Cholera? Phlegm?

I’d heard about the different temperament types many times before, but never really took much notice or bothered to investigate which of the pigeonholes I fit into, but after doing some research I was blown away! I just found my life story!

http://www.4marks.com/temperaments/phlegmatic/phlegmatic_sanguine.html

I’m not even going to bother bolding/highlighting anything, because it all applies to me so perfectly. It’s interesting how so many seemingly unrelated characters traits come together in one package. It made me feel a bit less unique, but it’s always nice to be able to tie these things together so neatly (like the time I discovered the term “social introvert”).

The Phlegmatic / Sanguine

If you are a phlegmatic-sanguine, your phlegmatic side will dominate. This will result in a greater tendency to introversion (though still less than a melancholic’s or pure phlegmatic’s). You are congenial and cooperative and get along well with most everyone. Because of your emphasis on harmony in relationships, you are peace-loving, conservative, well-balanced, easy-going, with a dry wit and a talent for bringing people together. As an employee, you are compliant, dutiful, orderly, and subdued (and probably were as a child too).

Others may not realize that you have a sanguine side — at first. It may take a little longer for you to make close friends (because you do not reveal your feelings or thoughts as readily as the more extraverted sanguine-phlegmatic), but once you do, your sanguine nature can assert itself. It will also show up when, for example, you have been so dutiful and compliant about work or school that finally you need to relax and unwind — and now the sanguine, fun-loving side comes out. Or, when you are hanging out with your closest friends.

You are very thoughtful of others, with a knack for empathically putting yourself in other people’s shoes, and value peace and harmony at all times. You also have a great sense of humor and an easy-going manner that makes you a valued friend. You are discouraged by criticism or negativity and need acceptance, support and cooperation in your personal life. You can be deeply wounded by sarcasm, harsh criticism, and anger when it is directed at you. You will not, however, directly fight back but prefer to “turn the other cheek” or redouble your efforts to please.

Phlegmatic-sanguines tend to prefer movies, concerts, or other forms of relaxation that are a bit more spectator-oriented. When they attend parties, they tend to prefer smaller groups, rather than the large social gatherings a pure sanguine enjoys. Like sanguine-phlegmatics, they are very attentive to relationships, to harmony among people. They have deep feelings, hate negative criticism, and become discouraged by negativity in those around them. They are strongly tempted to repress their own wishes in order to preserve peace in a relationship. A stressful situation (especially one that is interpersonally demanding) may cause the peaceful phlegmatic-sanguine to withdraw into solitary television watching, playing computer games, eating or sleeping, instead of directly expressing their negative feelings.

A danger for the phlegmatic-sanguine is to be satisfied with achieving less than what he is capable of — whether because he tends not to plan for the future or because the more challenging goals seem to be “too much trouble.” A phlegmatic-sanguine will be strongly tempted to quit if he doesn’t think the end product is worth the effort or if he fears he won’t succeed. Perhaps the most besetting difficulties for this temperament mixture are the natural inclination to peace and quiet (tempting one to laziness), a preference to live within the moment (superficiality), and a tendency to make decisions based first on the desire to please someone else or to restore harmony.

In a relationship, the phlegmatic-sanguine is true-blue. He is likely to be a great listener, is willing to put others first, and has excellent mediatory skills. You are a supportive friend and a cooperative employee; however, this can cause you to say “yes” to demands of friends or colleagues, without first analyzing whether this choice is actually the best choice to make. At times, wanting to either please your good friends or avoid conflict either at home or at work, you may “go with the flow” when in fact a strong stance is necessary. Or, you may avoid a more demanding task or career move in order to maintain harmony and stability. If you find yourself “stuck in a rut” or avoiding making the extra effort required to make an important change, take time out to analyze your goals for the future, realign your priorities to reflect your values and, if necessary, seek spiritual direction to ensure that your values are aligned with God’s will for you.

Food, glorious food

There are some foods that seem to polarise the population – people either love them or hate them. When it comes to these foods, people who like them can’t understand how others don’t, and a commonly heard refrain is “How can you not like _____!?”

Below is a list of foods that cause people to think of me as sub-human when I express my dislike for them.

