Like most Columbia students, this winter break, I returned home to the sunny land of Los Angeles and immediately entered a state of academic witness protection. My laptop and I did not speak. We did not acknowledge each other. We avoided eye contact entirely. Not once did I open it. Not once did I even look in its direction. I forgot it existed, despite the small, insignificant detail that my thesis is due in a few months and I had repeatedly told myself I would “keep researching over break.”
Naturally, I left my laptop behind in California, along with my iPad, notebooks, pens, and every other object remotely associated with learning or responsibility. When they were eventually shipped back to me, I discovered I could no longer access a single device. My phone had been used exclusively for TikTok doom-scrolling, and the passwords to every Google Doc, Sheet, and Presentation I’ve ever made had evaporated in transport. I couldn’t get into my laptop or my iPad, and worse, it appeared I had forgotten how to type entirely. My fingers hovered over the keyboard, shaking worse than Don Vito Corleone in The Godfather 3.
I tried every password I’ve ever used, including my childhood dog’s name (Huckleberry) and the word “password.” Nothing worked. I eventually regained access after answering three security questions, capturing two flying squirrels, confirming two email addresses I no longer use, and proving to a machine that I am, in fact, myself. It was the most academically rigorous thing I’ve done, ever.
