Anderson University

So here I am once again blogging past 2 a.m.  Oy, time management is not a skill I wield well, nor is studious discipline.  Though I find distractibility is a strength of mine.  I just spent almost 5 hours working on homework with my friend Sam, well my girlfriend now…but anyway, that’s another story.  The pointed question is, do you really think I used that time productively, as in, got work done?  Of course not!   You would have thought that my homework consisted of a lengthy dissertation on, you guessed it, distractibility.  

Let’s see, what DID I do…grabbed some water, sat down in her bedroom, opened my lab top, rolled over onto my stomach, answered some email, spilled some coffee, sent a few texts, drank some coffee, moved to the kitchen, ate banana bread, started an article review, talked to Sam, stared at Jeffrey the goldfish, kicked a flat soccer ball, et cetera.  

So yeah, I didn’t see any homework in that list.  Ok well, there was the article review, but I finished most of that when I got back to my apartment.  Now that we’ve determined that yes, in fact, I am distractible, we need to find some way to relate that to the title of this blog so you won’t assume that by my example, college students can’t follow a thesis.  Believe me, we can.  But, I think that we get so tired of supporting the thesi (oh yeah, I used it…hippopotami hypothesize provocative thesi to occupy my…mind [bongo roll]) in all of our other papers, that when it comes to blogging, it’s just our guilty pleasure to cite a thesis and then trash it two sentences into the first paragraph.  Ha, take that SAT writing sample!  

Refocusing…

I had a minor epiphany today, a realization that was not too significant in the moment, but may prove to be very beneficial to me in the future; Dr. Ross, my advisor and Dean of the School of Education led me to it.  In a conversation we had earlier today, I was griping to her about my hectic, unpredictable week and how flustered and all-over-the-place I have been when she threw me these insightful words, “Well Joey, I’m finding that’s just kind of your nature.”  Woah!  I think she’s right.  All of this time, I’ve been fighting for ways to curb the very thing that makes me distinctly Joey: my nature, which tends to be distractible and free-wheeling.  Perhaps I just need to embrace it and accept that though I can’t change my nature, I can certainly learn to manipulate it.  

For example, I always wondered how I, the spontaneous, undisciplined, unpredictable elementary ed. student ended up in the same apartment as two straight-arrow math majors and an English buff.  Now, I think the answer is clear!  It was a simple balancing act: a balancing of my equation.  Naturally I maintain a very unstructured, poorly disciplined lifestyle.  Meanwhile, my roommates lead rather calculated, controlled lives.  So during the roommate selection process last year, my subconscious sought to balance my spontaneity with structure and found Brad, Booms, and Zach to make both sides of my equation equal and keep me sane.  It’s basic algebra!  

Epiphany!  I think I’ve found the secret to doing homework without becoming distracted: external structure.  If the environment around me is fixed to be controlled and predictable, then my distractibility will be voided, or rather, subdued.  Discipline and focus may not be included in my strong set of study skills, but by structuring my work environment, I can certainly make them seem inherent.  

Joey