Left-Brain? Right-Brain? How 'bout No-Brain?

The last few days have been interesting around the Todd household. As I mentioned in a previous entry, Randy completed his Master of Divinity degree from Cincinnati Christian University on March 29 and proceeded to take about 48-72 hours to decide to plunge right into ACU's Doctor of Ministry program which begins in June. That may seem rather sudden to some of you but when you realize that the classes are ONLY offered in June, you begin to understand that time is of the essence.

Ordinarily, Randy would have been turned away due to the lateness of his application. You see, the deadline for turning in applications is in January, so he wasn't even close. But because Randy knows the director of the program, I suppose you could say a few strings are being pulled for him. There are still a lot of hoops he has to jump through, but Dr. Siburt gave Randy a list of things to return right away and offered every indication that his acceptance would follow.

One of the things Randy had to take care of right away was to submit a MAT score. Anybody ever heard of the MAT? It stands for Miller Analogies Test and all I can say is that if I were applying for graduate school and was told that I had to take this test, I would probaby rip up my application and throw it away. I am usually TERRIBLE with analogies. Here's why: Because you have to think logically. And in my opinion, I am not a logical thinker. I realize that by admitting that it sounds as if I am basically admitting that I am "lacking in intelligence," but let's not be so hasty if you please.

I wasn't totally "up" on the differences between left- and right-brained thinkers but I did some research and quickly realized that one of the hallmarks of a left-brained thinker is his/her ability to think logically. Well, guess what? I am overwhelmingly left-brained! (I took a simple online test which gave immediate results.) So how does this jive with my opinion of myself as a, well, less than logical thinker? Well, one of the things I learned was that if you are left-brained you are characterized as "logical, verbal and dominant" whereas a right-brained individual is more "imaginative, emotional and spatially aware but suppressed." Of those traits, two jump out at me particularly. I characterize myself as highly verbal (note my verbose blog entries!) but also highly emotional. But results don't lie--usually--and the stats said I was 82% left-brain and 12% right-brain (not sure where the other 6% wound up). I answered the questions as honestly as I could; however, there were about three questions that I believe I would have answered differently if I were not a homeschooling mom with four children, so I went back and took the test again with the revised answers. Little surprise--my left-brain stats went up to 84%.

I say all this to say that while Randy was preparing to take the MAT test, he took a few of the sample tests and even gave one to me to take. I realized something, but I'm not really sure at this point what to make of my findings. What I discovered first and foremost is that to take the MAT test you do not merely need to be a logical person; you must also be a well-informed or well-read person. But I also discovered that perhaps I have been selling myself a bit short, something Randy has been trying to convince me of for a long time (without success, I might add). It turns out that I'm not as bad at figuring out analogies as I thought I was, and I even found myself feeling a bit smug a time or two when I knew a reference or definition that was unfamiliar to Randy.

I'm not sure what my point is in all of this rambling except to say that Randy wasn't necessarily assured of a "perfect" score on the MAT just because he is a logical thinker. But I don't believe I would be assured of barely scraping the bottom of the barrel if I were to take it, either. I actually felt I had a slight advantage over Randy because I love to read. No, I really LOVE to read. Who doesn't know that about me? That's probably one of the key reasons I stick with Sonlight--every subject includes daily readings! As a consequence, I have a fairly decent-sized vocabulary. Wait--there's a different way I want to say that, but I'm not sure how to articulate it. What I really mean is that I know a lot of words, and even if I don't know exactly what they mean, I can often deduce by context and make a fairly educated guess. That's where I started to get the big head: Randy would be at a loss ("Why do we even HAVE words like obsequious?") and I'd be throwing out definitions right and left. Maybe I ought to cut myself a little slack after all!