A meditation on delayed gratification.
By Jeremy Teitelbaum, Dean
College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
To Westfarms Mall for shoes I drove, and quite
by chance I strayed from Nordstrom’s quiet hall
to Apple’s store, where noisy crowds did meet
around the Macs, and pods, and pads, and all
the high-tech gear that we poor mortals sell
our souls to own.
Now, while ’tis true I live my life in thrall
to iPhone apps, and where I go I bring
my MacBook Pro, an iPad I have never
owned, and I have sworn to do without
that slender, lovely, window on the cloud.
But look, the genius said, how clear
this iPad’s screen displays the sweetly floating
icons on its face, how flexible and smart
its cover is, how light it is, so you may
keep it with you night and day.
And then I thought of meetings where I sit,
behind my hulking laptop taking notes, or
tapping keys upon my tiny phone,
while other deans and provosts proudly hold
their iPads, each in cases made of leather.
And also came to mind my wife’s quite aged
mother, who for her four-score birthday did an
iPad find among her gifts, and how
I spent near half-a-day configuring
and syncing and preparing it on her behalf.
And what about that ugly duck, the Kindle
that my beloved parents bought for me
just two years past for my birthday? Now in
Mona’s hands it sits, while I read tiny books,
squinting hard, on my phone’s tiny screen.
And though these evil thoughts did almost sway
me to foreswear myself, and yield to that
foul genius’s tempting talk,
at last my better nature did assert itself.
I fled that store at once, and thought
“Who really needs an iPad?”
Not me. Surely not me. Definitely not me. Waste of money. Empty status symbol.
Never. I will resist. After all, my MacBook is better. My phone is great.
No iPad for Jeremy. Never … (sigh) …
Well ……. Not yet.
Comments? Send them to: dean@clas.uconn.edu
The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences has 23 departments in the sciences, humanities, and social sciences, ranging from physics to philosophy, and more than 15,000 students, 600 faculty, and 83,000 alumni. Check out our three initiatives: Health and Human Behavior, the Environment, and Culture and Society.
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