nfiniti plus one

You know I've never been addicted to any drugs (never even done any I'm glad to say) so I definitely wouldn't know what it's like to experience the withdrawal symptoms from those drugs. However, I did experience withdrawal symptoms of a different kind. The kind where you're addicted to computers and you're all of a sudden without it. Let me explain.

I went home for the weekend as some of you may know. Now maybe it's cause I'm absent-minded or perhaps it was because of the rush to make it to the bus going back to UWaterloo. Whatever the case, I left my laptop power cord at home. I realized this just about halfway between St. Catherines and Hamilton. I sat there on the bus the whole way to the university brooding and rationing out my laptop battery time. If I dimmed the screen down a lot and disabled the wireless and all that, I figured I had anywhere from 4 to 4:30 of battery life. Now I had several things to write up for our professional development course which I had to submit over the internet. Additionally, I hadn't finished the programming assignment which is due next Monday. I hadn't planned on going back home this coming weekend and so I was stuck. In order to do my assignments I needed my computer. And to provide myself enough time, I had to cut down my extraneous computer time down to zero.

And you wouldn't believe what that's like. Usually I get up in the mornings and automatically turn my laptop on. I do my morning surf of the stock market futures and any glaring technology news and events. This morning, I didn't turn my laptop on. I honestly got up and stared at my turned-off laptop for 10 minutes. Then I went and took a shower. Seriously now, it was the most terrible feeling. I didn't take my laptop to class which I had been doing a lot more recently since OneNote has been so useful. I couldn't even charge my iPod! (Damn Apple for not providing a power adapter anymore) It must have been pretty pathetic seeing my trying to read whatever was on the screen at nearly the lower brightness setting.

But you know what? It made me realize just how much time I actually waste on the computer in the course of a single day. Without the use of my laptop for the good portion of today, I had so much more time to concentrate on my schoolwork. Everything I did do on the laptop was done quickly and efficiently. I planned everything out on paper before turning my laptop on, typing it all in and submitting my assignment. Honestly, it was probably for the best that I left my power cord back home this weekend. It's shown me how much more studying I could do without it. My parents have actually sent the power cord to me in the mail and it should be here tomorrow. I'm going to try to act as though I don't have it though. It could do my studies some good. Even posting this right now doesn't bode too well for self-control when I get it though.

In other news, my iPod is definitely getting scratched solid. Good thing I have a screen protector on the screen. The rest of it seems to be fair game for scratches though and they're really starting to make themselves apparent.

In other other news, I watched my first two and a half episodes of Smallville tonight and I'm actually really liking it. What can I say, the women are hot. Oh Nick, you were the one who really liked that show right?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, November 29, 2005 at 11/29/2005 12:34:00 a.m.. You can skip to the end and leave a response.