Oblivion in Text

I have the talent (and yes, I consider it a talent) of being able to block out my surroundings when I need to focus on something or work on something without interruption. I've been known in the past to not respond to others around me until they say my name repeatedly because I'm concentrating on something else. This comes in handy as an editor and writer—I can forget whatever is going on around me and focus on the words (prospective employers, please take note). This helps me have complete concentration on something for a long period of time. 

As the saying goes, every virtue has its vice, and this uncanny ability to concentrate results in humorous situations sometimes. One of those happened today. I was in Provo at the HBLL doing some research for a professor when I received this text from my brother, who is also a student at BYU:
- Hey, how's Provo?

My confused response to him was this:

- Fine. Why? How do you know I'm here? Where are you?

His reply:

- Sitting right next to you.

I looked up, and sitting at the table right next to me was my brother, laughing at me. As we talked, we had both apparently been sitting next to each other for over 30 minutes before he noticed. I had even gotten up to borrow a book from the reference desk while he was sitting there. 

Well, at least I got a lot done, right?

The Best Valentine Ever

From my 8-year-old nephew. I guess he's in that "love is gross" phase.

Uncertainty Reduction

In recent weeks, I have devoted my time to studying for my master's degree's comprehensive exams. It's a pass-and-you-graduate or fail-and-you-don't graduate situation. It's also a show-everything-you've-learned-over-1.5-years-in-4-hours situation. No pressure, right? I can't even count the number of hours I've spent reading and rereading, and quizzing and being quizzed on inordinate amounts of material. (I still remember that the theory of planned behavior was introduced by Fishbein and Ajzen, despite it not being one of my main theories, and I blame Katie and Lincoln for that completely.)

In that time, I became reacquainted with uncertainty reduction theory. While it also wasn't on my list of main theories to focus on for comps, I've been thinking a lot about it lately. The basis of the theory is that people communicate in order to reduce the uncertainty between them. For example, a person may wish to know someone's political affiliation before beginning a tirade about an elected official, so they ask questions and look for reactions about political views before deciding how to approach the subject at hand. In fact, many communication scholars believe the whole purpose of communication is to negotiate difference—if we all thought and acted exactly the same, there would be no need to communicate.

I feel like my life is one big practice in uncertainty reduction. I'm a planner and I don't like uncertainty, and so my way of reducing the uncertainty in my life is to make a plan for how things will go. There have been many uncertain times in my life, and some have resolved exactly as I planned while others couldn't have turned out differently. While I strongly believe everything always works out for the best, I still struggle with uncertainty.

And yet, here I am again, faced with uncertainty—this time in the form of where I'm going to end up working, and the corollary to that: where I'm going to end up living. I hope both will be places I'll be for a good long time because I'm tired of moving or otherwise changing my life situation every few years. Stability is a good thing, and little by little, I'm working to reduce the little uncertainties in my life to achieve that.