Conor Ward

January 22, 2015

Dr. Dietel-Mclaughlin

The Irony of distractions

I sit at my desk furious with my self, because yet again I have waited till the last minute

to do an assignment. My professor told us that we have to write a personal narrative about the

role screens have played in our lives. And I have absolutely no idea what I am going to write

about. Before sitting down to do this assignment, I thought it was going to be a piece of cake.

However, because I did not correctly listen to the directions that were provided, I thought we

only had to write a simple personal narrative. I was planning to write about the time I went to a

Boston Red Sox playoff game. I had the whole essay planned out in my head.

Before sitting down I got a glass of water, opened the windows because the room was

kind of hot, ate a pop-tart, and watched some Netflix on my computer. I thought I had gotten all

the distractions out of the way. Before starting to write, I listened to the directions one more time

and to my dismay I find out that the directions said the essay had to be about how SCREENS

have effected my life. I was furious. I had no idea what I was going to do. It was already late in

the night and my first draft was due tomorrow. So I decided that I was going to take a break to

clear my head. I immediately took out my phone to check the score of the Patriots game. Then I

walked out to the lounge outside my room to talk to some friends. As soon as I got out there, I

sat in front of the TV and started to complain about my essay to them. I mostly complained about

how I had no idea what I was going to write about. I sat there for a long time just thinking to my-

self about how screwed I was for this assignment.

While in the lounge me and my group of friends decided to order some dominos, because

there is no better way to procrastinate and feel bad about yourself than over a slice of pizza. I

grabbed my slice and went back into my room to write, but I still had no idea what to write

about. I sat down at my desk and immediately found myself responding to texts and snapchats.

Once I put my phone down and started to look at my computer, my leg began to ner-

vously twitch and for some reason I couldn't get it to stop and then after about five minutes of

staring at the blindingly white screen, I found myself looking through articles on ESPN. After

spending a good amount of time browsing ESPN, I walked out of the room and back into the

lounge, where I once again plopped myself down on the couch in front of the TV. I was simply

walking away from my problems.

When I went back into my room two of my friends were sitting on the futon. One of

them, whose name is Diego, had been in the same class the previous semester so I started to

pester him with questions about the class and this assignment in particular. I was desperately

searching for something I could write about. While I was sitting there staring at the blank

screen, I became distracted by what they were working on, on their computer. Diego had a

homework for psychology, where he had to find words based on their phonetic symbols. He was

having a lot of difficulty with this task and the other kid on the futon, Jack, was helping him. Ev -

ery time they put in an incorrect answer, I would look over and see Diego yelling at his computer

in his thick Indonesian accent. I thought it was funny that he was having as much difficulty with

his homework as I was. I walked over to look at what he was doing and as I looked through the

questions I saw that they were quite difficult. Finally, they tell me to stop procrastinating and get

back to work. So I went back to my desk, sat down and went back to staring intently at my blank

word document. It was at that moment that I knew what I was going to write about for my essay.

I had spent all this time procrastinating and worried, because I didn't know what I was going to

write, but the answer had literally been right in front of my eyes.

I was instructed to write an essay about the role screens play in my life, but all I kept do-

ing was procrastinating by using the very things I was supposed to be writing about. The second

this idea hit me I went to my computer and began typing every single thought that went through

my head. I knew that if I didn’t write my ideas down, I would forget them and they would be

gone forever. It was as if the idea was about to run away from me and I had to chase it down and

capture it. I furiously pounded away at the keyboard, frantically trying to convey my thoughts

into somewhat readable sentences.

I then began to think of the irony of my situation. My assignment was to write about the

role of screens in my life, but it was screens themselves that were preventing me from finishing

my work. I would constantly get distracted by my computer, my phone, or even things that other

people were doing on their computers. Even over the course of writing this, I ’ve found myself

browsing the internet multiple times.

I was so caught up in the fact that I had nothing to write about, that I couldn ’t see that the

answer to my problem was right in front of me. At this point, I am just glad that I won’t have to

go into my class tomorrow and tell my professor that I have nothing to hand in. I do have some-

thing to hand in. I have an essay. One in which I had to overcome all of the distractions that its

very subject causes almost everyone on a daily basis.