Week 1 Reflections

Week 1 of summer classes is over, and I am glad. The first week is always overwhelming for me. It's exciting on one hand, but on the other hand it's pretty stressful being bombarded with information. I can't wait for the semester to be over--then I will officially be halfway through this program, and almost finished taking the core classes which means getting to take more classes that interest me.

I have to say that in some way I am glad that I am finally forced to take a computer class. I had to take one in high school (that was a miserable experience for too many reasons) but I avoided it in college so in fact, all the real technology knowledge that I have comes from figuring it out on my own, or asking one of my brothers or my dad "How do you do this?" At first I was totally overwhelmed with this class when I looked at the book and syllabus. But now that I've had a week to digest some of the material, and after the first two lectures, I can honestly say that I have vague notions of what is being discussed and it brings back (purposely) forgotten memories from when I had to do back end work on this website for an art museum where I worked, had no knowledge of how to do anything in a website, but somehow, by trial and error, I figured it out. I know that by the end of this class I will have a better handle on technologies that will be assets for my career, and I'm sure I'll have some extra info that I won't put to good use, maybe ever.

I am a pretty low-tech person: I never wanted a cell phone, but my parents "made" me get one when I was in college and working in NYC (more for safety than anything else). That first phone was just a phone. No texting, no calculator, not even any games. And, although I didn't really want a cell phone, I loved the fact that it was just a phone. Most of the rest of my phones have been hand-me-downs, the the one I am currently sporting which is a discarded one from a friend who moved to Europe and couldn't take it with him. I have an iPod but haven't used it really in the two years that I have had it. I am not a huge fan of Apple, one reason being that their products don't seem to be very compatible with other non Apple products . For my 26th birthday my older brother bought me a DS Lite, which I sometimes play, but the game has to be pretty simple. I've been playing the Professor Layton games (which are challenging and sometimes I have to ask my little brother or sister for help), and my brother just got me two new games: Hotel Dusk, which is pretty cool so far, and Little Red Ridding Hood Zombie BBQ, which is really hard but tons of fun! Seriously though, the DS is as technical as I've gotten so far. I'm very hopeful this class will make me a Level 10 Tech User instead of my lowly Level 1.