Test Your Color Skills!

You can test your ability to discern slight color gradations here. There's no time limit, you just drag and drop the blocks in each row until you think they're in the correct order.
I guess some people take a long time worrying over this. It probably does improve your score to obsess a little about it before clicking on "score test," but I confess I put my set together pretty quickly and soon got tired of wondering whether there were any slightly misplaced squares. My result:

Based on your information, below is how your score compares to those of others with similar demographic information.

* Your score: 11
* Gender: Female
* Age range: 40-49
* Best score for your gender and age range: 0
* Highest score for your gender and age range: 1421

So even rushing through it in poor lighting conditions, I didn't do too badly. Maybe you'll do better and get a 0.
My errors were all in the blue and green range, which either suggests I don't handle those colors as well or that I was lazier correcting those sections. I guess I should take it again and see if the results are similar...

Return of the Hippies?

Since members of the gamelan got rather into the question of whether certain people would term themselves hippies, I think it is time for this quiz:

I am 37% Hippie.

I need to step away from the tie-dye. I smell too good to be a hippie and my dad is probably a cop. Being a hippie is not a fashion craze, man. It was a way of life, in the 60’s, man.

Take the
Hippie Test
@ FualiDotCom

Nobody asked me if I was a hippie. OK, I confess, I was born too late to be a 60s hippie, but...

Past and Future Luck

Interesting possibilities lie ahead. Some of them are pretty much there for me to take; others remain uncertain, dependent on factors somewhat or even largely outside my control.
To be sure, this is always the case, but it seems particularly true of late. Will the journal article I just revised be accepted? ...depends on whether the editors and anonymous reviewers think the changes were sufficient. Will I come up with a truly scintillating topic for the intriguing call-for-papers that arrived in today's email? ...we can only hope so since my research gives me several possible angles. Projects for next year? ...this area remains in the planning stages.
There was a time when I wanted particular things intensely. Now, we often hear that in order to get what you want, you have to really want it, and to some extent this is true. Many things in life require wanting something enough to put in the effort to get it.
But when I think of the things I've wanted the most desperately, and put a lot of effort into getting, on the whole these are not things I ever got. (Or at least not yet. I suppose some of them could still surprise me, and I hope one or two of them will.) I'm much better at getting things I want less intensely and that require either little effort or only reasonable diligence.
And at some point I found that I had moved away from wanting specific things intensely and on to wanting whatever would be the best outcome. This is especially true of situations involving other people, because what I want most might not be best for everyone involved, but it's an approach that also feels well suited to waiting for results of applications and such. Applying for funding, I might think I preferred a particular fellowship, but I'd figure that what I wanted most was whatever would really be best, and that the best outcome might not be obvious to me.
In general, I'd say my life has been full of very good luck, but it has felt particularly lucky since I took to hoping for whatever was truly best. There are things I once wanted and didn't get, and that I subsequently realized wouldn't have been all that great. One of those failures to get what I wanted brought me something much better.
It feels a little vague just to hope for whatever will truly be best in a given situation, but I've learned that it works pretty well for me. And so, looking into an only partly defined future, I feel confident that, with the right attitude and an openness to the possibilities, my luck will be pretty good.

Your Luck Quotient: 75%

You have a high luck quotient. More often than not, you've felt very lucky in your life. You may be randomly lucky, but it's probably more than that. Optimistic and open minded, you take advantage of all the luck that comes your way.

How Lucky Are You?

Only Kind of Tortured

I am 29% Tortured Artist.

I have some artistic ability, but it is probably a hobby and doesn't drive my life into a dark abysmal hole were I am alone and against the world.

Take the
Tortured Artist Test
@ FualiDotCom

OK, I admit it, I am not sufficiently tortured. (That doesn't give any of you the right to annoy me, however.)
But seriously, isn't Tortured Artist usually just suitable for the teens and twenties? I'm sure I fit the mold then. Right now, I'm tormented mainly by deadlines and by A Certain Spotted Member of the Household (originally nicknamed Naughty Boy) who believes he belongs in the bedroom chewing on Forbidden Items. Yeah, you just try keeping him out of the bedroom first thing in the morning when he's camped outside the door...

