a work in progress

INTJ stereotypes

INTJ Stereotypes (from MBTI personality test based on Carl Jung’s work)

• Genius: Duh. 
• Psychopath: Nope
• No feelings: Eh. I have them. 
• Atheist: No!
• Not romantic: I’m romantic. 
• Clever: Am I?
• Arrogant: Yep
• Jerk: Yep
• Brutal and direct: I can lean that way.
• INTJs can’t accept opinions other than their own: I’ll accept your opinion, I’ll just judge it. 
• INTJs manipulate people all the time: Everyone is constantly manipulating everyone else. It’s what we do. 
• INTJs are robots in reality: I. am. not. robot. 
• INTJs are antisocial: I’ve worked on this for years. It took work but I can be a very social being now. 
• INTJs can’t say “I love you”: No. It’s difficult to find someone to say that to though.
• INTJs want to be alone 24/7: No - we like people! We just like ourselves more. 
• INTJs can’t smile: NO. I do smile a lot, actually.
• INTJs don’t/can’t care about others: Care about people TOO much actually.
• INTJs are megalomaniacs by their very nature: Am I?
• INTJs plan your death: Nope!
• INTJs don’t cry: It’s a rare phenomenon and if it’s happening, I’m REALLY upset. 
• INTJs cannot/will not fight: Hate it.  Refuse. 
• INTJs like conflict: NO.
• INTJs are self-centered: Yes.
• INTJs have no regret/remorse: I don’t feel regret very often… but I do feel remorse when I mess up. 
• Appear to be on drugs: I’ve been told… why is that?
• Walking contradictions: Doesn’t everyone want to be one of thee?
• Easily bored if not inspired: I’m always inspired. That’s the wonderfulness of being an artist INTJ rather than the usual scientist. 

Twenty One.

It’s been several weeks since I last posted and a TON has happened … . almost all good things.

For one, I feel like a New Yorker now. I understand what happens to people when they live here… I feel like I can imagine my life here much easier. The idea of living in New York City isn’t that dream anymore … it’s reality. 

I mean, I remember when I was 16 and I first came to NYC … I remember stepping off the train and thinking “oh my god … I’m here. This is where I belong.” And I remember telling my parents that one day I would live here and write musicals. I’m living here and writing musicals . . how FREAKY is that?  It’s very freaky frankly. 

Since we last talked … man, I don’t know when we last talked. I’ll start in the middle of November …that’s when things started getting SO crazy that I barely had time to breathe let alone blog. And Nov 14 was my last ACTUAL blog, right? So I’m back here now for ACTUAL blog 21.

—Saw Michael John LaChuisa’s new show: QUEEN OF THE MIST. It was pretty fantastic. It was off-Broadway and hopefully will be moving to Broadway in the future. It was truly innovative and beautiful. And it was the first show that I’ve been able to walk up to the composer afterwards and hug them. I felt super important. haha.

—Saw Julianne Davis and Dan Collin’s show SOUTHERN COMFORT the Musical. That was also very very good. It was one of the first MUSICALS that really begins to tackle transgenderism/transsexuality that I’ve seen. I really respect and admire them for taking the jump into a difficult subject like that.

—I’ve had three REALLY fantastic collaborations in a row! That’s a HUGE plus!!

—I’ve been spending more time with Olivia, my friend from China. Her and I are becoming closer, which is great because we have sooo much to talk about. I get so bored with small talk and her and I NEVER have small talk. And it’s really great to have friends outside the program! Not that I don’t love every one IN the program— it’s just nice to have some people on the outside.

—Went to my beautiful niece’s Christening! That was so special and I was really happy to be home for the weekend! It’s still really hard to fathom that I’m an aunt!!

—Thanksgiving break was also wonderful. I think almost every Thanksgiving I drink too much wine and fall asleep way too early. Hah.

—Saw Julia (my roommate)’s show at Manhattan Rep. It was truly wonderful. I feel honored to be around such talented people here … I’m constantly impressed by them.

—Saw the revival of Godspell and it was SO fantastic. The sound was awful— but the new arrangements and all the performances were astounding.

—I have two songs done now for my song cycle I’ve been working on :) Gotta revise the lyrics for the third then set it over break!

—My film scoring lessons are going really well- the professor says I definitely have a knack for it :) And that makes me REALLY happy.

—I set some lyrics for Bill Finn’s class and he actually liked it … that makes me happy, since he has the reputation of being hard to please!

—I had my end of the semester evaluation and that went very well! Very very well!

—Yesterday I had crazy good luck. Got rush tickets to the evening performance How to Succeed— this week is on of Dan Radcliffe’s last weeks in the show! Then at 2pm I walked into the Bonnie and Clyde theatre and SOMEHOW managed to get a rush ticket for the 2pm show! They started five minutes late and it was FANTASTIC. Frank Wildehorn gets a bad rap in the musical theatre community— but honestly BONNIE AND CLYDE was amazing. I loved it. I definitely can see some flaws in it, but what shows DON’T have some flaws? I was a little overwhelmed by the bagillion ‘I want’ songs, but honestly, I think it was their way to get into the characters and make them sympathetic— and I think they did that. I loved both characters! The show worked for me!

—How to Succeed was fantastic too! I was SOOO impressed with Radcliffe’s dancing! Everyone knows he’s a fantastic actor, and honestly his singing was so-so, but he CAN DANCE! He’s fantastic. And in general, I was BLOWN away by the choreography of the entire production. So unique! … Also, I am CONTINUOUSLY in awe of Loesser’s lyrics! He was a genius. Pure genius!

So that’s basically what’s been going down! I’m making friends still and that’s wonderful— I’m getting in and out of a good schedule. Last week I barely slept at all but this week I think I’ll probably be on top of my work and I’m going to try to stick to a good schedule!  We’ll see!

I’m REALLY excited for break but I can’t believe grad school is almost 1/4 over . .. that’s just … CRAZY. Like really really crazy … it’s going so so fast.

I also can’t wait to spend New Years with my baby and two of my besties: sarah and paul. It’s going to be amazing!

Love,

Teresa

The wonderful moment of the day

many many years ago in the days of the tape-walkman, I accidentally recorded this song on 99.1HFS (Back when HFS was still 99.1). The band was new-up-and-coming and they didn’t announce the title of the song OR the band name. This was in the days before the internet was easily accessible— I NEVER knew what the song was or what the band was, but I listened to that tape and song ALL THE TIME. It was my favorite song for at least a year, but I didn’t know what band it was. Then I lost the tape walkman and forgot about it. Every once in a while it would nag me, but I couldn’t remember the melody years later … so about 4 years ago, I heard the song on the radio randomly (but just the ending) but I was on a road trip where I couldn’t really do anything about it … all I could remember was the “save me” lyric and so I got on a computer as soon as I got where i was going and typed “save me.” Turns out there are a TON of songs that have the lyric “save me” in them. *SIGH* 

So the magical favorite song remained a mystery … that has continued to bother me YEARS upon YEARS later. Literally, this song was one of my favorites when I was 10 or 11 years old … 

until today. Yesterday I was driving for the first time in months and since I don’t have my CDs in the car anymore, I was forced to listen to the radio. And I turned the radio to HFS accidentally (which is back on the radio— I had forgotten!!) and the song is playing at the very end. So I got incredibly excited and kept driving and then as soon as it was over, I pulled out my phone and recorded myself singing the lyrics (as much as I could remember). Today, I remembered the event and I googled those lyrics and I found the mystery favorite song—- and so now, like 12 years later, this song has reappeared in my life and I’m SUPER HAPPY about it.

Stabbing Westward —- “Save Yourself”

Yippee!!