There are few things that can bring on as many mixed feelings for me as technology. A recent news item showing a writer who still uses a typewriter looked absolutely archaic and brought tender feelings toward my computer. I would probably still be working on my first “not more than 1,000 words” piece if I were confined to that instead of my MacBook Pro. I’ve never been a good typist. My high school typing teacher required 45-words-a-minute and at least one full page with no errors to get credit in her class. I barely made it by the end of the year and felt I had worked harder for the “B” I got from her than for the “A’s” I racked up in chemistry and second year algebra. The delete and backspace buttons are my best friends. Autocorrect is pretty iffy. For this computer that makes my addiction to writing possible, I am grateful to technology.
As computers began to make their way into the school system, I gloated initially that I would not have to use them in my class since I taught second grade. My delight was short-lived since my principal took her vice-principal and me to the nearby town to see the use of computers for a second-grade pod of classes. Soon I was piloting a project and finding the reward of bells and whistles on the computer for my students made teaching time and money to seven-year-olds a cinch.
Slowly, I’ve become a convert as Facebook connects me to old and new friends, Google can find anything I want to know in a flash, and the Cloud saves all versions of a writing and a gazillion photos. However, there are weeks like this last one when my friendship goes out the window. On its good days, the Internet, is slow on our hotspot out here in the country. Thursday and Friday were not its good days. It refused to connect except for a ten-minute window that allowed me to post my blog. I did the one thing I have learned to do – shut down the computer and the hotspot and started over. It did not help.
I checked with my next-door neighbor (my son whose love of computers I have nurtured and often paid for) thinking he might help. I understood some of what he said and think it boiled down to there being a problem with the server. I also self-taught myself to do a couple of immediate crisis needs on my phone, which was working. The learning curve never ceases.
So here I am in a new week, hoping all the stars are aligned and the computer, the phone, and the Internet are going to work. I am grateful for a newly-coined word to describe my relationship with technology. I remain a “frenemy” to all my devices.