Finishing up the term

As my dear friend alluded to in her last comment, I am without internet at home. My computer crashed a couple of weeks ago, and since I don't have the money to get it repaired, I am just making use of the public library machines once a day to get my internet needs met.

I wouldn't be able to manage completely without internet, but I've actually gotten quite comfortable with my routine; I like the environment here, it's cool and relatively quiet, except for a lot of really cute kids who float in and out with their parents and their storybooks. I mostly get a great deal of uninterrupted time on the relatively new HP desktop computer, though sometimes I get knocked off by someone who comes along if the other machines are also being used. I find that the most important stuff can usually be finished in half an hour, and then I move along to the rest.

Meanwhile, the word processing, I do at home, on my father's ancient laptop. The battery can't run without the AC adapter, and it has no wireless card or ethernet port, and it runs on Windows 95, but it's good enough to write on, and I can save my work to an old 3.5 inch floppy disk I had hiding around in a nook or cranny.

This way, I've completed a draft of my research internship paper that I wrote for my built environment and material culture in postsocialism course, and I've been working on my archaeology exams.

I did my grading the old-fashioned way, with pencil and paper, on a clipboard, overlooking the lake. It's been incredibly sunny and beautiful in Michigan recently after an unbearable and seemingly unending winter. So it's really something, sitting there, sunning my legs, reading undergraduate papers.

Having finished both the grading and the first version of the research internship paper, which I need to LET GO OF for the moment, even though it needs a ton of work, because it's 46 pages (!!), I have to move on to my archaeology papers. I hope to finally be caught up with my coursework and all, and finished with my research internship, by the end of the spring term in June, and on to my social work prelim. I'm actually really looking forward to the summer. I feel I've already set the pace of it with my quiet mornings spent reading and writing overlooking the lake with a mug of cafe con leche, and afternoons at the library. I wonder -- could I cancel my cell phone and my internet for a few months, and hide away in glorious, hermetic, spartan calm?