On Friday, June 5, the UO dance department will present their annual Spring Dance Loft.

Loft performances take place at the end of each quarter, showcasing student choreography and performance. In this way, the event is similar to other shows produced in the department, like the Spring Student Dance concert. The Student Concert, however, is tied directly to an upper-division class in the department, while the Spring Loft is entirely extracurricular.

According to the students involved, the Loft is a much more casual experience, where dancers produce works based on their interests and creative urges. Many students produce Loft pieces as senior projects.

This is the case for Stephanie Ennes. Her piece, titled “Cycle 8”, features three dancers who have worked together in the UO dance program since their freshman year.

“I’m excited because this is my first time — and last time — choreographing at the U of O,” Ennes said. “It’s good to complete my time here with a work, and something that’s mine.”

For Bryn Hlava, another senior in the department, this opportunity is what makes the Loft experience unique.

“As dancers we don’t have that many opportunities to create work and put it onstage because it is such a production,” Hlava said. “It is nice for there to be a less formal situation.”

For her piece, Hlava is focusing on sensation and kinesthetic response to movement. The music was composed by her boyfriend, UO student Karsten Topelmann. Though Topelmann is currently in London, the two have collaborated electronically to develop Hlava’s final product.

Collaboration seems to be a common thread among the Spring Loft pieces. Ennes mentioned that she encouraged her dancers to incorporate their own experiences into the movement prompts she gave them.

Another dancer, senior Robin Ewing, enhanced his choreographing experience by collaborating with a hip-hop artist for his piece.

“I needed to work with someone who had a different style than I did. I wanted to generate movement that was somewhere in between,” said Ewing.

Teamwork of this kind and much creative freedom has resulted in a show that has something for everyone. Some pieces feature work by familiar artists like James Brown and the Beatles. Others are more unconventional.

Senior Lacey Ackerman’s piece, for example, is set to the sounds of a tide and a speech by John F. Kennedy.

“I was really inspired by the rhythm that the ocean establishes,” she said.

Ackerman echoed her fellow students’ appreciation of the diversity of movement and music that the Spring Loft will feature.

“Each piece that I’ve seen is so representative of the individual, like you could totally see them dancing their whole piece out there, maybe in their kitchen or something,” she said.

Hlava seemed to share Ackerman’s obvious excitement. For her, the dance program brings something special to the table that is just waiting to be shared with an audience.

“I always try to encourage people to come to the dance shows,” she said. “The U of O dance department is awesome. it’s such a hidden gem.”

The Spring Dance Loft is Friday, June 5 at 8 p.m. It will take place in the Dougherty Dance Theater in Gerlinger Annex on campus, and tickets are $3 for students. For more information, visit the School of Music and Dance website.

It’s hard to love musicals in college. Seriously. Even for die-hard Broadway fans, the campus schedule and lifestyle can set up a lot of barriers between you and your show tunes.

Live shows are out of the question. Prices for a plane ticket to New York City are outrageous. Even a balcony seat at a local touring show is beyond most college students’ budgets.

Plus, to go see a show, you usually have to dress up. This can be a problem when your wardrobe consists primarily of sweatpants. Wouldn’t it be so much easier just to enjoy musical theatre in all its glory from the comfort of your bed?

Good news musical lovers: It’s possible.

Netflix, the college student’s best friend, is teeming with movie musicals that run the gamut from laughably cheesy to moving and beautiful. Here are a few highlights to get you started on a Broadway binge:

Want a taste of Broadway?

The Tony Award-winning Broadway adaptation of Shrek is available to stream, featuring stars like Sutton Foster and Brian D’Arcy James. The sets are colorful, the music is catchy and the jokes are a little crude. A perfect recipe for a night in.

Also available: The Phantom of the Opera, RENT, The Producers

How about a classic?

Netflix recently dropped a large selection of classic movie musicals (Gentlemen Prefer Blondes and Funny Face, for example), but a few oddballs remain. Check out Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, a rather bizarre 1968 film about a trip on a magic car to a land called Vulgaria, in which there are mysteriously no children. It’s almost three hours long, but Dick Van Dyke flies a car with wings. Your call.