1. Oysters

Oysters… taste like the entire ocean has been crammed into a bite-sized piece of fleshy goop, including all of the rocks and silt and coral.

I’ve tried to acquire my taste for oysters because they’re considered to be gourmet food, and it seems like a waste not to chow down on them at seafood buffets, but we’ve never really gotten along.

Part of my inability to develop a liking for oysters may have something to do with the fact that I’ve witnessed a friend spewing them up into a toilet bowl, and I couldn’t help but notice that they looked exactly the same as they did before she ate them.

2. Avocado

People who like avocado… love avocado. They smoosh it up with a knife and spread it all over pretty much anything they can get their hands on. Oportos and McDonalds recently introduced the option of adding avocado to their burgers (for a price), so I’m convinced that it must have something going for it.

Personally I never got into it. Maybe it’s just because I’m generally not a fan of “느끼한” (slimy?) foods, because they tend to trigger my gag reflex. Also, there’s just something wrong about a fruit having the consistency of butter and a distinct lack of sweetness.

3. Beetroot

Like oysters, I may be giving beetroot a hard time because of one bad experience.

The scene of the crime was Wonderland (for the uninitiated, an amusement part that was tragically shut down in 2004 after nearly 20 years of childhood-memory-making goodness). I’d just bought a ridiculously overpriced burger from a nearby kiosk, and was looking forward to tucking into it after a long day of screaming and squandering money trying to win massive stuffed toys.

As I went to take the first bite, I couldn’t help but notice that the cheese in my burger was an odd colour. I’m not talking different degrees of yellow here, it was pink. Panicking, I pulled apart the buns of the burger to see what on earth was going on, and discovered that a fat, juicy piece of beetroot had corrupted the beauty of my exorbitantly priced meal.

4. Hawaiian (ham and pineapple) pizza

I often express my disdain for the heinous practice of mixing sweet and savoury foods, and the example I always call upon to illustrate my point is the ham and pineapple pizza.

I don’t get it.

How, pray tell, can you take two such contrasting flavours and expect them to taste good together? Another example that comes to mind is a friend who eats fried eggs with strawberry jam.

Call me unsophisticated and say what you wish about my pallet – maybe I just never learnt an appreciation for the mish-mashing of flavours. For that I apologise. I’m a steak and potatoes man, through and through (medium rare with salt, plenty of pepper, and pepper gravy on the side please).

Others that I can’t be bothered to write more about:

Eggplant, buttered bread, big mac sauce, peas, cooked carrot

I was going to also write a descriptive, illustrated list of foods I love that many seem to hate, but I’ll keep it brief:

Vegemite, coriander (cilantro for the Americans), liquorice, salt & vinegar chips, anything sour, ginger beer, V8

Finally, foods that I used to dislike but developed a taste for:

Mushrooms, olives, turkish delight, sushi

Huntsmen – the name says it all

Hell on Earth

I hate spiders.

I hate everything about them.

I hate their disgusting legs.

I hate the way they can climb up vertical surfaces.

I hate the way that seeing one spider makes gets me edgy and paranoid that spiders are lurking everywhere.

I hate the way they can remain stationary in one spot for ages, then when you go and get the bug spray/vacuum cleaner, they Spider Sense™ that you’re going to kill them and hide somewhere.

I hate how they run away at the speed of light and hide behind/under something when you start spraying them.

I hate that they have enough weight to fall to the carpet with a thud when the Mortein finally kicks in.

I hate the way they die on their backs with their legs curled up in the air.

I hate the way their guts squirt all over the place when you smack them with a fly swatter.

I guess you could substitute “I hate” with “I’m terrified by”, because I absofrutely freak out at the sight of spiders. I don’t mind rats and roaches, in fact I love catching lizards/bugs/crabs with my bare hands, but put me up against a spider and my white flag will be up before you can blink.

It’s not spider bites or venom that terrify me, but the thought of a spider crawling all over me with all those disgusting legs… the thought that one could crawl around on my face and into my mouth while I sleep…

I think nature and creation are beautiful and I can see the power and majesty in even the most ferocious of predators, but if there’s one thing I strongly, passionately disagree with God on, it’s the necessity of the existence spiders.

