I recently experienced a crisis. For exactly 14 days, seven hours and 30 minutes, I had to make do without access to the Internet in my dorm room.  Yes, I know, first world problems, right? But seriously, the Internet has become such an integral part of our everyday lives that it is hard to adapt to life without it.

The Internet is more than just a tool to be used. It is an instrument I use to wind down and relax. My morning has not truly begun unless I check my email in hopes of finding that one message from my professor saying class is cancelled. My day is not complete unless I get caught up on the latest news and check what is happening on Facebook. How else would I know Kyle is going to go crazy at The Buzz?

This is why when I woke up Monday, March 12 and realized my Internet was gone I experienced a level of anger that was legendary. I said so many curses in my mind I could hardly think.

After my morning shower, I calmed down and started using my brain to figure out what the problem could be and remembered that the previous night, there was a large thunderstorm. I thought, “Maybe that crazy storm shorted my Ethernet cable or my Ethernet card.” With cautious optimism, I tried my cord on different devices with no luck and came to the conclusion that it couldn’t be anything on my end. It had to be something going on with the port in the wall.

In an attempt to be proactive, I called the Housing Tech Line in the hopes of talking to a person who could help me with my problem. Instead, I was answered by the cold, calculated voice recording that became my nemesis. For days, I called in vain, leaving message after message, and I began to wonder if I was destined to finish the semester with no access to the Internet.

As the days went on, I adapted to the situation by spending time in Sims Memorial Library and at my desk at work, desperately using the Internet available at these two locations.

Finally, I decided to pick myself up and go to the University Housing office to talk to a real person about my very real problem. The nice people at Housing explained to me the reason I had not talked to a person was because the system was set up so the technician never had to call people back. He simply went off the messages left on the machine (I told you that machine was my nemesis). They acted on my behalf and left their own messages, trying to get results for me. More time went by and still I was not granted the fruit of Internet access.

I decided to make one last visit to University Housing to see if they had made any headway on solving the problem. They called the Internet gods and at last talked to a real person who explained that this whole time they had been waiting for a new switch to come in because the storm had knocked out the old one. How relieved I was to hear that by the end of the day I would have Internet again!

All sarcasm aside, this experience has taught me a few important things. Even though we have become a society that needs the Internet almost as much as food, water and air, it is something you can live without. Although it is extremely inconvenient, there are ways to get around the problems presented by being disconnected. By going to the library and being around work more often, I met new people and interacted with my friends in a way I hadn’t before.

Through my experience, I talked to more people in the two weeks I went without the Internet than I did in the days prior to my loss of connectivity. It is important to remember the Internet is a means of communication. It is easy to get lost in the data the Web presents us and miss out on the simple, everyday communication with the people all around us. To me, there is a lesson to be learned there.