The Book-Reader Quiz

We pause in our dissertation-frenzy to offer the following amusement:

What Kind of Reader Are You? Your Result: Obsessive-Compulsive Bookworm You're probably in the final stages of a Ph.D. or otherwise finding a way to make your living out of reading. You are one of the literati. Other people's grammatical mistakes make you insane.
Dedicated Reader
Book Snob
Literate Good Citizen
Fad Reader
Non-Reader
What Kind of Reader Are You? Create Your Own Quiz

Color My Brain

Blogger has been acting buggy, I spent all morning trying to cut fat out of a dissertation chapter that seemed to be in fairly good shape, a swarm of termites appeared in my parents' dining room, and I was appalled how much things tend to cost on Berkeley's Fourth Street (not that it has ever been a discount paradise).
But life is not so bad, and John and Cesar are throwing their holiday extravaganza tomorrow night, so tomorrow I'll be helping John cook up the feast. And should I read a bit of short fiction during the performance part of the party, or should I do a piano improv like last year? Cast your vote, and we'll see what my fertile (empurpled?) brain stirs up.

Your Brain is Purple

Of all the brain types, yours is the most idealistic. You tend to think wild, amazing thoughts. Your dreams and fantasies are intense. Your thoughts are creative, inventive, and without boundaries. You tend to spend a lot of time thinking of fictional people and places - or a very different life for yourself.

What Color Is Your Brain?

Rotating Dancer Recap

For those who were wondering, I have located an online version of the rotating dancer. There are some other instances of her online, but I thought I'd go with the journalistic version.
I don't know whether this actually tests right/left-brain dominance, as various blogs point out that no one seems to have a citation for the thing and one version claimed that seeing clockwise motion meant left-brain dominance while other versions claim it means right-brain.
There does, however, seem to be general agreement that it is entertaining.
Meanwhile, the fact that the rabbits began to shed when the weather turned cold has, as usual, proven their prescience: the weather soon warmed up again, with highs of around 75. (It gets hotter than that in the apartment despite the general lack of sun through the windows.)

Let Me Look Into Your Brain...

My friend Dirk, who forwards me all manner of quirky stuff from the sublime to the truly tasteless (Dirk knows me well, obviously), has now sent me a curious little item involving a dancer's rotating silhouette. Allegedly, if you see the dancer turning one way, you're left-brained, and if you see her turning the other way, you're right-brained.
Whether this particular test is accurate, I couldn't say, but she seemed to go one way for me for a minute or so, then appeared to stop and change direction, and then seemed to go back to her original direction. This is not how she appears to most people; supposedly the meaning was that I'm smarter than the average bear but more right-brained than left since I mostly saw the right-brained direction.
This reminded me of an old right-brain/left-brain test a co-worker gave me long ago which somewhere along the line failed to get moved onto my most recent computer. This test not only checks for right- and left-brain preference, but also auditory and visual. Well, the first time I took said test, I scored 50% on every preference. Subsequent tries at the test wandered around a bit but confirmed that I don't really seem to favor right- or left-brainedness or auditory or visual.
After staring at Dirk's dancing figure for awhile, I decided to see if I could find the old test on the internet. Rather to my surprise, I found it right away.
You too can take the test--I found it at http://ftp.ccccd.edu/lipscomb/16_week_course/brain_lab.htm where there are some instructions about taking it (mainly to give your name as 50 because this triggers it to give you more questions, which is rather peculiar).
I still scored right in the middle, with a 50/50 right-left split and 56.8% auditory, 43.2% visual. The personal evaluation tells me I'm well balanced but not a very efficient learner since I use a variety of approaches, not necessarily by choice. But, it says, I should feel content with myself although being a little indecisive and not being as creative as my potential (?! I think this refers to wasting time studying art history rather than creating on my own 100% of the time...). On the whole, the thing seems to know what it's talking about. If I can do something using five different methodologies instead of just one, I'll try to use six. And I wouldn't say that either my auditory or my visual skills strike me as reliably strong. I never know whether I'll remember a whole conversation practically word-for-word or just have a vague notion that it was about X. When certain members of my committee try to get me to remember what Picasso's Still Life with Chair Caning looks like (one of those less than stellar moments from my comprehensive exams), they're lucky to hear me mention the chair caning and the rope frame. I do have a good recollection of Picasso and Braque's favorite cubist color scheme, though.
What the test is missing, in my opinion, is the kinesthetic. This usually seems to get left out by everyone except people who study athletes. For that matter, even people who write about it seem to have a limited understanding of its varied nature. For example, About.com has a pretty good piece on different learning styles and how to study depending on your dominant learning style. It assumes, however, that everyone who learns kinesthetically is fidgety, a poor speller, and good at sports and role-playing. As someone who learns numerous things best by doing them physically, I can assure you that I have never been very fidgety, have been an excellent speller since the age of 9, and was unimpressive at sports until I took up skiing at a rather advanced age. Something is not being gotten across about kinesthetic learning.

