Reasons Why This Semester May be My Uncrowning Achievement…

So, my downfall in undergrad was goofing off with friends, watching too much TV, and taking care of my sick grandparents.

My first year in law school I did pretty well. I didn’t turn on the TV, stayed either in the library or at my house with the phone turned off, and well, my grandparents have passed away. I still follow these rules this year.

However, this semester has killed me and here’s why:

1. First of all, I discovered the Firefox Browser and can have like sixteen billion web pages open at once that constantly update themselves. No need to wait for page loads, it’s already done! Once I get to the end of my tabs, enough time has gone by where I can just start again at the beginning.
2. Bloglines – developing links to my favorite law blogs this summer was bad enough. Having a site that notifies you when they are updated is even worse. Plus, whenever I come across a blog, I just click a button and it’s added to the list. Being aware that fifty-something websites have new postings = major time sucker.
3. Facebook – Last year I never logged onto Facebook. I thought it was kinda boring, but this year they added the news feed. All I have to do is log on and instantly I know what people have done to their profiles. With my firefox tabs open I click refresh every five minutes. I now have a stronger grasp of everyone’s extracurricular activities at the loss of an understanding of the Rules of Federal Evidence.
4. Blog statistics – I have drowned in my narcissism on this one. Who’s reading? Where are they from? How many times have they checked the blog? What website referred them? Are my friends from Paris reading? Are my parents reading? My stat site makes me charts. I can compare this Monday’s stats with last Monday’s stats, October as compared to November. The more people read, the more I check because every time I hit refresh on my glorious little tab there’s a new stat. Augh!!!
5. Along those same lines – the more people who read, the more I feel the need to post. Little Ana, always searching for approbation.
6. Email – I think I have sixteen bazillion email accounts and I check all of them like mad.
7. Google – anyone with an innate curiosity about random crap will be immobilized by this little puppy.

And if that isn't bad enough, have you guys heard that soon we will be able to access You Tube from our cell phones? Holy crap.

So yeah. The TV’s off. I’m sitting at my desk with my book open, and yet somehow, at the end of every day, I am amazed at how little I have accomplished. My usual computer procrastination used to mainly consist of checking my horoscopes (which I can only do once a day) and reading the NYT online (which although lengthy – still only happens once a day for the most part). Depending on how my grades turn out this semester, I might have to go back to checking just those two sites. We shall see, my friends. We shall see. I can't believe that in order to study I can't be anywhere near my computer.

Next semester = studying at the little coffee shop down the road that DOESN'T have wireless internet. Who ever thought that would be a plus?