Disconnections

1. Bubble wrap is a great stress reliever, plus it's cheap entertainment!
2. Swing dancing is pretty epic.
3. Relax, it's not going to be that bad.
4. Sometimes it's okay to disconnect.

Megan here, and woah, you guys get two posts in two days, AND they're connected.  Lucky!  I hope you're having a good week and enjoying the weather because I am.

So Nicole's last post talks about fostering new connections with people.  I'm taking the opposite approach and talking about my new found state of technological disconnection.  Here's the deal... I broke my laptop on Friday.  Yes, I broke Dorky.  On Monday night, I wrapped him up all nice and tight in bubble wrap (I bought extra for the heck of it) and shipped him off to Texas for repairs.  All in all, I'll spend about 15-20 days without him.  It's been one expensive lesson, but also one heck of an adventure spent navigating online tech support. :P

Since I still have about two papers due a week, I've been spending a lot of time in labs and whatnot. Believe me, it's time management on a whole new level. Before, I knew I could start a paper around 11pm because theoretically, I could work on it until 3 am or later if I needed to--I rarely chose that option, but I knew it was there.  Now I'm constrained to facility hours, limited space, and general inconvenience.  I'm starting to feel a little disconnected--little access to Facebook or other social networks, limited email access, and I just feel bad that I have friends who want to or need to talk to me and I'm not there since I know how awful that feeling is.

About a week ago, one of my Facebook friends made an event that asked people to take a day off of Facebook--slight irony there, but people supported the idea.  I guess I'm participating in a way, even though I didn't intend to.  You know, it's funny how even though I'm experiencing a little bit of technological disconnect, I'm enjoying certain aspects of it.  Yesterday I plugged my phone into a computer to charge and instead the computer completely drained the battery.  I ended up leaving the phone to charge in my room and headed off to class.  I spent 4 hours being completely anonymous and unreachable.  It was liberating in a way and I'm considering doing it more often.

Even though I miss my laptop, it's okay to be disconnected and take time to yourself once in a while--not only from technology, but also from other things, even people.  I think we wrap ourselves up in notions of how much we want to avoid certain situations that the dread almost becomes worse than the situation itself, but once you're forced to go through it--you just do it and make it work, and in the end you might actually end up enjoying a different pattern or pace of life.  Maybe I'm even feeling a little too connected lately, stretched a little too thin, and so I'm actually just looking forward to doing homework tonight, drinking some tea, reading some poetry, and falling asleep at a reasonable time. 

So I hope you have a good week and can take a few moments to yourself.  It's okay to disconnect and find some solitude, whether that involves taking a break from technology or even friends, just as long as you connect back up and even foster new connections--just like Nicole said.

-Megan