A fairly shorts post

Things that I’m willing to wear, from most bearable to least bearable:

1. Socks worn the day before
2. Undies worn the day before
3. Mismatched socks
4. Boxers

Note: there are several degrees between each number; they are not equidistant. I’ll run around the house for 20 minutes and get to work late if that’s what it takes to find a matching pair of socks, and I’d only wear boxers if I was all out of singlets and towels.

It’s a Sign

Graham’s handy hints #106:

When you renew your car registration and you’re putting the new rego sticker on your windshield, fold one corner over so it doesn’t stick to the glass. That way you save yourself the torture of trying to scrape the sticker off the next time you renew.

I wasn’t planning to write about this, but I just had a flashback from my time in Korea. There was this group of deaf/mute people who always caught the subway with me, and I’d often sit in the same carriage with them because they were so interesting to observe. I thought it was cool how they’d always stand in a big circle so that everyone could see what each person was ‘saying’.

Sky High

Forget reading, forget the blindfold and blankets, forget waiting 2 hours because you missed the first 20 minutes of that in-flight movie you wanted to watch.

Let me share with you Graham’s sure-fire method of passing the time on a long international flight:

Step 1: Stay up all night the night before your flight
Step 2: When the first round of drinks comes around, order the whiskey
Step 3: Down it and chill for about 15 minutes
Step 4: Wake up at your destination, alert and fresh

Disclaimer: poebae.wordpress.com encourages responsible drinking.

Zero

Recently I’ve been starting my days with an exercise routine on the wonderful hill that is Cecil St, Gordon (my new place of residence). I jog down, jog up, jog down, run up, jog down and do interval sprints on the last leg.

Why? Because I want to be in match condition for the upcoming soccer season. Part of that is losing the extra pounds I’ve packed on with my lack of exercise and excess consumption of late night kebabs over the past 2 years. In my quest, I’ve found an unlikely ally:

Now let me stop here and say that I’m anything but a Coca Cola addict. I wouldn’t say I love the stuff, though I get the usual cravings for it on really hot days, or while eating wol-nam-ssam or pizza.

What’s kept me returning to the vending machine at least 3-4 days a week, though, is the fact that it contains no sugar and barely over 1 calorie per can (which is less than what I burn getting up and walking over to the machine). I don’t know how they do it. As the can says… great Coke taste, zero sugar. I know that it also has barely any nutritional value, but purely from an kJ point of view, it’s much better to drink than fruit juice.

Another big plus is that unlike other foods/drinks that contain sorbitol and other sugar substitutes, it doesn’t give you the runs. Fantastic stuff.

Road Rage

Yesterday, I found a particularly good parking spot right in front of the station. It was pretty tight, and required about 6 back-and-forths to get into.

As I was putting the finishing touches on my parking masterpiece, a 40-something man walked over to my car and starting giving me the unmistakable “not happy Jan” look. After staring me down for about 10 seconds, he went and sat back down at his table in front of the cafe.

I got out of the car and started approaching him.  The ensuing dialogue went as follows:

Is there a problem, sir?

What are you, a bloody idiot? How am I going to get my car out now?

(looking behind his car) You’ve got a big enough gap to get out.

That’s very inconsiderate, and I’d expect nothing more from you.

(walking right up to him) And what’s that supposed to mean?

(hesitating) It’s just… very inconsiderate.

Taking a free parking spot is inconsiderate?

How long are you going to park here?

All night.

Well I’m leaving soon, and if I can’t get my car out, I’ll call the police.

Right, and have me arrested for parking close to your car?

No… I’ll call the police and they can tow your car away or something

Oh ok, so you’re going to have my car towed for being legally parked in a public area.

…

(walking away) Good luck with that.

Forgive me for being a smartass to him, but I have a very low tolerance threshold for that kind of garbage from people.

Thursdays

It’s funny… the hours of the day seem to tick over so slowly (when I’m at work, anyway), yet I’m always surprised by how quickly the week’s gone by.

It always seems to be on Thursdays that I stop and think “wow, already?”

Stupidity

I was carrying a garbage bag downstairs when I felt something sharp poking into my leg.

I started wondering what it was, then decided to stop being a pansy and ignore it.

As I was putting the bag into the wheelie bin, I realised that it was a broken beer bottle, and there was blood dripping down my leg.