Also available: Beach Party, First a Girl, The Young Girls of Rochefort

Looking for a childhood throwback?

It doesn’t get much more nostalgic than High School Musical, but be sure to watch it alone so your friends don’t notice that you still know all the lyrics to, “Get’cha Head in the Game.” Animated classics like Mulan and Pocahontas are also great options.

Also available: Anastasia, Joseph King of Dreams

In the mood for Christmas music?

Don’t be ashamed. If you have the urge to sing along to songs about falling snow and holiday cheer, check out the 1954 classic, White Christmas. You’ll be humming the title number all day, but the incredible dance numbers and warm fuzzies at the end are worth it.

Also available: The Radio City Christmas Spectacular, The Nightmare Before Christmas

Follow Rachel on Twitter @BennerRachel

Plywood and smeared spackle were the backdrop for a Tuesday night rehearsal in the Robinson Theater. Dressed in jeans and sneakers, actors cartwheeled, danced and unicycled across the half-finished set. Several twirled brightly-colored, opened umbrellas.

Though University Theatre’s Comedy of Errors was over a week away from opening night, the rehearsal buzzed with comic energy.

Quiet chuckles rang through the auditorium, its seats filled sparingly with production staff. “All right, folks, let’s take 10” said director Joseph Gilg, as one character made a final dive into a stage trap door. “We’ll run act one at 9:05.”

Actors scattered — neon wigs still intact, clown-like personas discarded.

Comedy of Errors is one of Shakespeare’s most ridiculous comedies. It follows two sets of twins separated at birth as they embark on a series of misadventures in the coastal town of Ephesus.

This production pushes the boundaries of “normal” Shakespeare. Every decision, onstage or backstage, has been made with the audience’s entertainment in mind. Crazy costumes, carnival-like displays of talent and a focus on collaborative creativity make University Theatre’s interpretation of Comedy of Errors unique.

As the final product comes together, the people involved are excited to see this colorful whirlwind come to life and draw plenty of laughs.

“There’s not much depth to it,” Gilg said. “There’s no big morals or any of that sort of thing.”

The play’s written in Shakespeare’s notoriously complicated verse, laced with double entendres and archaic vocabulary. Have you ever heard of a “synod”? How about a “capon”?

“It’s pretty fancy wordplay, and when you first read it on the script it’s a little hard to understand,” said Riley Mulvihill, who plays one of the confused twins, Dromio of Ephesus. This is Mulvihill’s first Shakespeare production, and he found the meter and vocabulary difficult to master.

The cast and crew have been working since the end of March to make sure that Comedy of Errors is digestible for all audiences — at least through their faces, if not always their words.

The show’s over-the-top, playful style is especially helpful in bringing the farcical humor to light. Gilg encouraged the cast to explore clowning techniques, unusual talents and packed the play with quirky side attractions.

Someone rides a unicycle. Someone else plays the ukulele. The actors acknowledge the audience with over-played double-takes and playful glances reminiscent of Charlie Chaplin.

One actor charged with learning how to juggle soon found that she didn’t have the knack. She asked Gilg if she could turn her lack of ability into a comic bit, and he enthusiastically agreed.

Now, she routinely drops the balls with great dramatic flair and lets the audience in on the joke with exaggerated facial expressions.

“Actors will come up with ideas for what their character’s doing… and we take those ideas and just kind of develop them a little further,” said Gilg.

“You can be as hammy as you want, and they’re like ‘give me more,’” said Mulvihill. “It’s just a hoot.”

Other cast members shared Mulvihill’s appreciation of this creative freedom.

“Joseph didn’t want to give us a whole lot of blocking ideas,” said Isaiah Nixon. “He wanted us to just play around with everything, just to see what will work.”

Nixon is part of Comedy of Errors’s small ensemble of street performers. This group of five actors were not originally in the script, and have no real lines or role. They’re onstage for almost the whole show, juggling and frolicking through Ephesus as the story unfolds. Occasionally, they’ll even pantomime the dialogue in the background.

