Lana Maryé Morelli

I ride the train to work and I noticed that in a train car full of people, you could hear a pin drop. At first I was surprised by this phenomenon, I expected that when so many people are crammed into a small space it would be noisy with lots of chatter. The exact opposite is true. The only noise is the “click clack” of the train along the tracks and hum of the electronic devices being accessed on the train. Palm Pilots, lap tops, iPods, blackberries, cell phones AND kindle/digital readers. People are... watching movies, checking Facebook, updating themselves on “breaking news” playing solitaire, listening to music AND reading books. The amount of information that we can hold in our hands is no longer constrained by the amount of weight we are willing to carry; but rather by the amount of memory space or speed of internet access on whatever electronic device we chose to operate. We are a generation of people who have perfected how to stay busy. This is where the downfall comes in. We we

I’ve been carrying a planner around since I was a freshman in high school and I was “required” to have one. I was 14, and telling me I had to do anything made me instantly want to do the opposite. Yet even through the haze of adolescent defiance, slowly but surely, I grew to love the planner. I carried it with me, inputting all of my activities. When I was uninterested in class I would pull out my beloved planner and flip through the pages. I found comfort in knowing that maybe I was bored to tears in biology but… Tomorrow would be a half day, OR In three weeks it would be Christmas break, OR Four months from now was officially prom season, OR This weekend it would be a friend’s birthday No matter how unexciting the class was, I knew I carried with me a happy distraction. My planner was always there as a little reminder that good things were in the future and there was always something to look forward to. Plus, the planner made me efficient and responsible. I could time-manage like a c