The Enneagram Test...again!

This is the second time I've taken the Enneagram Test...the first was two year's ago in STAC. Two years ago, my result was a 7. This time, one test told me I was a 1 and the other told me I was a 7. I feel as if I have some 1 traits, but I'm truly a 7 at heart. In regards to the 1, I'm certainly a perfectionist, I can be controlling, I have good work ethic and I can find pleasure in working hard on something I love. However, the description of a 1 as a whole doesn't shout "LEAHHHHH!!!!" to me. The description of a 7, however, does just that. I'm an enthusiast...imaginative, I often get caught up in situations I imagine. I get bored very easily...so much that I'll start a million projects at once and I may or may not finish them. I love to do everything...I'm very interdisciplinary, I suppose you could say. That's why I'm almost hesitant about what career to choose because I love doing so many things! I have a busy schedule and I like it; I plan, plan, plan, even if I'm not done with something, I'll plan for the next thing. I could go on and on...the description of the 7 in the packet pretty much says it all. So I suppose I'm now a 7 with a hint of 1...if that makes sense.

Working Artist's Statement

Three Core Values:
1) Organization
2) Recognition-people liking my art/performance, telling me I'm good
3) Feeling of productivity-getting things done, sense of accomplishment

Issues:
Heritage/ethnicity-I've always wanted to belong to culture or ethnic group other than "American." I'm jealous of people who speak another language at home and eat ethnic food and visit family in their home countries. This pops up a lot in my work and in my life. It is probably why I study/speak French and Spanish and desire to learn other languages, like German, Portuguese, and Russian; it's also why I want to study abroad and eventually live in Europe, so I can feel like I'm a part of those groups. I always use accents in improv; they're a good way to find a character. I'm also drawn to ethnically based arts. For example, I just saw the musical 'Ragtime' which hit me really hard; it even made me cry...coincidentally, it is about the stories of different ethnic groups in the early 1900s, such as Latvian-Jewish immigrants, WASPs, and African-Americans. Fiddler on the Roof is another favorite musical of mine...it's about Russian Jews, and I happen to be half Russian/Jewish. I listen to ethnic music; one of my favorite bands is Gogol Bordello-a multi-ethnic gypsy punk band, composed of immigrants from Eastern Europe. Jazz, the thing I'm pursuing, is totally ethnic; it's the music that African-Americans made for themselves. I also have a fascination with organized crime and the mafia, another group based on ethnicity and tied together by it; two of the works I've helped write this year involve it...in the movie "I Know a Guy," a girl asks the don of the mafia for a favor. In the children's musical Cassie and I have been working on, Vivian, the pigeon-girl, gets involved with the mafia when she has no other choice. So what does this say about me? I suppose that I want those feelings of closeness, support, love, and acceptance associated with being "ethnic"...nobody likes Americans anyway.

STAC Live

My last STAC Live has me feeling a bit nostalgic. For the four years I've been in STAC, all four STAC Lives I've participated in have been completely different from each other...some more successful than others, some more fun, some more disastrous. This year's is giving me mixed feelings...in a sense, it was very successful. This group works so great together, so we got a lot done and had a lot to present. However, the only negativity I can think of is the audience; as Luke said to me, they were flat-out hostile; it was really a challenge to get them to laugh or even have any kind of response at all...I've been in front of audiences a countless amount of times, but this is the first time I've gotten such a negative energy from them. Luke made an observation that never occurred to me before: STAC Live is kind of like a dog-and-pony show...we're just there to prove to a bunch of people who don't care that we're not a waste of time and that we're actually very productive and intelligent, when in reality, we shouldn't have to prove anything to anyone. Regardless, STAC Live has always been fun to me, and I personally like the performance version of it better than the participatory version we did last year. In summation, this year's STAC Live: eye-opening, surprising, and a little harsh, but enjoyable nevertheless.