ESSAY 1: OPENING NARRATIVE

Here is my opening narrative for my first essay. I sound like such an addict in it...

My alarm goes off every morning, but it isn’t the annoying beeping the ultimately pulls me from my warm bed into the cool, dim morning air: within 5 minutes, my computer is on and Facebook is up. I scroll through my news feed, the page that lists all of my 500-something “friends’” latest activities, and catch up with everything that has happened since I had gone to bed the previous night. Megan is newly single, Danielle uploaded photos of her recent trip to Paris, and Rebbecca went to spin class at 7:56 (and now her legs are absolutely killing her). After my rushed Facebook session, I finally make my coffee, get dressed, and head out to class.
At first, I’m able to play the role of attentive student – I listen to my professor go over the pattern of the monsoon seasons in Asia, and somehow manage to maintain focus. But it doesn’t take long for my inner Facebook addict to start feeling the need to distract myself. I sit at my desk with my blackberry out, anxiously awaiting the red light in the upper right hand corner to start flashing, summoning me to check my messages (the Facebook application that I have installed on my phone notifies me every time someone messages me, writes on my wall, or comments on any of my photos). The hope that someone out there perhaps liked my most recent status update or posted on my wall to make plans for the weekend keeps my eyes glued to the phone, always waiting for the glittering flash of the little red bulb.
My day ticks on and on, ever forward, but there is always that feeling of lonely disconnect when I am unable to see what my friends are doing, where they are, or what they are thinking at any given moment in time. Sometimes, I press the key on my phone that illuminates the screen, even when there is no flashing light; a compulsive act stemming from the constant need to know every detail in the online database that is my friends’ lives; the site that has taken over as if it were a weed. No one has posted on my wall or commented on my status; the guilt of having looked sets in and I drop my phone into my bag, hoping to forget about the Facebook world that is going on without me.