I found out too late that there is a laptop lending program at my school. You can get a nice laptop for 7 school days or a slightly older (the model I bought before school) for 14 days. You do have to start fresh at least every 3 weeks, but it's part of our student fee at the University of Washington, and I bet other schools have something similar. If you got a decent sized flash drive or external hard drive, you could make it work.
-Wodehouse