English Audio Request

I was granted fifteen minutes. I waited seven minutes for the page to load completely. I clicked on the first link, and HTTP 404 Not Found. Backtracking, I spent another seven minutes glaring at the white pixels before I was wheeled away backwards from the screen. Right before Christmas, my parents came and rescued me from that burgeoning, blistering hellhole despite management’s claims that I would end up back in the program before New Year’s. As if I had been reborn, I persisted to prevail.
As I transitioned into senior year (miraculously I could still graduate with my class), my attitude toward technology became ambivalent. I saw the good and I saw the evil, but I didn’t know what side I wanted to root for. Facebook was just appearing at the side-lines; I had deleted my xanga and MySpace, and rarely logged on to AIM for anything but insipid banter. New internet (notice the capitalization change) services were blooming before my eyes. I found College Board, Mapquest, and Coffee Break Arcade. I even began to eyeball my cereal boxes, checking for URLs that would deliver me to online sugar-coated marshmallow oases. Using the technology became normal again. Bound in chains no longer, I opened my eyes and embraced the inevitable. I was going to college.