Farewell, perpetual immediacy.

I took the plunge this week and bought my first laptop. I've squeaked by in my graduate studies without one until now, but I can't help but think things would have gone a little smoother with its convenience. Now, with two kids and growing familial obligations (read: craziness), I felt it was a necessity.

I spent the last few weeks reading every article or review I could find on CNET and Consumer Reports, and I've followed the weekly sales ads to understand my options. Once I got the green light (hello, student loan), I bought my HP Pavilion dv4-1225dx. I don't entirely understand all the specs, but it's got a great processor, suffiencient memory, and a reasonable amount of hard drive space so I'm certain my computing needs will be met. I nearly let greed get the best of me by purchasing the 17-inch version that was nearly the same price point, but I wisened up and realized lugging a 17-inch laptop around would be similar to adding another child to my brood. No, thank you. So, I've spent what free time I could find these last few days downloading programs like Flash that I take for granted as being there and removing some of the junk trial-versions and other superfluous software (I'm a little more conservative about software removal than I'd like to be but I'm horribly afraid of doing irreparable damage to my new gadget).

I rounded out my week of techno-splurging by using my student discount to buy Adobe's CS4 Design Premium, which includes Dreamweaver, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, Fireworks, Flash, and Acrobat Professional. I've used Photoshop and Illustrator a number of times but never had enough time to play and learn. I recently started using Dreamweaver, too, and I'm new to InDesign this semester. I adore all the whole Creative Suite and can't wait to spend some quality time with my new software.

While I'm alarmingly uncomfortable spending that sort of money on myself, I'm trying to look at it as an investment in the future, professional, tool-trained me. I'm desperate for some resume bling!