I’ve taken the Myers-Briggs personality test a few times and I have been labeled as an INFJ – introverted, intuitive, feeling and judging. INFJs are apparently one of the rarest Myers-Briggs type, accounting for only 1-3% of the population.

• Introverted – as an INFJ, I tend to be quite and reserved, especially when I’m in new situations. I much prefer the company of a few close friends to a large crowd and social situations exhaust and expend my energy.
• Intuitive – I prefer abstractions; I’m more likely to focus on the big picture and future possibilities than the present reality (which usually gets me in trouble).
• Feeling – I tend to value personal connections over objective criteria and weigh social implications over logic.
• Judging – I’m a planner and early decision maker. I thrive on predictability.

As an INFJ, I’m a very private and independent person. I would rather exert my influence from behind the scenes (a puppet master, if you will) and let someone else take the spotlight. More often than not, I find myself “living” in my head, as my imagination un-spools story after story, possibility after possibility. But I don’t often share that inner world with others, because it’s hard for them to understand what I just know innately. INFJs are called “confidents” because we are highly perceptive of others’ emotions, but we also tend to guard our own feelings quite closely.

“[INFJs] are intricately and deeply woven, mysterious, and highly complex, sometimes puzzling even to themselves. They have an orderly view toward the world, but are internally arranged in a complex way that only they can understand. Abstract in communicating, they live in a world of hidden meanings and possibilities.”

Some well-known and famous INFJs include Aristophanes, Chaucer, Mother Theresa, Martin Luther King, Jr., Billy Crystal*, Nelson Mandela, and if you believe in personality types for fictional people, Luke Skywalker** and the Tinman from Wizard of Oz.

Not all women are lucky enough to have the resources my aunt had. Not all women have access to quality care, which – yes – does include screenings, counseling and preventative measures. And now, thanks to the Susan Komen Foundation, many women, especially the ones who need it the most, will not have access to these things.

I’ll be honest – I’ve never really liked the Susan Komen Foundation. Call it superstition, call it craziness, call it intuition – for whatever reason (and I’m not sure I even know what that reason was), I just never liked them. But now I have a reason, a very good reason: Komen’s blatantly obvious political move that cuts funding to Planned Parenthood’s breast cancer programs for low-income populations – the very populations that have the highest risk and the greatest need. Supposedly based on a new policy, the move is at best disingenuous and at worst hypocritical.

I could rant on and on about how absolutely disgusted I am with the Susan Komen Foundation, but quite frankly, I’m tired. I’m tired of organizations putting politics and profit above people. I’m tired of this ridiculous fight against Planned Parenthood and all the good work that it does (hint: it’s not really about abortions). Mostly, I’m tired that access to quality health care is still an issue in this country. I’m tired of the fact that there are people out there who will succumb to breast cancer for no other reason than lack of access to the programs that could have helped them.

A lot of other people have already written about this, so I’ll let them speak for me:

• My friend Kim offered her own perspective and expressed disappointment in Komen
• Jezebel has a ton of fabulous articles and links, starting with the obvious: Komen is having a bad PR week
• Breast cancer survivor Andrea Mitchell takes the Komen CEO to task for the decision
• A number of Komen executives and officials have resigned in protest
• Just in case there’s still confusion, the Washington Post has a handy chart to illustrate exactly what Planned Parenthood actually does (perhaps the name “planned parenthood” rings a bell?)
• There’s growing evidence that Komen’s so-called policy is hypocritical 
• And this just made me laugh 

If you’re interested in still supporting breast cancer research and support, might I suggest the following: three organizations that spend their dollars on real research and treatment programs and not pink merchandise that doesn’t actually do anything. The National Breast Cancer Coalition (full disclosure: a former colleague/friend works there) has set a deadline for eliminating breast cancer and is actively working towards that goal. The Susan F. Smith Center at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute brings women from across the country together to promote early stage research. And the Breast Health Center at Women & Infants Hospital (full disclosure: my mother works at the hospital) is committed to individualized, local care.

Now, if you’ll excuse me, I have to go make a donation to my local Planned Parenthood. They’re gonna need the money.

