Entry 1 - I am an ENTP

Up until this point in my life, I have always regarded my personality as being eccentric to a fault, this reasoning mostly being because my classmates in middle school cast me into the shadows and away from social enjoyment due to my corkiness and refusal to partake in mainstream pastimes.  I now recognize that these peers of mine were not acting in this way with malicious intent, they were doing so simply because they did not know how to relate to me and have a conservation that interested both me and them.  In a sense, this gap hurt both parties in that I never was truly able to develop lasting friendships from my elementary school and my elementary class, people who I had spent nine consecutive years with, shall never know who the real Robert was and is.  Coming into high school, I developed myself and through various trials and tribulations have come to open up my genome to friends I never before thought possible in my programming.  Through my Freshmen, Sophomore, and Junior grades here at International Polytechnic High School, many people have taken the time to unlock my personality and encourage me to be proud of Robert Machuca.  Taking the Keirsey Test, I was a bit nervous for I knew that it would tell me upfront, the paper in front of me having no remorse, what characteristics have brought me this far into life and will take me into my future road and roadblocks, wherever they may lie.

According to the plethora of two-choice questions, I am an ENTP, meaning I am, in summation, intelligent, curious, and attracted to reason and rationale.  Given my reluctance to settle on a singular definition of ‘intelligence’, I see an ENTP, from reading my profile, as being a person who takes a very daring approach to life, wherein he or she not only takes pride in his or her mental capacity, but uses it to fulfill life to its most distant limits.  With creativity at my side, and the determination to pursue the thoughts in my head, I am capable to lead a life full of surprise, risk, and fulfillment.  Happiness is what I seek, and to get this pleasure of the senses, I must not be afraid to voice my opinions, however controversial they may be, and in that way, many of the people who surround me may find me as a leader.  I agree with this set of traits in that they could not be more true than in my case.  At iPoly, I was able to discuss my thoughts and ideas with my friends uncensored, and thus am now able to show what an ENTP can do.  So far, being an ENTP has allowed me to lead two clubs on campus - Strategic Gaming and Hope -, has allowed me to know what if feels like to be a facilitator of a group, and has enabled me to get over nerves involved in volunteering at places like the LA Zoo and Botanical Gardens and Honeylove. The ENTP’s love to debate also reflects itself into my own life quite a bit, mostly in the form of heated discussions I often have with my sister during the few times I get to see her - with her college social, academic life and all.  When debating a humanitarian or ecological issue - as they often revolve around -, I look at weaknesses in her argument and expand on those, like a virus manipulating a cell for its own gain.  This ability to debate a point till death ‘do us part’ is only enhanced by my habit of being energetic and charismatic.  In fact, according to multiple sites on the Internet, I am able “to connect disparate ideas in novel ways and so create a style of communication that is charming, even entertaining, and informative at the same time”, this part of me I am now only realizing at iPoly, a part of me that often helps me to lighten the days of those around me and tackle the recurring mundane ways of everyday life.

This picture illustrates my habit integrating charisma into everything I do, this habit mostly involving the use of food to release endorphins and make my day an enjoyable one

My love for chess also helps to elaborate my connection to my newfound personality type, in that both uphold rational thinking.  I do disagree with parts of my proposed type in that I don’t consider my traits ‘better’ than those of other personality four-letter codes.  For example, I may have a mind programmed to think reasonably, but I do not think my way is the best; in fact, my way of seeing the world is just what I am most comfortable with.  I am confident in what makes me who I am, but I wouldn’t dare impose my views on another person, as that would be as immoral as putting him or her in a lab and manipulating his or her genes.  As long as each person has a personality that makes him or her happy, this world is made up of jigsaw puzzle pieces that fit in to form a formidable species.  It is this disagreement that also makes me a bit unhappy with what personality evolution afforded me.  My reasonability sometimes makes me adrift from society and disables my ability to comprehend what some of my classmates go through in their everyday lives.  I may be an extrovert, but my habit of looking at things for the way they really are sometimes makes me out to be a heartless realist that has no compassion for the feelings of others.  My only hope is that people come to realize my clarity of mind and ability to give advice without the emotional charge, which can sometimes act as a breath of fresh air to a person suffocated by the uncomfortableness of dark times.  

My set of skills, strengths and weaknesses as an ENTP makes my life mostly centered on my individual life, me being charge of my pieces and me choosing the best way to use each one; this way of thinking can be best thought of as a player in a game of Battleship

I believe being an ENTP will help me to clearly and safely answer the essential question at hand.  My confidence in what I want to do in life - being a Marine Biologist and traveling the world - will help to know what steps are necessary to find fulfillment in my own life according to my own senses, this fulfillment being what the essential question at hand aims to figure out.  Once I choose a course, I stick to it thinking it to be most beneficial to me, and indeed it will be that mentality that helps me decide what colleges are most suited to my needs and what job will make me most happy in life.  The ENTP in my karyotype will give me the challenge of choosing which pathway is the best investment of my intelligence, and which pathway best utilizes what I have to offer in society.  Collaboration with classmates is essential to answer this semester's project essential question if we are to live up to iPoly’s motto of being a group-based initiative, and so I hope to use my confidence in life to make it a point to understand the opinions of my peers and brainstorm, not debate, about our choices for best fulfilling our individual goals made possible by our individual four-letter personality types.  My need to be in charge - a trait sparked an ENTP’s drive to be on the top of a trophic tree - will also drive me towards answering the essential question, except in this case, the need to be in charge will be enabled by my need to know my place in society and thus my need to make a difference here on Earth.

Christmas Eve of the year 2014 had me play a game of chess with my sister Vanessa; I won the game and I now realize how being an ENTP helps me con my chess game opponents via debate and how the 4-letter code helps me to seek a move that is most rational (beneficial in the long run)