An evening sans iPod
Soooo.... my iPod was stolen last night. Majorly boo-worthy. Someone apparently stepped in and nabbed it from my desk while I was at lunch leaving behind only the no-longer-attached-to-the-iPod charging cable. I was very angry at first, but after letting the whole thing settle for a bit, I suppose I was and am alright. I was getting ready to replace it soon anyways. The screen had been pretty dinged up, sound wasn't coming through one of the headphones too well anymore (the thief took those too), and the volume button often got stuck so my music was pretty much permanently muted.
Still, it was a crappy thing to do and I have my eyes and ears around the school keeping an eye out just in case someone is foolish enough to use it around the building. The person would likely be immediately expelled, but I honestly don't care much at this point if that happens.
I'll be getting a new iPod touch- same model as I had before as I don't need more than 8 Gigs- this afternoon. Not money I wanted to spend, but what can you do? *shrug*
What was interesting though is learning how negatively the iPod impacts my sleep. See, back when I first got my iPod, I had just started working full time at Parameds and I think I was slogging through a mini depression or at least a mini I'm-going-to-overthink-everything-till-I'm-miserable phase. As such, I had difficulty sleeping and staying asleep due to my mind racing so I'd routinely play something on my iPod till I passed out from being exhausted. If I woke up at any point in the evening, I'd almost immediately grab for my iPod to see if I received any email that wasn't from a listserv. Similarly, my mornings always began with reaching over and tapping the GMail icon. I guess I was just looking for something surprising to cheer me up, but it honestly very rarely happened (though it did happen occasionally and that was awesome) so I'd just spend time telling myself to stop being foolish before dropping back to sleep or moving on with the day.
Well that kind of thing, as it turns out, is really habit forming. It's something I've continued to do for the many months since forming said habits so when I was done being pissy about the no-longer-my-iPod thing, my thoughts turned to "well... how am I going to get to sleep?"
Honestly, I went to bed about midnight and actually fell asleep within 10 minutes. I slept through the night with no interruptions. I woke up slowly this morning without feeling even remotely like I *had* to reach over and check my email. I also woke up with this realization that in most ways, mentally, I'm not in the same spot I was last January when I was so reliant on the technology to somehow bring joy to my day. All in all, this was a good thing to experience.
So I learned two things from all this: a) no one is to be trusted among my students apparently. I'm going to either keep my iPod on me or close it into the locked cabinet from now on and b) iPods are to be nowhere withing grabbing distance from wherever it is I sleep at night.
From a negative, a positive, I suppose.
Still, it was a crappy thing to do and I have my eyes and ears around the school keeping an eye out just in case someone is foolish enough to use it around the building. The person would likely be immediately expelled, but I honestly don't care much at this point if that happens.
I'll be getting a new iPod touch- same model as I had before as I don't need more than 8 Gigs- this afternoon. Not money I wanted to spend, but what can you do? *shrug*
What was interesting though is learning how negatively the iPod impacts my sleep. See, back when I first got my iPod, I had just started working full time at Parameds and I think I was slogging through a mini depression or at least a mini I'm-going-to-overthink-everything-till-I'm-miserable phase. As such, I had difficulty sleeping and staying asleep due to my mind racing so I'd routinely play something on my iPod till I passed out from being exhausted. If I woke up at any point in the evening, I'd almost immediately grab for my iPod to see if I received any email that wasn't from a listserv. Similarly, my mornings always began with reaching over and tapping the GMail icon. I guess I was just looking for something surprising to cheer me up, but it honestly very rarely happened (though it did happen occasionally and that was awesome) so I'd just spend time telling myself to stop being foolish before dropping back to sleep or moving on with the day.
Well that kind of thing, as it turns out, is really habit forming. It's something I've continued to do for the many months since forming said habits so when I was done being pissy about the no-longer-my-iPod thing, my thoughts turned to "well... how am I going to get to sleep?"
Honestly, I went to bed about midnight and actually fell asleep within 10 minutes. I slept through the night with no interruptions. I woke up slowly this morning without feeling even remotely like I *had* to reach over and check my email. I also woke up with this realization that in most ways, mentally, I'm not in the same spot I was last January when I was so reliant on the technology to somehow bring joy to my day. All in all, this was a good thing to experience.
So I learned two things from all this: a) no one is to be trusted among my students apparently. I'm going to either keep my iPod on me or close it into the locked cabinet from now on and b) iPods are to be nowhere withing grabbing distance from wherever it is I sleep at night.
From a negative, a positive, I suppose.