Have you ever wondered how dependent on the internet we have become?

Not only is it used for leisurely activities like chatting and connecting us with friends and loved ones thousands of miles away, it has also taken over offices and huge organisations. For the past two days, there has been heavy thunderstorms and to that effect, the router at my work place got struck by lightning and that had rendered us internet-less.

People grew cantankerous and snappy. Emotions were unstable. It seems as if we were suffering from withdrawal symptoms. I found myself growing annoyed very easily as work started to build up. I can only imagine how much backlog of work emails I will have to attend to, once it is back on.

Just when you think that nothing could make it worse, the internet comes back on, you hear the joyous relief of your colleagues and thinking that finally, you can get to your research on the next article you are supposed to write, you realise that you can’t even get the start-up page to load on Firefox.

You start running around like a chicken who has its head cut off, looking for the IT person who is always not at her station, saving the ‘world’ one pc at a time. You teether on your high heels, running around to look for a solution. When finally, two hours later the connection status on your toolbar changes to Local Area Connection Connected at 100.0 mbps, that you breathe a huge sigh of relief.

That is before bracing yourself for the huge influx of email waiting for you to attend to.