A Day Without Media

Media free day was quite the experience. I thought it was going to be a lot harder than it was.

I did my media free day Thursday. I chose that day because get to sleep in to 9:30am and then have class until 3:00pm and then work out. So that seemed to be the best day because it was a pretty busy day, but I had several breaks from class where I would usually watch TV or a movie, or play a game or something on the computer. But on that day I decided I should try to talk to people, but that was hard because everybody in the house were studying for tests, so I chose to read all the books I am supposed to be reading for classes but have not quite gotten around to yet. But that too was hard because my roommate was watching TV or on her computer most of the time, so I tried to go into the different lounges in the house but people were listening to music or watching TV or on their computers. So I decided the best place to go would be outside, so I chose to study on the benches outside the house, and that was surprisingly relaxing. But because I am very ADD it made the whole staying away from distractions so I don’t have to take my Adderal very difficult with all the people walking by and the cars and the random noises outside. I read a chapter and then got distracted by an adorable kitten that ran by, so I chased it behind the house and spent like three hours trying to catch it and its siblings. I caught them! And they weren’t so happy about being caught, but the girl kitten finally warmed up to me and I snuck them into my room and played with them for quite a while, and then after a while I decided that it wasn’t very nice to take the kittens away from their mommy so that evening I put them back outside and decided I would settle for just feeding them and having some outdoor cats. After that I went back to my room and bugged my roommate but she works crazy hours so she had to go to bed so she could be up at 3am for work, so I was yet again alone. I get lonely fast. So I tried to read again since my room was quite. That worked for an hour but then I got bored. So I saw the magazine on the side of my bed that I had just got in the mail, but then I realized that that was part of the media free day so I had to move that so I wouldn’t get tempted by that. After that I decided that since nobody was around to talk to I would play solitaire on the floor in my room, that was fun for about 30 minutes, but then I got bored yet again. And then it was time for my boyfriend and I to go on our nightly walk, so that wasted a couple hours because we walked around campus and talked and I took pictures of campus at night with the camera I have that I don’t usually use because it is not digital, but we usually do that so that wasn’t weird minus the camera part of the night. Then I decided that I would just take a shower and then go to bed early instead of watch a movie or talk to my family on IM.

The hardest part of the media free day was staying away from people who were using media, be it computer, music, TV, movies, etc. Everywhere I went there was someone using some sort of medium. The only way around that for me was to hide from it, I went outside instead of being inside where everyone was using media. I did not really miss e-mail or Facebook though I did have to catch myself from using it because it is habit. Another hard thing was the chair that we have in our room is positioned in a corner-ish place facing the big TV in our room, so when I sat there I was tempted to turn on the TV so that there was something going on in the room so I wouldn’t be so lonely. That was when I decided it would be best to leave my room, get away from all the different kinds of media I had laying around.

All in all it was much easier and more enjoyable than I would have ever expected. When you told us about the project I was not a big fan of the idea but now that I have experienced the day I respect the assignment much more and appreciate the challenge because I would never have done anything like this without being told to. I would never have known that I was capable of doing this. I always assumed that I incapable of going a day without my phone and computer and music and TV, but I did it and I am proud of myself and now I realize that it’s a good thing to do every now and again. I thought a lot more than I usually do, I thought through things that have been bothering me, and I prayed a lot more than I usually do. It was good for me all around and I would do it again sometime, but not for a long period of time, but maybe every couple of months or something like that.