Week Two Story- The Disconnected Student
The Disconnected
Student
Once
there was a student at the University of Oklahoma. This student, enjoying the
freedom that modern technology brought, had decided this semester that she
would be taking almost all online classes. It gave her the freedom to decide
where and when she had her “classes” and did her assignments. One morning,
waking up and getting ready for her day, she thought “I wonder what would
happen if the internet were to go out?”
 |
| Lightning Strike |
The next
night, a terrible thunderstorm hit her apartment complex, and a lightning bolt
struck near her apartment! She awoke the next morning, grateful to see that her
apartment appeared undamaged and the electricity appeared to be working… until
she looked at her phone and realized she wasn’t connected to the Wi-Fi. Confused,
she walked into the living room, where her router was held, and checked to see if
it was working. Her router was not giving out a signal. Mind beginning to race
as the reality of her situation began to sink in, she immediately dialed up the
office of her apartment. After speaking with them for a few minutes, they
suggested calling the internet provider, and so she did. After speaking with her
internet provider for a few minutes, it was clear the person she had on the
phone would be unable to help her. So she tried calling the office of her apartment
one more time. After explaining the situation again, with the added information
from her internet provider, the person who answered her call reassured her and
said someone would be sent up to take a look at it. And so she waited.
As
minutes turned into hours, she began to realize that no one would be coming. She
thought about all the assignments she needed to do online, and the full horror
of the situation sank in. She ran out the door of her apartment and down the hallways.
Another student poked his head out of an apartment door and asked, “What’s
going on?”. “It’s horrible, the end is near,” she replied. “We’ve gone dark, we
have no Wi-Fi! How will I be able to do my homework?” Horrified, the second student followed her. And so it went,
more and more students joining the first. Eventually, all the students made it
downstairs to the office. The manager, seeing the commotion, yelled out over
the crowd “Stop!”
All the
students stumbled to a halt. “What’s going on?” the manager asked. The last student
spoke up, “There's no internet, we can't do our homework!" he cried. The
manager looked at the crowd curiously. “Who told you that?” the manager replied
to the student who’d spoken. All the students looked at each other, unsure.
Finally, the first student who’d discovered that the Wi-Fi wasn’t working,
spoke up, “I did, I saw that I didn’t have a connection to the Wi-Fi.” The
manager smiled and replied to her, “Silly student, the lightning knocked out a
few of the routers, we’re working on it as we speak. Until then, if you need
Wi-Fi access, you’re welcome to use the computer lab here, which is hardwired
into the Wi-Fi and is working perfectly.” Sheepish, the students began
returning to their respective apartments. The first student, blushing with embarrassment
at having caused such a fuss, walked towards the computer lab to log into
Canvas to do her homework.
Authors Note: When I first read the story of The Foolish, Timid Rabbit, I loved it and immediately began thinking of ways that I could make the story my own. So I took the overall plot of the story and gave it a modern, human twist. Instead of a coconut falling down and making a rabbit think that the world was ending, I thought "What is a modern thing that many of us are dependent on today?" The answer immediately came to me: Wi-Fi. The first character is based on me, I actually lost my Wi-Fi in one of the recent thunderstorms. Now, for the sake of following the general plot and to make the story more entertaining, I blew my reaction out of proportion. Hopefully you found it humorous.
Bibliography. "The Foolish, Timid Rabbit" from the Jataka Tales by Ellen C. Babbitt. Web Source.
I really enjoyed the whole theme you've taken for the this story. I also like how you chose to put the lightning image in the middle of the story, it made a really cool effect when reading it because you had to pause when reading it. You might want to try and make it so that each line of dialogue is a paragraph of the story to try and break it up and make things a little easier for the reader to read. By breaking it up, it's less large paragraphs to look at and therefore easier to look through. You also might want to try getting rid of the part where the student calls the internet provider. I know it's the first thing people would expect to do in the situation, but it slows down the story and makes it take longer to get to what actually causes the panic. It's just another thing that'll make it easier for the reader to read.
ReplyDeleteHey Jackie! Your retelling of this story made me smile, especially at the part when you ran into the hallway and I caught onto the story you pulled this from. I thought it was a really creative way to modernize the "end of the world" tale, and a subtle dig at our current reliance on the internet to function. Maybe you could make the climax of the manager shutting down the irrationality even more dramatic next time, or give the manager more lion-esque qualities to elicit the same feeling the original tale gave? Overall, great story!
ReplyDeleteWith the thunderstorms that happened two weeks ago, I am sure that this happened to multiple students. You played to your audience which was really well done. I also loved all of the dialogue. It brought the story to life more. The modern take was a good change of pace, but I feel like you could have written a similar story but with issues that people long ago faced to make it sound more like a Jataka.
ReplyDeleteHi, Jackie! I loved your story! I thought it was very well-written, and I really enjoyed the modern twist! I thought that was very clever of you to think of what could insight that kind of panic in our modern day society. The inability to turn in homework is definitely a sure fire way to cause students to panic! While the reactions were blown out of proportion, it really did make me laugh to myself because I personally know what that panic can feel like! I also liked how it wasn’t so blatantly obvious that it was a re-telling of “The Foolish, Timid Rabbit”. It took me a minute to figure out what the story was based on and made me want to keep reading until the end!
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