Monday, February 23, 2009

Personal Essay

The style of a personal essay is very different to a formal or academic essay. It allows for digression, strong subjectivity, is central to the I 'character' and uses wit or cheek to help establish and maintain a relationship with the user, encouraging strong discussion. It is similar in the fact that judgements and self realisations need to be made. This theme of the personal essay- some essayist such as Montaigne, is central to one of my subjects and as such is the basis for an assessment. I haven't given a great deal of thought into what my personal essay will be based upon however i have stumbled upon the idea (just before drifting off to sleep) of 'The problem of an active imagination'. If you indeed have read my blog before you may have seen a post about 'seeing visions of my own death', unfortunately this was not just a poem but is quite central to the thing that is Emma. My imagination really does run riot with my anxiety and serves as quite a horror to my being. I stare out the window of my flat to see my sore thumb of a uni burn and crumble to dust and i feel that the pulleys in the elevator I'm riding with suddenly snap and i will plummet to my ultimate doom. It's not particularly fair as it's so unlikely that any of these things will happen, yet i must experience them on a daily basis. Though it seems an active imagination is viewed as a positive tool, especially in the field in which i wish to immerse my self in aka writing. So it isn't ultimately all bad, really. And i guess this is the shape which my personal essay will take place. Or i could write a personal essay about the process upon finding a topic for the personal essay, emphasising the riots struck in my brain. I mean the irony is, what i am writing here is a personal essay (as rough as it may be) so it would indeed be different to write an essay about writing an essay- though it is often done as shown by one of the texts the Tutor brought to class. Hum ho, really. And though i am putting a lot of attention into this as i did only receive the damn thing yesterday, that's just another facet of myself I go hard and fast straight away and if i don't get it mostly done withrelative speed i tend to forget it and not bother. Which is unfortunate. This seems to be a charateristic of my Jung personaily type- an ENFP- extroverted, intuative, feeling and perceiving, otherwise known as the Champion!

My Characteristics
Small percent of the population is RARE BABY! haha
Idealist
Passion for Novelty
Excitable
Tireless is talking about this
Boundless enthusiasm
Naturaltalent with language (joy!)
Individualistic
Sensitive and alert
Observers
Positive
Want to help and be liked and admired
Distractable
Strong convictions
Procrastinator
Hate beaurocracy
Can be intellectual and serious but can 'switch' into an intense silliness
People person
Sensitive to things 'as they might be'
Keep decisions open and view the world as abtract rather than fixed

I am not kidding, this really is me in a nutshell, well okay there is a bit more to me thn just this personality type, for everyone is different and nothing can be exact, but it really does give a pretty clear guidline as to the type of person i am

Famous ENFP's include:
Charles Dickens, Mark Twian, Oprah, Dr Seuss, and some other ats i've never heard of

The funnisest thing is i have acted in a personal essay with my digression, and this often acts to push the point, which i guess it does, if you look at my personality type and characteristic then you will be able to make striking conclusions as to the reasons why i may do the essay about what i may do it about!



EDIT NOTE:
I'm a fucking douche, really. Didn't read the assesment properly, the essay is supposed to relate to the first four weeks of class. But it's cool. I'm heaps smooth and i think i could work it in, you know talking about our current culture of fear and all and the role that plays. Ahh, genius? Not really... ha

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