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I am finding that having the convenience of carrying everything with me isn’t. In the past when everything one needed for the day wasn’t in a laptop, my burden was less and my world was fuller. Forgetting that my knees ache all the time and I am sure that I have lost a centimetre in height due to all the necessities of modern life, I know that my work is suffering.

It was a Saturday and thus I was freed from carrying the paraphernalia that accompanies to the WGAS on a teaching day. My load was decidedly lighter and due to this I could wander. In truth I could wander with the weight it isn’t the weight that is the problem it is digging through the carrier bag to find the camera that is the problem. It was easier not to to stop to keep walking slowing the keep walking became walk faster and I would be at security before I knew it. I had trained myself not to see anything on the way so I wouldn’t have to find a reason why I wasn’t stopping to make that odd snap.

This could be the fact that I am between technologies, I still take actual notebooks and pens but also a laptop as it can be a risk not bringing it. It has the slides – or whatever one calls what has replaced slides now, it is the projector something that I would get from the cage at school, and random bits of work for those moments.

I would prefer to ditch the laptop and place my hopes in the technology embedded in the WGAS but there have been times when the programmes haven’t been compatible.

This was a Saturday – actually a Saturday of over a month ago as I am computered out, I am so tired of being in front of one that when I don’t have to be I am not. Emails go unanswered, entries unwritten, I have stopped making books as I seem to be sitting in front of the screen all the time – there was some meeting at school, I could write notes instead of hearing the constant clacking noise of keyboards in the new distracting way of taking notes during interviews. At lectures I hear the faint click clacking in the background and I wonder if the scratching of pen over paper is equally distracting. Freed I could load the bag with Joãozão and wander. Being at the mercy of the trains which arrive early I went wandering to the school on routes that I usually don’t take but also along routes which would be rife with people on week-days but empty early Saturday morning. Photographed all the delivery stations in the alleys with their kiosks empty, photographed the milk crates the homeless sit on when not selling Streetwise as well as their caches of belongings. I find ladders in the middle of Michigan Avenue, hard hats in planters…

It wasn’t the lesser weight that freed me up it was the lack of things that have to be packed just so for them to make it to school and my laziness in trying to dig through all of that to try to make a snap of something that really shouldn’t require all that effort.

I became spoiled not only did this day hold potential but the following Sunday was also quite productive. My hunch was now that I didn’t have to struggle to get to the camera I wasn’t blinkering myself, I was walking more slowly and allowing situations to be experienced – no I cannot wear it around my neck as I now carry the bag sherpa style and it would constantly hit the buckle which would hit my chest, having it slung over one shoulder would have it slip off when I bent over to make a snap.

This has been happening more and more. I find that I don’t need to carry everything. I am having computer free days – although this isn’t one of them – I am giving up my commuter reading time to write this entry so as to live up to my bimonthly rating on some mendacious blog list. This minor step means that the camera comes out when I leave the station and while it is hard not to race walk when all about me are, I am now actually stopping and snapping closer to the way that I used to before it was possible to carry everything in a neat little package even if you didn’t need it.