“We are by far the silliest, craziest people in this cast because we really don’t have any limit as to what we do,” said Allie Murakami, another street performer. Murakami tumbles and juggles. Another street performer, freshman Connor French, performs sleight-of-hand tricks. Their varied antics bring the zany onstage world of Ephesus to life.

“Ephesus needs to be something that doesn’t look like a regular place,” said costume designer Alexandra Bonds, her hands full of lucid pink silk flowers.

Standing in Miller Theatre Complex’s large and well-lit costume shop, Bonds described the evolution of Comedy’s visual elements and designs come in.

Incidentally, Bonds is married to Gilg. They recalled discussing their vision for this show while on vacation in Brazil last year. Inspired by strolls on pristine beaches, Bonds initially envisioned Ephesus as a nostalgic 1950s beach town, complete with little drink-umbrellas and parasols.

However, Bonds had to make compromises once production meetings began.

“Everyone else was in totally different places,” she said. “Joseph was really attracted to very bright colors. He kept saying he wanted it to be bright, bright, bright.”

She shifted her focus to something different: A colorful dream-world inspired by clown costumes and traditional Elizabethan clothing.

One remnant of Bond’s original vision remains — umbrellas.

“I kept the little parasols, and the beach umbrellas… because there was just something about them,” she said. “I wanted that carefree, relaxed quality to it.”

Bonds shaped her cohesive costume design around three seemingly disconnected words: Elizabethan, surrealist, umbrella.

“All of these are not what you think they are,” Bonds said, gesturing at a wall papered with bright, detailed costume sketches. She pointed out the many clever illusions and details hidden in her playful designs.

On one drawing was a hoop skirt masquerading as a flower pot. On another, Elizabethan pumpkin breeches were sketched with pumpkin-printed fabric. Umbrellas hid in all kinds of objects: skirts, strings of lights and even swords.

On one design, a hat was designed to evoke a fried egg — Gilg’s idea, according to Bonds.

“Part of the fun of it has been that back-and-forth volleying,” Bonds said. “I’ll come up with an idea, then somebody else will build on it.”

This idea is reflected outside the costume shop, as well.

“The style has pretty much been that everybody is a contributing member to what’s going on onstage,” said Gilg.

As stage manager, Andrea Kilcoyne played a large role. She shuttles information and ideas between director and designers, and now ensures that all of the technical elements fall into place.

As opening night approaches, Kilcoyne has noticed an especially strong bond in the cast and crew. “They really just gelled and they came together as a group to put together this crazy, wonderful play,” she said. “It makes my job easier.”

After seven weeks of tireless rehearsal, experimentation and creativity, Kilcoyne and the rest of the Comedy of Errors family are ready to share their colorful world with an audience.

“I guess what I’m most looking forward to is sitting up in the back and listening to the laughter,” said Gilg. “Because I think it’s going to be really funny.”

Mulvihill echoed this sentiment with contagious excitement.

“That energy that an audience brings, and that live performance brings, I can’t wait,” Mulvihill said.

Comedy of Errors runs May 22-23, 28-30, June 5-6 at 8 p.m. and May 31 at 2 p.m. in the Robinson Theatre on campus. Tickets are free for University of Oregon students. For more information, visit the University Theatre website.

Do you know how to drop your bike’s tire? If your brake pads are squeaking, what do you do?

If you don’t know, you’re not alone.

Even in a bike-centric town like Eugene, the details of bike mechanics are often trusted to professionals. Sometimes, however, this can be problematic, especially if you identify as female.

“It tends to be the case that when you walk into a bike shop the mechanics are all male,” said Ellie Bartlett, a Bike Program mechanic. “So we’re working on just making it really accessible to women, and having women in the shop to make it more comfortable to ask questions.”

This was the premise of Tuesday’s Women’s Bike Maintenance Night, presented by the UO Bike Program, which is housed in the Outdoor Program. The annual event provides women with an opportunity to learn the basics of bike mechanics and ask questions in a comfortable environment.

Bartlett led the two-hour workshop, which began with each woman relating her reason for attending. Nearly all described her bike as her main mode of transportation.

The group of about fifteen represented a wide range of age and experience, but all seemed excited to get hands-on experience working with their bikes.