So here is Ordinary Mer’s Official List of Recommended Alien Enterntainment:

• Star Wars – duh.
• E.T. – double duh.
• Star Trek – triple duh. (The original, Voyager, and the movies, if you please. Next Generation if you simply must.)
• The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – start with Douglas Adams’ sublimely funny book and its sequels. The movie is entertaining as well (mostly because I adore Martin Freeman, Sam Rockwell and Zooey Deschanel and because Adams helped write the script before his death), but you should really read the books.
• Dune series by Frank Herbert – again, read the books first, because they are exquisitely detailed (but I would recommend sticking with the first six books, which Herbert actually wrote; ignore anything published under the Dune name after his death). Avoid the 1984 movie with Sting at all costs; the 200 Sci-Fi (or Syfy – whatever) channel miniseries is pretty decent, though.
• Taken – another sci-fi spectacular from the mind of Steven Speilberg, this miniseries takes awhile to get through, but it’s worth it. Starting with World War II and weaving intersecting stories from three different families over the course of the century, Taken is storytelling at its best. (Try Netflix or eBay, as I think the DVD is no longer sold.)
• Ender’s Game by Orson Scott Card – a classic science-fiction novel for the late 20th century, Card makes you believe in the impossible and fall in love with a child-commander who doesn’t realize he’s destroying the enemy he’s been taught to fight.
• Mars Attacks! – the genius of this movie is that it’s so bad, it’s good. How else could you get Tim Burton directing Jack Nicholson, Glenn Close, Michael J. Fox, Sarah Jessica Parker and more in an over-the-top ridiculous story that has Earth losing?
• Battlestar Galactica – first a television series, then a revamped mini-series, then a television series once again. Those Cylons just won’t die, will they? I love this series for its premise that humans were responsible for making their current alien foe, the Cylons. We always seem to shoot ourselves in the foot, don’t we?
• WALL-E – Okay, so it technically doesn’t have aliens, but robots. Still, if we’re going to have our lives taken over by someone or something, why not a neurotic, sentient robot with a fondness for Twinkies and Hello, Dolly!?

What are your favorite alien-related pieces of entertainment?

The origins of my belief in extra-terrestrial life are two-fold: first, I saw the novel Contact by Carl Sagan and subsequently saw the movie starring Jodie Foster and Matthew McConaughey (the movie’s good; the book is better); and second, I saw a planetarium show narrated by Tom Hanks in New York City.*

The planetarium show was called “Passport to the Universe” and, among other things, it emphasized just how microscopically tiny Earth (and therefore all of human existence) is when compared to the rest of the known – and unknown – universe:

“During the last four hundred years, in a series of astonishing discoveries, we filled out our Cosmic Address. We learned that, far from being the center of the universe, the Earth is actually but one of the planets, moving in orbit around the Sun. Our Sun in turn is just an ordinary star. It is one of over a hundred billion stars in our Milky Way Galaxy. And our Milky Way Galaxy is one of several thousand galaxies in the Virgo Supercluster. Finally, this vast supercluster of galaxies is but a tiny part of the Observable Universe.”

Meanwhile, in Contact, one of the tag lines for the film and one of the more memorable quotes was the line: “If it’s just us, it seems like an awful waste of space.” Both the planetarium show and the tag line have stuck with me for years and from the two, I can only come to one conclusion: if it really is just humans on Earth, then it probably would be an awful waste of space (pun totally intended).

As long as humans have been building and constructing civilizations, we’ve been fascinated by the unknown. Astronomy is one of the oldest sciences and dates back to the earliest civilizations and the Babylonians, the Greeks, the Chinese and the Mayans all studied the stars and tried to imagine what they were, what they meant and how we fit in. And not long after we discovered the stars, someone started to think about the possibility that life could exist elsewhere in the universe, even if we don’t exactly understand how, where or why.

In the 15th century, Nicolaus Copernicus became the first person to propose a heliocentric cosmology, which stated the Sun was the center of our universe, not the Earth. Centuries later, this Copernican principle has been expanded and generalized to mean that the Earth – and by default, humans – are not central in the universe and don’t have a favored position. The implications, of course, are that we – Earth-bound humans – are insignificant in relation to the known universe and to assume that we are the only forms of life, let alone the only forms of intelligent life, well, that’s rather arrogant, isn’t it?

Of course, the prospect of alien life or even of intelligent alien life is kind of scary. We have no way of knowing whether these extraterrestrials would friendly, hostile or merely indifferent, though Hollywood has certainly let its collective imagination run wild for years. (I vote for merely indifferent, especially if the aliens are intelligent. Surely they would be smart enough to see we’re doing a fine job of fighting and killing amongst ourselves.) Still, even if the aliens do turn out to be hostile, I like the idea that there may be other forms of life out there in the great cosmos. Somehow, it makes me feel that, as random as evolution is, it all still happened for a reason.

