Hello. My name is Jennifer van der Kwast and I am addicted to Jewelbox.
I am not exactly sure when my addiction began. I suppose it must have happened at some point during Spring term when my roommate sent me a mysterious blitz, subject heading, "Thought you might like to try this." Enclosed was a game of Jewelbox.
At first it was nothing more than a means of entertainment. It wouldn't be long, however, before it became a way of life.
The first signs of addiction were plenty obvious, but I just didn't notice them. I'd show up late for classes because I was so certain that the game I had been playing would have broken my previous record. Soon, I was sneaking in games, playing on the side, telling my friends that I had been up late doing homework. Only a few people noticed my slow deterioration: the glazed look I'd get in my eyes, the way I wouldn't speak during meals at Food Court, focusing instead on how I could line up the three girls in red sweaters so that they would cancel out. My friends would ask me if I was feeling all right. I always answered that I had been up late playing pong in a fraternity basement, and was feeling a little hungover. I don't think they would have understood the truth.
It was the last day of Spring term when I got the next blitz that contributed to my downfall. All it had written was, "128,000". My friend had been the first to beat 100,000. I went back home to Florida feeling lost, confused, and dejected. How could someone have actually beaten me? How could there be someone out there better than me?
A few hours spent on Netscape searching for and downloading Jewelbox provided me with my single ray of hope all summer. Now I had a plan. The rest of my lazy, hazy, crazy days of summer were spent at home, sitting in the throne in front of my computer, clicking away at the keyboard, chanting in my head, "jewelbox, jewelbox."
I didn't beat my friend's score that summer. So, back at Dartmouth, Fall term, my addiction grew worse than ever. When I finally did beat her score, she came right back and beat me again. Thus kicked off another long term spent chained to my Mac.
I'm not getting any better, but at least I feel comfortable discussing my addiction with others. With the arrival of Snood, another potent computer upper, I am witnessing other people spiraling down the path I've already taken. I suppose this is a message out to them, the poor souls who will be spending their winters in their rooms, killing valuable hours that could be spent studying trying to erase the name of the moron who used their computer to play a game, and received the top score (this is a dilemma that can take months to mend).
I can't tell you enough how helpless I feel when I am in a room with a friend, she on her computer and I on the other, viciously attacking the graphics that appear on our screens. Our vocabulary gets reduced to that of grade schoolers, with my cries of, "Blue! I want blue!", and hers of, "Snood me! I am the Snood master!".
Somehow I get the feeling that this isn't why I am here. I feel misplaced and disoriented. This is college, an institution of higher learning. I should be setting my goals along the lines of curing cancer, writing a novel, designing a garbage bag that will actually fit dorm room garbage cans. Where was I led astray? When did it become my mission in life to break 200,000 in Jewelbox?
