sidekick who has more to offer under her bikini top. Between Emily’s bra size and Savannah’s legs for days, it is apparent that the hottest girls at Jackson High look nothing like most sixteen-year-old girls. Nevertheless, even these sixteen year olds who are built like twenty-somethings cannot compete with Lena and her cousin, as Ethan tells us that they are the hottest and second-hottest girls in Gatlin. Ridley, Lena’s cousin who wears see-through lingerie as clothes, gets ranked as “third degree burns” hot which is above “Savannah Snow hot” (116). This culture of ranking girls based on their bodies not only objectifies teenage girls, but it also sets unrealistic standards for “hotness” that most sixteen-year-old girls do not meet.

In addition to ranking girls on their hotness, Ethan also harshly mocks girls who do not fit certain standards. This troubling habit is most evident in his description of Charlotte, one of Savannah’s less attractive friends. Ethan first lets us know that Charlotte is overweight when he is disappointed that, when the boys were waiting for a glimpse of Lena, “the only thing we got to look at was too much of Charlotte Chase in a jean skirt two sizes too small” (18). Ethan repeatedly refers to Charlotte’s clothes being too tight, at one point even saying that she is “gasping for breath” because she is squeezed into too-small clothes (338), but in case the reader did not pick up on the fact that Charlotte is chubby, her prom dress rips and the whole school sees her in her underwear. When this happens, Ethan describes her panties as “the size of the state of Texas” and describes her resulting cry as a “now-everyone-knows-how-fat-I-really-am scream” (269). Ethan invites the reader to join in on the humiliation of an overweight teenage girl who is ashamed of her body. The last look we get at Charlotte is when Ethan sees Emily glaring at Charlotte and interprets her look to mean “maybe you should lay off the pie and put some effort into looking that gorgeous” (338). While Ethan’s ranking of girls’ hotness could possibly be excused as the male equivalent of the descriptions of chiseled abs in most young adult romances, there is no excusing his harsh criticism of Charlotte’s body throughout the novel.

Finally, Ethan also assumes the authority to determine which high school girls are sluts. Ethan divides Gatlin girls into two groups depending on where they buy their prom dresses: Little Misses or Southern Belles (260). Little Misses were pageant girls, the daughters of pageant girls, or the daughters of “women who wished they had been pageant girls” (260). Ethan notes that “these were the same girls you might eventually see holding their babies at the Jackson High School graduation in a couple of years” (260). While there is some biting humor in this remark, his prediction of which girls will become teenage mothers based on what they wear to prom problematically links clothing with sexuality in a way that is reminiscent of rape arguments that blame the victim. However, not even the girls who choose Southern Belle dresses are safe from being skanks in Ethan’s eyes; the last view we get of these girls is of them “looking skanky in their tank tops and baby tees” at Lena’s birthday party (357). Ethan divides high school girls into sluts and nice girls, but Lena is the only teenage girl that escapes being labeled as a slut by Ethan. Ethan’s identification of high school girls as sluts disturbingly links a girl’s clothing with her sexual desire and suggests that teenage boys have authority over adolescent female sexuality.

In many ways, Ethan’s biting criticism of girls’ bodies and sexuality is reminiscent of the voice of the “mean girl” of series like Gossip Girl; however, the mean girl invites sympathy in a way that Ethan does not. Oftentimes, the mean girl adopts the persona of the “bitch” as the only route of power she sees available to her as a woman. Readers are also aware that her treatment of other girls is problematic, so we are not invited to share her viewpoint. Further, mean girls are frequently dethroned, and they usually learn to forge female bonds and make reparations for their past deeds.  On the other hand, at the end of Beautiful Creatures, Ethan is left as our trusted point-of-view character; there is no sense that we are supposed to be aware that his perspective is problematic, and he does not come to any realization that he has been treating girls wrongly. Instead, Beautiful Creatures invites the readers to agree with Ethan’s girl hating and slut shaming, which encourages teenage female readers to accept his chauvinistic view of the female body and possibly even turn his discriminating male gaze onto themselves. While Beautiful Creatures breaks with tradition by allowing us into the mind of a sixteen-year-old boy, Ethan’s mind is not a welcoming space for young female readers or one I am comfortable inhabiting.