One woman wanted to gain confidence to work on bikes with her son. Another wanted to avoid being a lazy bike owner. For attendee Megan Mecseji, the event was simply “way too rad to bypass.”

The workshop opened with brief tutorials on some maintenance basics, then moved to individual work. Attendees adjusted gears and pumped tires as Bartlett and other Bike Program staff looked on and offered advice.

It wasn’t long ago that Bartlett herself was just learning the basics. This time last year, she participated in the Bike Program’s six-week Bike School. She joined the staff shortly after. Now she’s a Bike School instructor who passes on her bike mechanics knowledge to others.

“It’s really not that hard when you learn to apply some basic principles that you might tackle on your bike,” she said.  “By teaching people some main components of bike maintenance, you can generally look at a problem and decide what to do to it.”

Blake Cliff furrowed her brow as she fiddled with her back tire. Cliff had no prior bike experience, but was excited about the prospect of new skills. When her wheel (decorated with colorful pipe cleaners) finally spun smoothly, she grinned.

Smiling and pushing back stray hair with grease-blackened hands, the other women in the room seemed pleased with their efforts as well. They asked questions and experimented, undeterred by mistakes.

“If people have further questions that they didn’t learn out of the course, that means that I’m doing my job well,” Bartlett said. That’s why she loves to teach people what she’s learned about bikes: the basics open doors to new curiosities about Eugene’s favorite form of transportation.

“If I can get people to come in the shop and just be more curious and savvy bike commuters, then I’ll be happy,” she said.

For more information about the UO’s Outdoor Program or Bike Program, visit their website.

The Global Scholars Hall Great Room was packed with chairs, and nearly all were full. Onstage, were a chair and a single microphone: a modest setup for what proved to be a captivating evening of poetry.

Thursday night, renowned slam poet Anis Mojgani performed for a mesmerized crowd of UO students and Eugene community members.

The event began with performances by five members of the UO Slam Poetry team. These poems, some of which were competed at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational (CUPSI) competition in March, included an emotional and likely symbolic rant about Jurassic Park and a fast-paced discussion of ‘sexting’ in public.

Alex Dang, author and performer of the latter, was the last team member to perform, and introduced Mojgani as someone who had come “all the way from Texas to change most of your lives.”

With this high praise ringing in the audience’s ears, Mojgani took the stage and began to perform. Sometimes he would offer some context for his poetry, or tell a short anecdote. Other times, he simply launched into words.

Some of Mojgani’s poems fit comfortably into slam poetry’s common rhythms and themes. Other times, his metered monologues broke away from expectations and into loosely linked phrases that conveyed more loose emotion than finite thought. In either case, it was obvious that Mojgani is a master.

The room was incredibly responsive to Mojgani’s relaxed onstage presence. When he encouraged laughter, it flowed freely. When he stared intently forward and poured vocal vulnerability into the microphone, all focus was on the stage.

For “Baltimore,” one of his newer poems, the silence in the room was broken only by appreciative snapping. Minutes later, the same audience clapped and laughed loudly at a goofy poem titled “Razi’s Lemon Tree.”

More than a few times, loud cell-phone notifications broke the respectful silence. Mojgani, however, was unperturbed. Even the occasional memory lapse didn’t affect his collected and confident presence.

After the performance, the line to buy one of Mojgani’s four published poetry collections snaked down the hall. Even longer was the crowd of people waiting to speak with him and get their books signed.

In his last poem, a particularly famous piece entitled “Shake the Dust,” Mojgani declared that his writing has never been a selfish endeavor. He told the audience: “This is for you.”

As he stood calmly in a sea of inspired students, shaking hands and posing for photos, the truth in that line was clear.

For more information on Anis Mojgani and his work, visit his website.

On May 14, University of Oregon students will have the opportunity to see renowned slam poet Anis Mojgani perform on campus, free of charge.

Mojgani is one of two people to have won a national individual slam poetry title twice — in 2005 and 2006. He has also been a TEDx speaker, published three collections of poetry and won numerous other awards. His widespread recognition reflects his commitment to poetry both on the page and onstage.

When Brittany Lang saw Mojgani perform at Wordstock, a literary festival in Portland, she was captivated by his poetry and presence.

