"But each one is tempted when, by his own evil desire, he is dragged away and enticed. Then, after desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, gives birth to death" (James 1:14-15).

It always starts out simple enough. It's really important that I email my mom about setting up that doctor's appointment for next break. And I have to wash my dishes before I turn my shelves into biology labs. This friend really could use an encouraging note and I just have to find out what happened to that friend today in lunch. But when the innocent excuses run out, I am left sitting numbly at my desk. The computer screen begins to fuzz in and out and I begin to wonder if my body is moving into an epileptic state. Finding that this isn't the case, I stare out the window. Watching a squirrel run up and down a tree becomes first class entertainment. I let my vision fuzz again and examine the imperfections of the window pane. Soon I am brought back to reality with the reminder of what is truly important: my IM dings. I chat about nothing for 45 minutes or so, then check the away messages of the 17 people who are away. I chuckle at the lame one-liners that fill profiles and away messages, and then start checking to see how long everyone has been online and/or idle. Eventually I work up the motivation to open Word. I play around with the fonts and get my heading just right. Then I save it to an A disk. I notice that the other files on that disk are ambiguously labeled, so I go through and rename all the files. Having accomplished much, I decide to reward myself with a study break. I walk down to the water fountain to get a drink, pausing two or three times along the way to chat with whoever happens to be traveling the hall at that time. Once back, I stare mindlessly around the room as if I have forgotten to do something of extreme importance. Finally surrendering to my absentmindedness, I return to my computer. I re-check the IMs to see if any of the away messages have changed. I check all of my friends' blogs, webjournals, websites, x-profiles, extended profiles, and any other website saved on my favorites list. I glance around the network and download a couple of songs before realizing that 5 hours have past and it's now time for dinner. An hour later, I'm back and decide that maybe it's time to get serious about this paper. I type a paragraph, read through it, delete the second half since it repeats the first half in slightly different wording, and then rewrite the paragraph. This goes on for several hours, interrupted every 5 minutes or so with other various distractions. Soon, my roommate begins to get ready for bed. I reluctantly unplug from my connection to the outside world and move out into the floor in the hall. Emily is already there studying Trihexi-something-or-other which has more syllables than a run-on sentence. We pull out the Mountain Dew and swap the usual insults before promising each other that we really have to get started now. The silence lasts for 2 minutes tops before one of us feels as if she will burst if she does not make the extremely witty and/or sarcastic comment she has brilliantly created. Usually we end up laughing hysterically and there are always several threats of tickling or attacking. Soon 12 and 1 roll around and we halfheartedly finish whatever it was that we were trying not to do all day. In the end, we crawl into bed and collapse exhausted and half-dead. But when it comes down to it, I wouldn't have it any other way!