What is this, 1996?

Yesterday I had an exam in the class I'm taking, and as I did last year for a similar exam for the same professor, I lugged my ridiculously heavy laptop across campus for the test, causing potentially permanent spinal and/or shoulder damage. But to my great surprise, the professor asked us not to use laptops, but instead to please WRITE DOWN our answers. What the...? You mean, like, with a pen? I was lucky to discover a pen in my bag but had to borrow paper to write out my essays. But the biggest problem was that when I went to start writing, I froze up. The last time I wrote something important (and lengthy) by hand was in college, probably ten years ago! How does that work? What will I do when I change my mind about the way a sentence is coming together? What happens when I decide that a sentence belongs at the beginning of a paragraph instead of at the end? You mean, when I write this down, I can't cut and paste? It's PERMANENT!? This was a scary thought, and an eye-opening one. Had I become so reliant on computers that I was afraid to allow my thoughts to flow freely?

Eventually, I came to my senses and dove in. Once I began to write my thoughts came together and everything worked out just fine and I finished writing out my answers with a bare minimum of cross-outs and scribbled edits. It was good for me, I think. I hardly ever write something and keep it after a first attempt. Already I've erased and re-written at least three sentences from this blog post. Even simple e-mails go under the knife before they're sent. Maybe if I had to write everything out by hand I'd actually get more done.