Lang works for the UO Cultural Forum, and she suggested that the group bring Mojgani to the UO community. She organized May 14’s performance and is excited to see Mojgani perform again.

“He just has a very good energy when he presents his poetry,” Lang said. “I think it’s perfect for a diverse group of students and community members.”

The UO’s own Poetry Slam Team will open for Mojgani. Four poets will perform pieces competed at the College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational competition in March. Alex Dang, co-founder and co-captain of the team, will also perform.

Though the Cultural Forum planned Mojgani’s appearance, the Poetry Slam Team often plans and performs at similar events, such as the recent appearance by Phil Kaye, another award-winning slam poet.

“We like to ensure that we have regular poetry events on campus,” said Hannah Golden, the team’s other co-founder and co-captain.

For this event in particular, Golden is excited to see Mojgani perform live for the first time. She described him as a sort of pioneer.

“I think Anis has done so much with this art form,” Golden said. “His poetry is very influential. I’m just excited that the U of O has a chance to see this kind of performer up close.”

Lang echoed Golden’s excitement. “He’s one of the most interesting and famous slam poets that we have right now, and he’s not local,” she said.  “You never know when you’re going to get to see someone like him perform.”

Anis Mojgani will perform in Global Scholars Hall 123 at 6 p.m. on May 14. For more information, see the Facebook event.

Editor’s note: Hannah Golden is a former employee of the Emerald.

Maybe you bought her a gift. Maybe you ordered some flowers. Maybe you just gave her a call. It’s Mother’s Day, so chances are, you did something to tell your mom that you care. (If you didn’t, I’m sorry to say it’s probably too late by now.)

Though the sentiment is different, Mother’s Day looks a lot like Valentine’s Day from a commercial standpoint. It’s a flowers-and-candy field day, complete with cheesy poems and extravagant giving. Unlike Valentine’s Day, however, Mother’s Day isn’t just a greeting-card company conspiracy. The holiday has rich history that can be tentatively traced as far back as the Greeks and Romans.

Ancient Greeks paid homage to Rhea and Cybele, “mother of the gods” and “mother of the animals” respectively. Romans adopted Cybele as their own mother goddess, eventually renaming her Magna Mater, or the Great Mother. Romans celebrated Magna Mater annually with a springtime festival.

As Christianity spread and took hold in the 16th century, the holiday of “Mothering Sunday” emerged. Roman festivities were replaced with a celebration of the Virgin Mary on the fourth Sunday of Lent.

Over time, Mothering Sunday evolved into a celebration of “real mothers” as well, particularly those in the working classes. Working mothers were given a day off to relax and spend time with their families, who often lived far away from their places of work.

It wasn’t until 1870, however, that Mother’s Day took root in the United States. Julia Ward Howe, a writer and suffragist, penned a Mother’s Day Proclamation appealing to mothers all over the world. Howe wanted a day to honor mothers, but also to promote peace and international harmony.

Though Howe’s crusade never completely caught on, it was an inspiration to Anna Jarvis, who is credited with the holiday we celebrate today. Though Jarvis wasn’t a mother herself, she devoted her life to creating a Mother’s Day in honor of her own mother’s community service and dedication.

Jarvis lobbied tirelessly for years, and by 1911 many states celebrated Mother’s Day. On May 8, 1914, the holiday was officially declared nationwide by President Woodrow Wilson, and still takes place each year on the second Sunday in May.

Jarvis never sought a holiday of commercialization. In fact, she condemned it, and asserted that she “wanted a day of sentiment, not profit,” according to online research site, The Legacy Project.

Despite this, The National Retail Federation estimates that Mother’s Day spending in America this year will reach $21.2 billion dollars, the most in the 12-year history of the survey. Thanks to this trend, your mother will probably be disappointed if you don’t present her with a card, at the very least.

That’s okay, of course, but it’s also interesting to recognize that Mother’s Day is about more than just a vase of flowers and breakfast in bed. The holiday has a rich legacy of honor, peace and gratitude. Share a few facts with your mom, or just show her you care in a way that extends beyond a box of chocolates. Anna Jarvis would be proud.

