replay

just came back from my psc psychological interview. It was a bit longer
than expected, and I had trouble stringing more than two coherent
sentences together (that's what NS does to you). I've been told you
should never enjoy yourself too much at interviews, so maybe that means
I'm screwed, because had a pretty enjoyable two hours or so.



and even though less than two hours have passed since the interview
ended, I'm already having trouble remembering all the stuff I said. I'm
writing down as much as possible, because it's interesting (to me
anyway), and I want to be able to have something to reference.
Meanwhile, you guys will get to enjoy a free peek into my inner
workings. Win-win situation, no?



anyway.



the psychologist said,' your profile is quite different from that of
typical asians.' Apparently it's because the things that are most
important to me are:



1) Aesthetics

2) Theoretical (i.e. I like to pursue knowledge)

3) Economic/Practical

4) People

5) Politics/Power

6) Religion



while to 'typical asians', power ranks a lot higher up the list.



apparently I don't rank very highly on leadership, which isn't much of
a surprise to me (I was described as a 'reluctant leader'). I don't
really have much experience on leadership. My leadership style is based
firstly on coaching, and secondly on authoritarianism. In other words,
I'm either a teacher or (if that doesn't work) a dictator.



he remarked that 'you're super-intelligent. Your IQ is above 135 (135
being the highest score that the test can accurately measure).' This
got me pretty pleased for a while until I realised that probably every
single scholar has got IQ above 135. In the same vein, he mentioned
that 'your verbal and reasoning skills are both 95 i.e. quite high.'
I'm kinda curious how accurate this is, considering that when we did
the psychometric test a few months back, there were only a handful of
language and reasoning questions. But never mind, I'll take compliments
anytime.



he had a long list of adjectives to describe my personality. Most of
them are already forgotten. But I was really surprised by their
accuracy. What I remember is that I'm: introverted; shy; radical;
emotional; sentimental; withdrawn. Hmmm. Seems like a pretty negative
list.



oh yeah. He said I think a lot too.



we had a discussion on whether I wanted to join the Admin Service. I
said I wasn't sure, because I didn't know if I'll be up to it. He tried
to reassure me, but I wasn't totally convinced. I still am not.



later, he asked me to talk about issues/events/current affairs, trying
to draw out lessons learnt from different episodes. So at first I
talked about Darfur (if you don't know where it is, try google). I said
that the lesson learnt is that it's up to you to make yourself
indispenable, so that others will have to protect you to protect
themselves. Then I talked about the London blasts (I wasn't really
thinking here and I just blurted that we should get all parties to sit
down and talk to resolve this problem. Tsk tsk.). And then, to bring
things back home, we discussed the NKF fracas. I believe I said it
wasn't wrong to provide suitable reward for performance, but
being a charity and not some private firm, NKF should have realised
that there was a limit to the amount of reward it could disburse,
especially in an economic downturn. (Of course, this is a way more
coherent version of what I actually said.)



there's lots of other stuff, like the part where he asked me to
complete the sentences 'When I'm happy/depressed/irritable/etc I......
(go watch movies/play computer games/shut out other people,
respectively); describe my strengths and weaknesses (strengths:
determination, integrity; weaknesses: impatience, lack of confidence);
my dream (public service) job (MICA!); and about defining moments in my life. Plus lots and lots of other
stuff, which are already fading from memory. I guess I'll write them
down when they resurface. This is me, as much as I can remember.