I believe that the major external/environmental obstacle to my really settling into a productive schedule living here at home is the internet connection at the house. I am at my most productive when I am in my most comfortable environment, and that does not occur when I need to either go up to the school/cafe or to Barnes and Noble to use a good connection for things. I understand my parents switching to dial-up to save money, but I feel like I'm suffocating trying to do what I need and want to do online either here or especially with feeling forced to go elsewhere. Sometimes I can focus in an environment where people are constantly coming and going, but that isn't the case all of the time.
The scattered feeling comes from the constant need to keep changing locations depending on what it is I'm trying to do online/on a computer. [I track a lot of things in my life on my laptop computer in word/excel files] There is the rare occasion, like right now, where I get a decent enough dial-up connection that I can deal with the waiting for things to load so I can do things. But, I want to be able to comment more on people's blogs and to send more emails to friends, but I feel so exhausted after doing the things I need to do online (just basic email checking and job search/application stuff) that I either just want to get off the computer or leave where I am.
I've researched a few different options (a new phone with more internet access abilities, netbooks, etc) but the best and cheapest option I found is to get Road Runner internet again (what they had before). There is still the matter of its cost, but I'm hoping I can talk to my mom about it soon and see if we can figure something out. I keep thinking about wanting a new phone and a new computer (laptop or desktop) but I don't need either of those right now. My phone works fine for what I need it to do, and with my new cooling mat my laptop is hanging in there and still doing what I need it to do.
*edit* I talked to my mom about the internet stuff, and she called the one company that I couldn't get info for online and it looks like right now in order to do faster internet we'd need to get rid of the landline phone for the house, and she's not ready to make that sort of decision right now.
So, I'm going to try to put the dial up software on my laptop to see if it goes faster on there at all (since some of the slowness issues are my parents' computer). While it may not make much of a difference, it would allow me to set up my laptop downstairs on the dining room table and use the internet that way, thus eliminating the need to switch between my laptop and my parents' computer to do things when I need to go online. We'll see how it goes...
*/edit*
I'm slowly getting better about my book purchases and DVD rentals. I've become an avid library requester through the online system for our library system. So far I've only found one book series that they do not have, but there are plenty of other books that I've been wanting to read that they do have so I do not feel deprived at all. In the last 5 years or so I made myself quit buying books that I would only read once (I like to reread a lot of my books. Depending on my mood I read different books that may comfort, uplift, or just entertain me). This left me with a "short" list of authors/series that I was allowing myself to purchase books from and an ever growing list of books I'd like to read one day, while I had no easy access to a library (usually the location was not convienent to my life/routines). I'm a fast reader so I go through books at a pretty quick pace normally, and a super fast pace when I have lots of time on my hands.
The library's DVD collection is not very big, but I've been taking out a few movies here and there that I've wanted to see, and you can't beat the price ($0) lol. I'm also trying to watch the DVDs I already own (both for TV shows and movies). I've got some movies that I bought and never got around to watching. Hard to justify spending money to watch a movie when I have "new" ones to watch for free. A good number of these however are in boxes in storage up at the school, so that does hinder things a little. I'm trying to figure out the logistics of rearranging things in my room so that I can have all of my DVDs in my room for access, even if they have to stay in their boxes to do so.
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