giovedì, gennaio 11, 2007

Life without a cell phone

My cell phone is an item of great necessity and annoyance, one that more often gets me into trouble than keeps me safe in case of trouble. The reasons for such complications are thus:

1) I love to talk! But sometimes I talk for greater lengths of time than our cell phone plan, shared by five people, allows. For example, in just two days during this past week, I managed to suck up a third of the minutes allotted to us for the entire month. Whoops...

2) I am a rather forgetful person when it comes to certain daily tasks. I forget my phone a LOT. And even when I have it, I usually leave it on silent and forget to check it! These two actions prompt countless disgruntled voicemails from my father, who seems to wonder why I even own a cell phone if I never answer it. I've grown accustomed to these comments, and have really made an effort to pick up my phone more often in recent months. I'm doing better... for the most part! Unfortunately, it seems that whenever I actually have my phone with me at a volume I can hear, I'm either driving (in which case I refuse to answer it, as that's one of my pet peeves) or I'm someplace where my phone really should be on silent (like cantoring at Church...) Ah, the ironies of life. So by now, most of my friends realize that when they call, it will be a big deal if I actually answer my phone. I get a lot of voicemails as a result. Sadly, I'll often go a couple days without even realizing that I even have these voicemails, and by the time I hear the message it's usually too late. This causes a great deal of guilt and anxiety on my part, and most likely makes it very frustrating for those trying to reach me. To anyone who has been in this position, I apologize! Like I said, I really am trying.

3) I am a klutz, in every sense of the word. I trip a lot. I run into things. I spill at inopportune times, and get injured in odd ways that seem absurd upon reflection. My cell phone really takes a beating, and it's covered with scratches from being dropped more times than I can count. No matter how hard I try to keep it safely protected within a purse or in my pocket, it always seems to find a way to fall out! I feel kind of bad for it.

So here I stand, about to depart for four months without this object of deep aggravation... and yet, I fear that I'll be lost without it. I've used it as an alarm clock every day for the past two years. It serves as my watch, and as a sense of security whenever I'm out somewhere alone. (In fact, I even used it one night to call my "boyfriend" when an odd boy from work felt compelled to wait until my shift got done and follow me to my car. That was kind of creepy...) Essentially, I feel safer with my cell phone, and in spite of all the various ways in which it provokes annoyance... I'm going to miss it. (sigh)

I probably shouldn't even get started on life without my laptop!! I'm probably more scared about that than anything else... not having my e-mail, my music, my photo screen saver, Minesweeper, etc. all at my fingertips?? Yikes. This trip is surely going to teach me how to make use of my time on the internet. It'll be liberating in a lot of ways as well. How did I become so dependent on technology? I think it's safe to say that the majority of my generation shares this dependency, and that's understandable given the way our society has evolved. But this trip is going to force me to actually take time to be still... to sit in a coffee shop and read without being interrupted by a cell phone. To go to bed earlier at night instead of sitting online perusing updated photo albums on facebook. To immerse myself in a the everyday realities of a culture I've only read about, and really getting to know the other girls in the program. It's rather intimidating to imagine life without two objects that I've come to rely on in so many ways... but there's life beyond my laptop. There's SO much out there to experience! It's terrifying and exhilirating all at once.

And as nervous and unprepared as I feel... I cannot wait to dive in.

posted by Sarah @ 8:40 PM