Movie of Life Quiz

The Movie Of Your Life Is An Indie Flick

You do things your own way - and it's made for colorful times. Your life hasn't turned out how anyone expected, thank goodness! Your best movie matches: Clerks, Garden State, Napoleon Dynamite

If Your Life Was a Movie, What Genre Would It Be?

While I haven't seen or even heard of any of the films mentioned (I am very much behind on my movies), I'd say this quiz got it right.
Not that my life has been nearly as colorful as I might have liked... but most people seem to think it's been full of unexpected and interesting twists.
I was thinking about this recently since one of the lucky people writing me a letter of recommendation (who hasn't had to do one for me before and probably won't have to in the future) is someone I've known for a startlingly long time now, although we were out of touch for quite a few years (something that can be said of several people whom I'm now, somewhat accidentally, back in touch with).
It struck me that it must be a rather strange exercise, though I hope an enjoyable one, to review my career and formulate an academic letter of recommendation. Of course, when I have to prevail upon people from out of my past for this sort of thing, I only ask people who would be able to say something worthwhile and interesting about me. But it must be quite a different project for them than for the members of my dissertation committee, who know all sorts of things about my dissertation and other recent projects, and not necessarily all that much else beyond what my c.v. reveals to them. I gather that they examine my c.v. and begin to romanticize about what my life must have been like before graduate school (it was, I am afraid, all too often not that exciting and involved much more time standing over a photocopier than I like to think). Whereas people who have known me since I was 18 or 20 (three of whom have written letters for me in the past ten years or so) get to think about what sort of person I was then and how I was occupying myself and why this left them with a fairly positive impression of me, and then ponder what on earth I've done since then and what has possessed me to go into art history.
It must indeed be strange.
I hope it will be fun to write letters of recommendations for my future students. I also hope that I'll only be asked by people for whom I can write something impressive. It would not be fun to tell someone that all I could say was that they showed up to class regularly, now then would it?

Openness Quiz

You Are 51% Open

You are a fairly open person, but you also like to maintain your privacy. You definitely will tell all (okay, almost all) to your closest friends... But strangers and acquaintances only get a peek into your life.

How Open Are You?

In the interests of full disclosure, I will reveal that Verizon thinks it can get me home phone and internet service on Monday. This means that instead of trying to remember, while at school, what I might need to take care of on the internet, I can handle most of my email and other random internetly tasks at home when I am not awake enough to do much else.
This means that the pace of blogging and use of photos ought to pick up again. I'll bet the entire universe is excited beyond belief about that...

The So-Called Soul Quiz

You Are a Visionary Soul

You are a curious person, always in a state of awareness. Connected to all things spiritual, you are very connected to your soul. You are wise and bright: able to reason and be reasonable. Occasionally, you get quite depressed and have dark feelings. You have great vision and can be very insightful. In fact, you are often profound in a way that surprises yourself. Visionary souls like you can be the best type of friend. You are intuitive, understanding, sympathetic, and a good healer. Souls you are most compatible with: Old Soul and Peacemaker Soul

What Kind of Soul Are You?

Then again, maybe I'm just intended to spend lots of time providing rabbit massage to Calypso Spots, the Glutton for Petting.

The American Language (for Starters)

Being somewhat less than energetic (how would you like it if your back ached every time you bent it? or does it already?), I proffer the following rather than discoursing on today's re-reading of Rosalind Krauss on surrealist photography:

Your Linguistic Profile::

70% General American English

15% Yankee

10% Upper Midwestern

0% Dixie

0% Midwestern

What Kind of American English Do You Speak?

I'm not sure where the Yankee part comes in or why I don't score higher on Midwest. After all, I'm from the Midwest and I've never lived in the Northeast. I think they didn't ask about the right words. But try it for yourselves.
Speaking of languages and their oddities, on my jaunts to England it became clear to me that while I generally understand British English, it is unwise to expect to. It was consistently easier to understand EasyJet's Czech announcements than its English versions. I think this was because while there are many dialects of Czech, official announcements are in standard Czech (unless, I suppose, the venue is a folk festival or the like) and clearly enunciated (even if in dialect). The British, on the other hand and not just on EasyJet, seem to figure that public announcements can be made in a manner that suggests the speaker not only does not wish to enunciate but is incapable of doing so and is speaking rapidly to get the whole ordeal over with. About all the listener can make out are standard phrases like "Ladies and Gentleman," whereas in Czech I may not know all the words but the whole thing hangs together so that I get to learn terms for things like seatbelt and tray table (which I have now forgotten but will recognize next time I hear them).

