My Security (Blanket) Laptop

I have a peculiar habit: I highlight my cases based on a pre-assigned color scheme. Green is fact, yellow is issue and orange is the ratio. If I ran out of a particular color while reading, my first compulsion is to buy/look/borrow the color I need. I can’t proceed with the readings using a different color as I get disoriented and lose my focus (Seriously, I can’t study). I know it’s all in my mind. A coping mechanism I’ve developed here in law school – an assurance that there are things I can still control. For I while, I thought that this was my only “obsessive compulsive” behavior. Last Friday, I discovered a new “compulsion.”

My laptop has been my constant companion here in law school – it’s battered and the specs need up grading. Still, I’m satisfied with what I have. Last Friday afternoon, after hosting a seminar on the Barangay Protection Order, a group mate who had a laptop like mine (same brand, same series) accidentally packed my cord along with her own laptop cord. It was not until Saturday morning, when I needed to charge my laptop that I discovered the mistake. While a sane person would have said, “OK I’ll get it from you Tuesday,” crazy me proposed, “Can you send it thru LBC it to me so I can get it tomorrow (Sunday)?”

The thing was, that entire Saturday I could not seem to focus. All I keep thinking was “What if I need something from my laptop? What if someone sent me an email? What if I need to look up a case? What if..” At that point when I asked my group mate to send my laptop through courier, I realized how much I’ve become dependent on technology and the internet – whether it’s instant fact from Google or new Supreme Court decision or even showbiz news – and how impaired I am without it. A short period of deprivation makes you realize that you resort to extremes just to get it.