Remember how I used to post fairly often on my blog, before I was a junior in college? And then how it all dropped off sometime last school year, and I haven’t yet learned to pick the pace up a bit?
That was the days before a lot of homework that involved my computer. Also before the days when I got really distracted during said homework, browsing Facebook and re-watching favorite YouTube videos.
I bring this up to provide the background for this past week. Over Thanksgiving break—just one week from today, I believe—my brother and I determined that the power supply for my laptop had basically died. Without my laptop, I was forced to rely on the school library’s computers for most of my homework.
That was great incentive to do it efficiently—who really wants to spend all day in the library?
And then, after getting back to my apartment after supper (or whenever), I was without my laptop all night.
It was pleasant—I read, I wrote in my journal, I talked to my friends, I read some more, I thought about what I read… I sang, I played guitar… I did a number of things I used to do much more, before school set in.
I then wrote in my journal how refreshing it was not to be on computer/Facebook (in particular) and to be back doing the things I loved. I resolved to continue this separation from the Internet, in part, after getting the new power cord (coming in the mail). I had grand plans to finish all the books I’ve been wading through, and to write regularly in my journal.
My power cord came Thursday. I was happy, but I didn’t go overboard on the computer usage. I started sliding back into newish-old habits Friday. And Saturday, a couple papers took TWICE as long to finish because I was so distracted by the Internet.
But I realized it. And today did a little better, since I spent almost the entire afternoon doing things entirely unrelated to Internet technology.
So, if I take this one day at a time, I might be able to change these newish-old habits. And maybe I’ll spend more time processing whatever little I read on the Internet (and writing related blog posts), rather than hop-skip-jumping to the next article and the next.
But the last time I told myself I’d do such-and-such, it lasted—oh, maybe a couple weeks.
Comments