The White Trash Quiz

For your amusement while I go make fruit salad...

I am 14% White Trash.

I, my friend, have class. I am so not white trash. . I am more than likely Democrat, and my place is neat, and there is a good chance I may never drink wine from a box.

Take the
White Trash Test
@ FualiDotCom

Well, my place is not that neat, but it is not bad. In my opinion. When I'm not in the throes of moving.
And I haven't drunk wine from a box in many a year. When wine first started being sold in boxes, the verdict was that it was surprisingly good stuff. The better wines stayed in bottles, though.

Just for Fun

Back from Budapest, too tired to get into the various exhibitions here and there... so instead, some trivial amusement...

Snickers

Nutty and gooey - you always satisfy.

What Kind of Candy Are You?

Political Quiz

After a visit which entailed some degree of discussion of the Democratic party's presidential candidates and their chances in the next election, I offer this quiz (which I hope will center properly on the blog, which it is not doing in the draft form). Tomorrow we have the last visit of the parental trip, which will take us the farthest afield. I hope we have mostly got their suitcases packed before we get into the rental car tomorrow morning.

You are a Social Liberal (73% permissive) and an... Economic Liberal (11% permissive) You are best described as a: Socialist Link: The Politics Test on OkCupid Free Online Dating Also: The OkCupid Dating Persona Test

How Did They Know???

You're Watership Down!

by Richard Adams

Though many think of you as a bit young, even childish, you're actually incredibly deep and complex. You show people the need to rethink their assumptions, and confront them on everything from how they think to where they build their houses. You might be one of the greatest people of all time. You'd be recognized as such if you weren't always talking about talking rabbits.


Take the Book Quiz
at the Blue Pyramid.

The Coffee Quiz

It claims I'm "a Classic Cup 'O' Joe!"


What Kind of Coffee are You?
brought to you by Quizilla

Scary Theoretician Quiz

Since Kristen has brought this to my attention...

What 20th Century Theorist are you?

You are Jacques Lacan! Arguably the most important psychoanalyst since Freud, you never wrote anything down, and the only works of yours are transcriptions of your lectures. You are notoriously difficult to understand, but at least you didn't talk about the penis as much as other psychoanalysts. You died in 1981.
Take this quiz!

I don't know what to say about this except it must be the result of my claiming to have psychoanalytic literature beside my bed. I don't, but it has been a long time since I read any Poe, and Colette and Borges were paired with people I haven't read. And I do read psychoanalytic literature for my dissertation. (But Lacan??? Well, at least he associated with surrealists...)
Oh, and I avoided marking words like "abject" and "subaltern" in preference for Caillois-like terms such as "mimicry."

The End of the Winter Sport Season Quiz

Clearly, we are not going to have any more snow around here this year. Thus, as a skier, I offer:

You Are Skiing

Graceful, athletic, and gusty - you're willing to put it all on the line. You're willing to take big risks for big rewards.

What Winter Sport Are You?

What Kind of Dog Are You?

Now you'll really conclude I am not spending enough time on my dissertation. But this is fun: go to Gone to the Dogs and click on Game (at the side of the page) and it will give you a questionnaire that will then decide what kind of dog you would be.
It is utterly silly, especially since all the questions about size caused me to end up as a Miniature Dachshund. I'd say that if there is one animal I am not likely to be, it is a Dachshund (known to some of us, who have lived next door to more than our share, as Duds). On the other hand, it would have been more embarrassing to end up as a Toy Poodle.
I'm not sure what sort of dog I most resemble, to be sure. Probably some sort of mutt. Then again, maybe a Corgi? They have short legs but are reasonably attractive, although I know nothing of their personalities.
What sort of cat? Maybe a Siamese, as they are talkative but only when they feel like it. Or a basic tabby or other shorthair.
On the whole, however, I think I am more like an otter or a hedgehog. Or, of course, like a medium sized rabbit. Ms. Spots and I have a great deal in common. We are lively and inquisitive; we like to dance; we like chocolate and gingerbread and Indian food, not to mention fruits and vegetables; we love George (aka Mr. Handsome and Delightful); and we like to lie around trying to entice our favorite people into petting us.