In 2002, I moved to Jacksonville Florida with my boyfriend, and kept in contact with my friends and families through emails and instant messages (along with the telephone). In fact, I don't think that I opened one piece of "snail mail" the entire time I lived there. My boyfriend, Russell and I would go to the Jacksonville library to use the computers because we didn't have the internet at home... But by this time in my life, the internet took such an active role in my social life it was hard to give up.
After a lot of fun and a lot of time on the beach, I fell in love... and lost interest in my internet life. Almost 2 years had gone by and I didn't have much contact with computers at all. I would get my news from the paper and spend my time on the beach with Russell. It was fun, but short lived. My parents like to tell me that I dropped out of civilization for those years, I barely kept in contact with anyone and changed the way I lived. Soon after I came back to this area in 2003, I enrolled in Niagara County Community College, and decided to take some online classes, with the SLN. 
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I got almost my whole degree, with the exception of a few classes through SLN. It was a great experience and I would recommend to anyone who asks. At first it seemed like a lot of work, but after my first semester of online classes I was hooked! We had to participate in online discussions and hand in homework assignments, take timed tests, and communicate on the discussion board.
I was a busy college student, working 2 or 3 jobs, and going to school full time, the online classes allowed me to do work when I had time for it. My school schedule was open for my choosing, and most of the time you would find me working on my computer all hours of the night. We had an apartment close by Niagara Falls.
When I was 20 I bought my first computer, a Compaq laptop, from Sam's Club. It was the best purchase I had ever made, I couldn't beleive how much I used it. I still have the same computer today, and am still very happy with it. I think I'll be sad when I have to get a new one.