Wireless

Lately, I have seen many a friend's computer mess up in one way or another, losing keyboard keys, corrupting, power supply dying, etc. And the whole time I thought to myself, wow, I'm so lucky - I have never had any problems with my laptop. I LOVE my laptop! But as fate would have it, I was not to be saved from the computer curse, and in one of the worst ways possible. The week before spring break (yes, my final exam week), my hard drive up and died, taking with it most of my stuff - class notes, music, other documents, and saddest of all, irreplaceable photos.

I tried not to freak out when I saw that worst of omens -- the BLUE SCREEN! I thought, well, I'll just restart and everything will be fine. But it was not to be. I tried a couple of routes to recover data off of my hard drive, and I would say about 30% of it was able to be recovered. I am still going to try one other avenue, and after that, I think it's pretty hopeless. :-(

Lately when I have been home on breaks, my mom has commented that my laptop is like an extension of myself, always present. I never thought it was true until I was without it! I felt a bit lost and like I had way too much time on my hands. I realized how much I have come to rely on my laptop not only as a means of communication, but also as an activity. It's quite amazing how much time I spend on this thing, especially while multi-tasking with the TV. And I have noticed that it's not just me. Oftentimes, you'll find me and my other roommates all in the same room with the TV on, having light conversation and on our separate laptops. Anyway, for the first few days it was annoying to be without my link to the information highway, but then I discovered something called "reading a book" and it was quite nice! I also went on my spring break, so it wasn't a big deal to not have a working laptop.

It was really quite amazing to experience how much this little device and the internet has changed the way I live my life. I think there is a happy medium between being wired and being wireless that I will try to keep. :-)