Greetings again, Traceroutes visitors. Sorry for my delay in posting - my last week has been a rather frustrating and expensive experience in what happens when a law student in a small, suburban college town loses both her computer and car. It all started last Monday during my Commercial IP seminar class, when a renegade, exploding bottle of seltzer destroyed my IBM ThinkPad T-240 keyboard and system board. While this computer is only two years old, it apparently will take the great folks at IBM one whole month to ship out a system board to the Palo Alto authorized repair shop. And as those who have seen Rent know, that equals 43,800 minutes too long to repair an essential part of a computer, without which my laptop remains comatose. In driving my heretofore highly reliable 1994 Toyota Camry to the computer repair establishment, I noticed that the oil light on my dashboard kept blinking. The great folks of the Shell station on El Camino have shown me that while I thought I just needed an oil change, in truth my car was a ticking time bomb which would eventually bring about a conflagration of leaking oil and brake fluid unless I repaired a kajillion different parts. My total repair cost for the week: $2,628!! Even more than a week's summer associate pay (and as Dorothy might say, "Toto, I don't think we're a summer associate anymore."). And to make matters worse, I have learned in Tax class this semester that I cannot deduct such expenses from my income until if and when I sell the car and computer. I still remain carless but at least have a temporary laptop (thanks to Stanford Law's kickass IT dept.) from which I write to you of my technological sorrow.
My initial reaction to all this was sheer paranoia and withdrawal. How could I live without having wireless anytime, anyplace - from the classroom to my bedroom? Would my team of engineers working with me to understand how our prospective defendant's spyware product works have difficulty reaching me? And how would I keep updated with the goings on in the law school community and the world at large? Also, how much time in my busy schedule would be eradicated by the need to - gasp - actually walk to class from Stanford Avenue all the way to the law school?
Strangely enough, however, my week of technological deprivation wound up being rather productive: (click below to read the "exciting" details!)
--I walked to class (and for the first time all semester, didn't feel gym avoidance guit)
--I read for class.
--I paid attention in class.
--I participated in class.
--I made sure I got all emails and project plan revisions out to my spyware team before library closing time at midnight. My team and I met in person and they subsequently made some interesting discoveries that will hopefully prove useful to our case.
--I cleaned my apartment, organizing every single pile of paper and junk on my floor and desk (not an easy task)
--I went to bed earlier and began being productive earlier during the day.
--Without a car, I spent more time in the library, since getting out required a 20 min walk home or finding a friend to give me a ride.
My conclusion for my unintended experiment in technological deprivation is that it is easy for wireless access and wheels to distract a senioritist-suffering 3L such as myself. I am thrilled to be almost back to normal - I should be getting my car back tomorrow - but am going to try to keep up with the positive habits I cultivated last week. Among my first orders of business - writing a thoughtful, legally-oriented blog entry for this week!