For more information, check out Mother’s Day Central, a website devoted to the holiday.

The lights came up at the Pocket Playhouse Thursday afternoon to a sparse office set, sickly-sweet ‘elevator music’ playing in the background. In the Pocket’s production of “Waiting,” directed by Sarah Etherton and written by Ethan Coen, purgatory takes on this unusual form.

“Waiting” was short (just under thirty minutes!), funny and ultimately a little unsettling. The play followed one unfortunate young woman, known only as Nelson, as she battled the mind-numbing dullness and bureaucratic red tape standing between her and heaven. The resolution, a not wholly unexpected twist, was mildly clever and definitely cringe-worthy.

As Nelson, Leah Bierly successfully portrayed several stages of escalating insanity. Though I imagine some would have even more severe reactions to thousands of years in a door-less waiting room, Bierly was funny and sympathetic.

She wasn’t alone in her excellent performance. The entire cast of “Waiting” made the very most of their short time on the stage. David Etchepare and Michael Walker were both extremely well-cast as McMartin and Sebatacheck. Their dry, well-delivered lines garnered some of the loudest laughs of the show. Aimee Hamilton, too, was engaging as the faceless Secretary with perfectly-timed one-liners.

The show’s scenes were short, and the blackout transitions between them sometimes felt choppy. For one, the sickly-sweet, repetitive background melody was much harder to bear when a dark stage was the only visual stimulation, plus long pauses slowed the pace of the short play. All in all, though, “Waiting” was well-directed, and the clean, entertaining performances made the play an enjoyable, if not immersive experience.

As the actors left the stage after curtain call, I asked myself: was “Waiting” a subtle jab at the limitations of bureaucratic systems? An exhibition of a slow decline into insanity? Or maybe simply a lighthearted comedy? No matter how you choose to interpret it, you’ll walk out chuckling to yourself with elevator music stuck in your head.

On Monday at 8:20 a.m., my alarm went off. I groggily reached over the edge of my bed to grab my phone, hoping for nine more minutes of peaceful snoozing. My fingers found nothing but air.

Suddenly remembering, I sat straight up. I didn’t have an iPhone. I didn’t have a laptop, either. I had a landline, a desktop and an alarm clock. No texting, tweeting or typing on-the-go for five whole days.

Why did I agree to this? The idea sprang from one of the University of Oregon’s Earth Day events: AnalogU. The event challenged students to go without electronic devices for one day.

According to Lisa Freinkel, vice provost of undergraduate studies and an organizer of the event, this was “not because there’s something wrong with digital technology, but because we all need to have a sense of the choices we’re making, and sense of empowerment about those choices.”

But what if somebody made that choice for a whole week? My editors and I sat down and set some ground rules for my own tech-less challenge.

First, I had to treat my iPhone like a landline. I couldn’t even use it to check the time. Instead, I borrowed a wristwatch from a friend. I could only use my phone when I was in my room. And if I was out? I’d need to either find a pay phone or ask a friend if I could borrow theirs (but only if they were also at home).

My laptop had to stay in my room. Any machine outside of a computer lab was off-limits.

And finally, — this was a self-imposed rule — no social media. That meant no Facebook, Twitter or Instagram.

With the rules fresh in my mind, I crawled out of my blankets and turned off the still-beeping alarm. What now? Usually, I would plop in my chair and pick up my phone. I’d check for late-night texts, then scroll through social media apps and reacquaint myself with the social world.

Instead, I trudged toward the shower, 15 minutes ahead of schedule. The challenge had begun.

Interestingly enough, I didn’t notice this morning tech routine until I took it away. My use of mobile technology is often unconscious. I tried to keep track of how many times I absentmindedly reached for my phone over the week, but the tally became embarrassingly high.

For Freinkel, who is also a professor of English, this subconscious reliance is a danger of mobile devices.

She described mobile device use as a “largely unconscious and automatic behavior,” something I definitely noticed.

“We’re prompted by these devices,” Freinkel said. “That, I think, impedes learning, impedes relationships on all sorts of levels. It’s the unconscious distractibility that concerns me.”

