Don't know what you got

it's been said you don't know what you got until it's gone. My family experienced this first hand the last two days. On Tuesday our wireless internet service was down for several hours in the evening. Yesterday it was out again all day and well into the evening. The outage was caused by a severed fiberoptic line. I was okay without internet service. I was busy and I had lots of things to do anyway. The kids however seemed to be going stir crazy. They didn't know how to act and their world was in a complete tizzy with no internet service. They didn't verbalize it, but they were visibly agitated at not having their wireless devices connected to anything. Now, in their defense, much of their homework is online and the outage impeded their studies. But I also think being disconnected from FaceBook and other social media was driving them crazy. If withdrawal symptoms exist for addiction to the internet, I witnessed it in my kids last night. The symptoms were mild, but they were still present. I must admit I felt s sense of disconnection too, but not to the point I didn't know what to do with myself. For me, it was more about not having access to my online grade book and work-related e-mail. I also had no access to my blogs (yes, I also maintain a school blog for my students). I'm a hip, 21st century teacher. What can I say?

This morning all is right with the world. Internet service has been restored and Facebook, Snapchat, Twitter, and Instagram once again reign supreme. My kids can now breathe again. Chill pills were taken and the crisis has been averted.