So there are several things you don't know about me. If you don't want to know, I'd suggest passing this entry by and moving along to the nice Squiddy goodness in the lower entries. If you'd like to know where the hell the Squid fixation came from (and so would I) then this might provide some answers.

I am the subject of one woman's thesis for her doctorate. Yes indeed, I and I alone am the subject of that thesis; every Wednesday (although I remember they switched the day halfway through the year, no doubt when the semesters changed and her classes got moved around, but I'm damned if I can remember if Wednesday was what they switched it from or to but one of those for sure) this woman would take me out of class and into a pleasant, sunny office with a big old grownup wooden table instead of a wee preformed formica desk and plastic chair set. The office smelled of warm dust, all year round, and in Winnipeg this was quite a feat.

She would give me tests, and I would do the tests, and she'd write things down in a notebook and I think once taperecorded it, although being a typical child of the late Twentieth Century, when I saw a taperecorder I tended to think it was Karaoke time and start singing, although that word hadn't been invented yet unless it was in Japan and got hung up in Customs, which I don't rule out. And I suppose at least some of that ended up in the thesis she was writing about me.

The psych thesis.

Somewhere in the bowels of the University of Manitoba lies the most detailed recording of my mind ever made. Whoa! I just thought of something! I bet I can get the University to give me a free copy; if they won't just out with it (and Universities can be like that) I could always wrench it from their feeble grasp via a Freedom of Information request, or threaten them with Privacy laws. I don't think the Privacy laws would force them to give it up, but then nobody knows what the hell these new laws do, they're all just scared to death and probably by the time they found out I wasn't entitled to my mind in written form, I'd be out the door with the tome under my arm.

God, I hope it is a tome! How embarassing if it were only a novella or even a chapbook!

This is not the time or place to discuss why she was studying me, nor even how they could tell I was…me…even at that early age. No, certainly not. For if I did, you'd have no suspense dragging you back here to troll helplessly through the Squid, poetry, jingoistic Canadianisms, and cheap cracks about curling. I may be crazy, but I'm not crazy! No, you'll just have to wait for that gumboot to drop.

Meantime, modern psychi- and psycho-s have a hell of a time dealing with me. It's critical in the mind sciences to be working from a state of beginner's mind, ie the state of having no preconceptions. And after a solid year of one test after another, even if it was back in …

Let's just skip that part, okay?

After a solid year of one test after another, I've done pretty much every test there is. And the problem is, they don't really update these things either. I was out at UBC taking part in some psych study on computer use and personality, a one-off afternoon thing, and in the debriefing they gave me a couple of standard tests. As soon as I saw the picture of the cocker spaniel in the bathroom, I asked, "So do you want me to make up a NEW story, or just tell you the one I told back when I was seven?" Turns out I knew too much, and was disqualified. I still got the pizza and the fifty bucks though.

So I've done pretty much all the tests, at least the classics, the golden oldies. And among them is this one. The one, the only, the high, the mighty:

The Rorschach Test Online

http://www.stupidstuff.org/main/rorschach.htm

Take it yourself, particularly if you never want to have to take it again. This isn't exactly the real thing, but it's pretty damn close.

Most people have heard of the Rorschach inkblot test, but not many people get to actually see the inkblots themselves because they're kept secret. StupidStuff.org has developed an inkblot test based closely on the Rorschach test protocol and materials. You can take this test yourself online and see more or less what your results would have been on a real test. Sometimes the results aren't pretty; people who take the test can find out some extremely unsettling things about themselves. When you're ready, click on the link above.

I will tell you this; in the Real Rorschach Test http://www.deltabravo.net/custody/rorschach.php, seeing an heraldic (note pedantic use of word "an;" I don't know what it signifies, but I do know enough about psych to know that it signifies something, and I know enough about psycho-s and psychi-s to know it's probably something bad) symbol in figure VIII is a good thing. Well, that's good, because…

In figure VIII I see an heraldic crest with wolverines rampant, at base the map-shape of the actual country represented (which I don't know, but if you gimme a minute I'll probably say Archenland), surmounted by a book listing the natural resources of the land with illustrations, topped by a crest which is a portrait of the group of people who liberated and, thus, founded the country. The wolverines represent the populace at large, and it is critical to note that they alone connect each of the various parts of the crest. In a break with heraldic tradition, there is neither crown nor coronet, simply an upraised torch in the hand of one of the people.

At this point the doctor usually starts wrapping things up, and writing really, really fast.