When I took my devices away, I suddenly became aware of how I used them and how that had to change. For example, if I wanted to hang out with friends, I had to give them a call — a real, live voice call. This wasn’t always easy for me or for my friends. “It took me out of my comfort zone to not get an instant reply,” said Clare Hookstratten, a close friend of mine. “I had to rely on other types of communication that I’m not used to using.”

I don’t remember the last time I spontaneously called anyone besides my mom. If I need to talk to someone, I text them first. It’s less obtrusive and a sort of unwritten social rule.

When I called people to ask about plans, conversations were short and a little awkward.

“Hey, wanna get lunch today?” I would ask, only to be greeted with confusion.

“Um. Why are you calling me?”

Sometimes, I didn’t call at all. What if I called someone while they were in class? Or taking a nap? The fear of violating deep-set communication norms was strong enough to keep me in my dorm with my homework for a good portion of the week.

Cathlene McGraw, an advisor in the Lundquist College of Business, remembers the days when this wasn’t the case. McGraw graduated from the UO in 2003, long before iPhones and five-pound laptops were ubiquitous.

“It felt to me that there was more emphasis on building relationships instead of figuring out where to get the information,” she said.

McGraw appreciates the value of a more connected world and regularly uses mobile technology in her work with the college, but she added, “There’s a big gap in terms of what students would be able to access if they didn’t have access to a phone.”

I definitely felt that gap. Without a technological extension of my arm, my information-saturated world felt rather empty. I was out of the loop. This uncomfortable feeling bled outside of my social life as well.

Tuesday afternoon, I found myself in the stairwell of Chapman Hall, trying to catch my breath after I ran across campus and up three flights of stairs. I had forgotten the meeting place for an appointment and needed to check my email. Chapman’s had the nearest computer lab I could think of.

The log-in screen seemed to take years to load. I furiously clicked through emails, found the location and took off back down the stairwell toward Collier House.

No one was there.

It took all my self-control to not reach into my backpack and grab my phone (I kept it on me in case of emergency). I speed-walked back to Chapman, beads of sweat beginning to form on my forehead. Back through the door. Back up the stairs. Back onto my email account.

The meeting was on Wednesday, not Tuesday.

I leaned back in the computer lab chair and exhaled. For every hour saved by the absence of social media distractions, it felt like one was lost running around campus or sitting idly without the resources to do work.

A few days into the week, I waited in line at Starbucks between classes. My backpack felt oddly light without my laptop and charger. Around me, buzzing conversation was accented with keyboard clicks and the occasional ringing notification. People juggled cardboard cups and urgent text messages. Nearly every table was taken with a laptop or two.

As I waited for my order, I couldn’t stop thinking about my loss of potential productivity. I could be typing an essay, emailing my professor or catching up on my friends’ lives. Instead, I watched and wondered if it was even possible to live unplugged for more than just five days.

For some students, life without a laptop would never work. Journalism majors comprised 8.8 percent of the student body in fall 2014, according to the Office of the Registrar.

The School of Journalism and Communications website states, “course work will be assigned with the assumption that students have access to a laptop computer.” According to  the School of Journaliam professor, Lisa Heyamoto. It’s “theoretically possible” for journalism majors to get by without access to mobile technology.

“But I also think because we’re a school of communication, it is important to have tools of communication at your disposal,” Heyamoto added.

Other majors benefit from laptop use, as well.  For Helen Southworth, who teaches English in the honors college, mobile use encourages creativity and efficiency.

“In terms of doing any kind of library work, having your laptop with you just gives you a lot more opportunities,” Southworth said.

Southworth asks students to use smartphones to take photos of books and resources to enable accurate citations. Gone are the days where a line of students snakes out of the library’s copier room as each person painstakingly scans one or two pages of a textbook.

Things are back to normal now. When this story is published, I’ll have been back for nearly a week. Part of me misses the blissful ignorance of a landline and desktop.

In fact, going a week without feeling the familiar buzzing of a Facebook notification or the tone of an email arriving was freeing. That’s why I changed settings on my phone, so I won’t be inundated with notifications each time I glance at the screen.

There’s no doubt, though, that it’s good to be back.