A week ago I was given some unexpected news: our provincial government has started to closely monitor the amount of study that students with work permits can do, so I won’t be able to continue my classes until I obtain a) a CAQ from Québec, and b) an official study permit from the Canadian government.  Essentially, this process entails lots of paperwork, a fair bit of money, a lot of forms and copies of photographs, and then a great deal of waiting.  Feh!  Most outrageously, it puts a kink in my plans, which were to sail through all of the written levels available at my school and emerge, triumphant and kinda-fluent, next summer.  But I continue to fill forms and wait, because study is what I want to pursue with my remaining time here, and… why not see if I can do it?

One of the perks of the otherwise-cheap, government-sponsored classes I’m taking is that our ongoing indoctrination includes some subsidized activities, including field trips and, well, other stuff.  Last spring, we got to take a bus tour showing Montreal’s past and recent immigration history; last night, we went to the World Press Photo tour; and last week, we got to take a lengthy personality test (logic being, that some of us may be in the process of switching careers after immigrating to Canada).

This was the first time that I’d taken such a test since the famous one in sixth grade that determined I would be either a landscape architect or a poultry veterinarian, so I was pretty excited.  The whole process, particularly the “choose your top 20 jobs, even if you’re currently unqualified for them” bit, was fun.  Yeah, I’d be a dance teacher!  It was like creating a rich fantasy life for myself upon a Scantron form.

We got the results back a week later, which included a Myers-Briggs / Jungian as well as a Holland typology. The Myers-Briggs results determined that I am an ISTJ, which I half-jokingly refer to as the anal-retentive type.  This means that I am systematic, organized, reserved, scheduled, dutiful, and rule-bound, which — as much fun as it really makes me sound like, woo — is pretty dead-on.  I am, in Gilbert & Sullivan terms, a slave of duty, and my “introversion” score was so high as to be nearly off the charts.

The Holland typology, however, was another story entirely.  I’m still not entirely sure how it works, but the person who ran the test highlighted our results in green, yellow, or red highlighter to indicate the force of various personality traits at play in us.  And, after casting some covert glances around my peers’ papers, it turns out that I have a lot of personality.  (I didn’t realize that we were measuring quantity as well as quality, but it is flattering nonetheless.)  Apparently, I am extremely Artistic and extremely Investigative, as well as rather strongly Conventional (see: Slave of Duty) and Social.  Compared to the relatively humorless ISTJ profile, I’m delighted to be so multifaceted.  And having so much personality means that I have pages of potential careers to choose from, including oceanographer, photographer, journalist, economist, orchestra conductor, or mime.  Sweet!

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