* Interestingly enough, the “Passport to the Universe” script was penned, in part, by Ann Drugan, who was the wife of Carl Sagan. Coincidence? Perhaps, but then there are few things in this universe that are truly coincidental.

I may be biased, seeing as I am on of THOSE liberal arts students who graduated with a degree in English Literature and Theology (two subjects I think we can all agree are not skills-based), but I loved this article on Bloomberg by Virginia Postrel. It gives a clear opinion on why the so-called skill-based majors (any of the STEM subjects, for example) are not necessarily the best idea in any economy, let alone one with a tough job market. I’m a huge believer in a thorough and well-rounded liberal arts education. Like I said, I’m biased because that’s the only education I know, but I think having a foundation in several subjects has served me better over the years than anything practical I might have also learned.

I’ve written previously here about why I loved my Jesuit university, but one of the things I loved best about it was the core curriculum. I entered college with both no idea of what to study and too many ideas of what to study. If I had had to choose at 18 what I was going to do for the rest of my life (by way of choosing a highly specific field), I would have been doomed from the start. I can’t even count how many times I’ve changed my mind in the last week, let alone the last decade.

I can tell you that I still remember plenty from my history, philosophy, theology, literature, science and yes, even math, courses. Having to fulfill a number of requirements with a wide range of subjects was the best thing that could happen to me. I had the incredible opportunity to learn so many different things and to experience so many different subjects. I won’t pretend that I loved each and every course, but each one served a purpose and I truly believe I’m smarter – and a better person – because of it. It’s also probably why I’m so amazing awesome at Jeopardy, a game that practically begs for liberal arts graduates.

Of course, the fact that I can remember Descartes’ cogito ergo sum* statement hasn’t exactly helped me land a job or make more money. But it has helped me think analytically and find creative solutions to various problems. My liberal arts college education (which, really, started at my Catholic college prep high school) taught me how to read more effectively, write more clearly and argue convincingly. It also taught me how to interact with a wider range of people. The fact that I can remember and discuss ideas and topics from several different disciplines is an advantage in the business world and on the job market, where there are any number of people I might meet on any given day. Essentially, it did what Postrel claims it should do – it taught me how to learn.

Every job I’ve had since college has involved a learning curve – I’ve had to learn specific programs or systems with each new position. Had I studied some specific field or program, I might not have had the flexibility and adaptability needed to adjust my thinking every time something new came my way. Since I did have a good foundation in several subjects and learned to think outside the box, I now have the ability to pick up new computer programs fairly quickly – a specific skill born of a generalized liberal arts education.

I’m well aware that the liberal arts and humanities aren’t for everyone and technology is changing the way we all learn and consume information. But there’s a reason the classics are classic – they served many people, over thousands of years, very well. And if it was good enough for the Greeks and Romans, then it’s good enough for me.

* Yeah, I totally took Latin as well. Sic me petitum.

My apartment complex has a nice gym, one that I take advantage of nearly every single day – something I’ve been doing for about two years. On average, in the morning before work, I’ll see one or two other people in the gym (usually the same people) and that’s about it. On a weekend, I might see as many as five people. On the whole, it’s never exceptionally busy and I’ve never had to wait for a machine. But come January, when everyone resolves to get healthy and get back to the gym, the place crowds up with people who don’t know what they’re doing, who take up time and space and generally make me very cranky that my routine has been interrupted.

Again, I remind myself – it’s not all about me. But it is awfully annoying when someone comes in and gets in your way. I mean, of course I want to encourage them to be healthy and do what’s best for them, but mostly I just want to continue on as I always have and not have to worry that the person using the treadmill before me didn’t clean it after using it. I don’t want some crazy person putting MTV on the big screen television when us “regulars” prefer the local news. I just want to complete my work-out with as little fuss and interference as possible.

I know I sound grumpy and ridiculous. It’s such a stupid little thing to be bothered by, after all. And I probably could use this opportunity to learn to be more flexible and “go-with-the-flow.” But there’s a part of me that feels like it’s the principal of the matter. Those of us who have been at the gym all year feel like we’re being invaded in these first weeks after the new year, having to adjust to all these new people. It’s such a cliche, too. I don’t think I’d mind as much if someone new starting showing up every day in April or August. But to do it right after New Year’s? Can’t they think of anything original?

This is probably not about resolutions or crowds at the gym at all. It’s probably more about me and my tendency to cling to my routine as if it were a life raft. I’m the one who needs to adjust my attitude. But, in all honesty, I probably won’t. I’ll probably continue to be vaguely annoyed by these newly motivated neighbors. Still, I really should just let it go. By the time February rolls around, most of them will have given up!