Last night I should have finished a worksheet for the 3rd year students. I thought I would ave some time to work on it before classes today and I didn't feel like doing it last night, so I watched Shrek 3. I should have done the worksheet. Shrek 3 wasn't awful (wasn't great either) but I had class first thing in the morning and I didn't really have enough time to finish the worksheet on time. Luckily the teacher gave me a little time to finish it up. I think the kids liked it. It's difficult to figure out what they should know and what they will have trouble with. I don't want my worksheets to be condescending, but I also want them to be fun yet understandable. My brand of humor is hard to convey in this medium. I had fun anyway and was tasked with creating more worksheets for Monday's class as well. I was able to leave school early today because I had a meeting to attend downtown. The other ALTs in the area met up with our coordinator, a representative from Heart, and a liaison from the Board of Education. We had a interesting demonstration with a couple example lessons and we were given some time to describe our working environments and interactions.
Then I came home.
I need a new computer. I need a new computer before I rip this one apart with my fists. It is quite old now and the screen's hinges are busted. It looks as though it is about to detach from itself at any moment. On top of its aesthetic deficiencies, it is also becoming some what of a curmudgeon. A curmudgeon with a hearing problem. I ask it, by way of clicking, to do a simple task: open a folder. The computer proceeds to run the fan and use 100% of its processing power to do nothing. Eventually the folder may open, and if it does, I might be treated to a glimpse of the folders contents. Most of the time the folder is "empty". This is factually incorrect, since all my folders are chuck full of goodies, yet the window remains blank. Fury rising, I attempt to close the folder and try again, as the majority of you would most likely do.
This is wrong.
The computer ignores me. Flat out ignores me. I can click the little red "x" box in the top right corner from now until the End Times are upon us ( I hear it's nigh) and nothing will happen. I can open the task manager, (maybe, the computer might not listen to that command either) and try to force quit the window. That sometimes works. Most of the time the computer spends its energy running its fan and inexplicably getting piping hot. The fan is always running at top speed yet it heats up. I am afraid of what might happen if the fan were to stop working...
If I can get one folder open and view its contents, the moon and the stars must be aligned! After I clean up the blood from the sacrifice I had to perform, take the posters of Beelzebub of off the wall, clean up the candle wax and chalk drawings, and try to fill the hole in my chest where my soul used to be, I can try to access one of the folders contained therein the folder I was successfully able to open. Dark Lord help me if the file I want isn't in the folder I try first. For if I make such a grave error, and try to push the "back" button then retrace my steps, my infernal contraption will give me the biggest finger it knows how to give, and produce a blank screen were there once were files.
Repeat the dance of the
(force quit+task manager+waiting game)(pull hair+sigh deeply+try to keep right eye from twitching)/ thoughts of homicidal rampage=?
If you can solve the above equation, give MIT a call (617) 253-4381 or drop them an e-mail, they will probably give you a scholarship.
Don't even get me started on the internet!
Alright, since you got me started, I'll let you into my world of agony and defeat. The internet used to be my friend. We could spend hours talking, sometimes deep into the night, staring at each other, not even saying a word. Pages would load and my scroll function on my track pad would always be there for me in my times of scrolly-need.
Was it something I said?
My computer and the internet are treating me with forced cordiality, at best! It's like I made a rape joke about their disabled, dying, mother; a joke where during the rape she gets diseased, and people stand around pointing and laughing for the duration of the incident. I told that joke, and the internet is an indentured servant that is in charge of reading me bedtime stories and bathing me. They have to do their job, they can't quit because of the indentured nature of their servitude, and their job entails them to do tasks which are generally lovingly performed, so they do it, but they do the bare minimum and they never talk to me. The internet hates me with its eyes, yet scrubs my back and reads "Goodnight Moon" while the lights are turned down to "dim". It never does the funny voices in the book and it doesn't care if the bath water is tepid, scalding, or dirty. It goes through the motions and then leaves me, without saying a word. It probably slams the door and knocks my favorite painting off the wall, cracking the glass and the frame. The frame is as unique as the one-of-a-kind Renoir it encases; made by Antillean monks out of endangered iguana hides, the monks make only one frame every hundred years because they use discarded scales only from five legged iguanas. That frame, that's the frame the internet knocks off the wall when it skulks out of the house.
What in Holy Hell did I do, or say, in actuality to incur such a wrath?
Your guess is as good as mine.
Don't tell my computer, but as soon as I get paid, I'm buying a new one...
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