I'm sitting here in a cafe nearby my apartment, trying to write a paper due in a couple of days, but having little success. Can't seem to get the words to come out, and when they do, they are less than satisfactory. So if I can't write my work, then maybe I can write some blog material.
I know it's been said many times before, but it really is quite amazing how technologied we are. Lounging around cafes is not a new phenomenon, especially for intellectuals and hopeful intellectuals like university students. And many of these people have done incredible work in these cafes, as any literature or philosophy major will probably tell you. But I don't think they ever did it like this. Obviously, not everyone around me here (and there are many people here today) are surrounded by technology (and few are as surrounded as I am). But the majority have at least on piece of electronic technology with them, usually a laptop. There's the guy off to my right who's got a tablet PC (with touchscreen) and earphones plugged into something (either mp3 player or the computer). The table at my 11 o'clock with as many laptops as people (4). The guy who started off in the easy chair next to me (and needed my help connecting to the wireless network) before moving to join a friend at a table with a laptop. Ditto the guy at the table directly in front of me. And that's just in the section around me. Then there's me. Not only do I have my laptop connected to the wireless internet (so that I can post this without waiting to get home) and my mp3 player (to distract part of my brain while I write), but I'm also connected to IM, and so can talk to my sister back in Toronto to complain about my writer's block. Truly amazing world we live in, isn't it?
Now, there is an opportunity here to start talking about the impact and consequences of such technology on society, the economy, human interaction, etc. But since this is just a frivolous, time wasting scrawl, I won't bother. Instead, I'll just rave about how having a laptop and a place to use it comfortably with a free internet connection has made my life easier. Sure, I'm wasting my afternoon away today, but it's not nearly as bad as it would have been had I been at home trying to work. There, I almost certainly would have decided that the couch is much more comfortable than the desk chair. And once on the couch the TV would certainly beckon, no matter how little was actually on. Trust me, I have spent many such days, and they rarely end up being very good days (at least when I actually have work do). Being able to come to a place where I can focus more (internet distraction notwithstanding) and just read or type is a great help. The library is often a place like this, but right now it's not very convenient to get to. So I've set up shop in this cafe, and taken advantage of their generous wireless availability, as well as generous view of those who sit and work at a table all day, while buying little or nothing to eat or drink. I really must commend these customer-friendly policies. Not only do they generate positive attitudes from the customers (something very important in today's marketplace), but they also keep you here long enough until you are hungry or thirsty enough to buy something or two, or three. And since it's generally good food, you don't feel too bad about shelling out $2+ for a brownie (they are really good brownies) or $5+ for a sandwich and chips. I wouldn't be at all surprised if it makes them considerably more money than the costs of the wireless equipment or the problems of crowds at lunchtime.
Well, I guess that's enough of my pointless rambling for now. Hopefully that's opened my brain up a bit, and I can get back to actual work.
Nah...probably not.
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Meanwhile, on the other end of the IM conversation...
As she works, the sister sits listening to internet radio through her iTunes on her laptop, because, cheap as it is to produce, it has no ad breaks, and so when she tires of her CD collection (or the collection of tunes she's bought from the iTunes store) as background music, she can listen to a new rotation of music without being annoyed to death by advertising.
She's marking essays that her students wrote on laptops, then uploaded to the school intranet so that, should any of the hard copies get lost, she can go back and find them again, and that, should she suspect plagiarism, she can submit to the school's subscription to TurnItIn.com to check against their database. The essays (barring the occasional abysmal turn of phrase and the homophones that their spellcheck didn't catch) are wonderfully easy to read; she's been spoiled, such that when she has to read handwritten essays by her AP students, she finds herself turning the paper every which way to make out their handwriting.
And speaking of AP students, they're all on March break now, but they can always check in to the school intranet for practice questions she's posted there, and she herself can periodically check to see if any of them have done them, and even check to see their scores on the multiple-choice exercises, which self-score and also provide the students when they've completed the exercise with the feedback she's entered.
When she's done that, and when she's done marking these essays, she can enter her marks into her mark-recording software, which she blesses every day, not having ever been strong at arithmetic.
Finally, when the work's all done, she can sit back with the DVDs she ordered through her online DVD-by-mail service.
Yes - even now, the TV beckons, which tempts me to follow in Mark's footsteps and head to the local Wi-Fi-enabled coffee shop, especially since recently I've become addicted to caffe mochas, and Mark's post has me jonesing. However, it's snowing again; no amount of technology seems to bring on spring any earlier, and, quite frankly, I'd rather sit here at my table and work my ass off to try to get this accumulation of essays marked (no amount of technology seems to decrease workloads, either, but that's a whole other posting) so that the rest of my March break can be a real break.
Twelve more essays before I can knock off for today...
We've all been there.
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