This post was originally published on Swampish, the blog for UF's Center for Children's Literature and culture. Find the original post here. 

Graduation Remorse? On Regret and Moving On

I am quickly approaching the last graduation of my lifetime (please God. Do NOT let me get any more degrees), and, as with everything about my experience in a PhD program, it has caused a lot of navel gazing. While most people, myself included, usually approach graduations with a sense of celebration and pride (and maybe a bit of dread because those ceremonies are so fricking boring), I'll admit that I haven't been able to find the joy.

The last time I was in Arizona, I was talking to my mom about my upcoming graduation, and she asked me, "So, knowing what you know now, if you could go back in time would you do it all over again?"

The fact is that I regret getting a PhD, deeply. It makes other people uncomfortable when I say that, but it is what it is. If I could go back in time, I absolutely would have walked away from academia after my master's.And I would have got my master's in education, not literature. I have spent a lot of the last five years beating myself up for that. Idiot, you did this to yourself. If you HAD to do a PhD, why did you not accept U of A's offer? Why didn't you leave after your exams? Why didn't you get a more practical degree? Why? Why? Why? 

But, here's the thing: I couldn't have known that I would feel this way when I made my decisions about grad school. 

It's not like I wasn't forewarned. I had professors tell me that the jobs just weren't there. I even had a professor tell me that I should think about taking time off before the PhD because it would mean a lot of sacrifice. She said, it means living in poverty into your thirties. You are going to watch your friends buy houses, have kids if they want them, and build lives that you cannot afford. She said, you will have to commit to live anywhere to get that first job and work several temporary positions before you land the one that sticks. But twenty-three year old me thought that all sounded fine. I don't care about houses or savings or kids, I thought. Matt and I can live anywhere! 

And then I moved to Gainesville for five years. Here's the thing, I shit on Gainesville a lot, but Gainesville is not a bad place to live. I could do a lot worse. And that's the problem. I quickly learned (surprise!) that I cannot live just anywhere and be happy. 

And then I started to notice the logistical difficulties of the whole moving around with no money thing. Moving is expensive. We had to load up our credit cards to finance the move out here, and we were never able to get them back down, with Matt's student loan payments and me making 15k a year. When it became time to think about those temporary college teaching positions, I knew that we cannot afford it. I can't just keep moving around, building up debt, pursuing a dream job that I will likely never land. 

There's also the added shittiness of living across the country from every one you know and love AND being too poor to afford to visit for the holidays, or when your loved ones fall ill or get in a serious car accident or have babies or get married. It began to feel like a sort of exile from everyone I cared about. 

And then there's the whole issue of my decisions affecting another person. Matt very graciously moved out to Gainesville with me so we could do this thing, even though it meant working a retail job he didn't want to keep for years while he tried to find something, anything, that would use his education. If I decided to hop around the country pursuing the job I used to think I wanted, it would mean uprooting Matt every year or two to move to a new location. 

And so, as graduation approaches, I now know that I am not equipped, mainly psychologically, to do the thing I thought I wanted to do with this degree because I just am not willing to continue to make these sacrifices. I spent the last five years being less happy than I could have been, and now I do not know what I will do next, and that kind of sucks. But, at least I know what I am not willing to sacrifice now, so that's one upside. If nothing else, I am leaving my PhD program really knowing myself. I've done so much self-reflection and reevaluation it's frankly ridiculous. 

So, yes, I regret this degree, though I've loved the students and classes I have taught here. And, yes, I feel like a freak because I can't find the joy in completing the degree. But, I can realize that there was no way for me to know all of this five years ago, and I can try to have some grace for myself and forgive myself for choosing wrongly. I came here thinking I was Cristina Yang, someone who would pursue my dream job regardless of the personal sacrifices, but I'm not. I'm someone a little sappier, who misses my AZ friends and family too much to plan my next steps far away from them. I'm someone who wants a house, damn it, with a yard. I'm someone who wants work to be a much smaller part of my identity. And I am learning to be okay with that. I still, however, am someone who wants Sandra Oh's hair, because, come on. 

P.S. Everyone should be watching Killing Eve