Personal Narrative- My Laptop

Personal Narrative- My Laptop

Writing technologies have been shaping the way people live since the beginning of time. In the Stone Age, our ancestors used tablets to organize important thoughts, keep track of daily activities, and pass on their knowledge to future generations. Arguably, their method of writing was inefficient as much effort was being put into carving and preserving the tablet, while the end result contained little information relative to its size. As technologies evolve, we have refined our methods of writing and have come up with newer, cheaper, and more efficient ways to communicate. Living in the age of information explosion, my most intimate experience with writing technologies comes from the use of my royal blue VAIO.

In this essay I will first describe how I have been shaped by my laptop, then provide nuanced detail about my use of it, and finally explain why my relationship with it is interesting.

First, my laptop has shaped my style of living for the better. I believe college is a time of exploration and experimentation, where the breadth of one's participation in various activities is more important than depth of involvement in any single one. Throughout my undergraduate years, I have taken the opportunity to travel and try many new things. Specifically, I have participated in a few three to six month internship / cooperative education program in order to learn more about my own career aptitude. During temporary relocations to Philadelphia, New York City, Boston, Los Angeles, and Taipei, my laptop has always accompanied me and provided great mobility to wherever destination. In the most practical sense, through the use of Outlook Express and AIM, my VAIO helped me communicate with colleagues during the day, and family and friends at night. Beyond that, though, I believe the convenience of relocation that is implied in laptop ownership has vastly broadened my world views and has allowed me to become more independent as a young adult.

Other than being a necessary traveling companion, my laptop has also become an integral part of my life while at school. For instance, I use it to manage mutual fund investments, organize lecture notes and homework, read the news (I spend a lot of time at cnn.com), edit video clips, etc. There are a multitude of other things I do with my laptop, most of which are meaningful and essential, and some of which are purely for fun.