I don't know what prompted this memory but it just came into my head one day. Today I would like to document the first time I ever typed something on the computer.
This is a pretty standard computer these days, in 2011.
Sleek and proficient isn't it?
Aah, but t'was not always so.
This was a pretty decent computer back in the early to mid 90’s. A model similar to the computer I was using in this story.
Onto the memory.
I was in 6th grade typing a book report. The year was 1996. We of course didn’t have a computer at my home {my mother STILL does not have a computer but that is a completely different story} so I had to go to my aunt’s house to use hers. She had to leave to go run some errands so she was unavailable for consultation when I had a question. So, I began to type up my book report. I don’t remember the book I chose to do but I do remember the project I chose to complete. I chose to type up a fictional interview with the author. I was to be “conducting the interview” and I was to come up with questions that I'd like to ask her and I would imagine her responses. So, off I went.
Mind you all, this was my FIRST experience typing on a computer. The only time prior to this that I had even sat in front of a computer was probably in 2nd grade (1992) when my class went to our brand new computer lab in the school and we were taught how to play some kind of pulley game with weights and math and stuff. The computers didn’t even have mice back then. And the screen was black with green letters. But it was a HUGE deal to have a computer lab with a classroom full of computers in our very own school!
Wow. I get a silly fascination thinking back to those days.
So, I was typing along and I remember that I had no idea how to capitalize a letter except for pushing the “Caps Lock” button. So at the beginning of every sentence I would have to hit Caps Lock, the letter, then Caps Lock again. I remember it being a daunting task. That was also long before Word came out with the wonderful feature that capitalizes the words for you. I don't remember how long my book report was but I'm sure it couldn’t have been more than a page long. It took me about 2 ½ hours to write it… this was also a long time prior to me ever taking a typing class and I had no idea how the keys were organized on a keyboard. It was search and peck for a daunting amount of time.
“Why can't they just be in alphabetical order?” I remember thinking to myself.
The other problem that I remember having was quotation marks. I was typing up a “pretend” interview I was conducting with the author and I knew that everything needed to have quotation marks. There was just one problem. I had no clue of the existence of the shift key and I could not for the life of me figure out how the quotation marks were supposed to show up on the screen. All that was showing up when I pushed the button was an apostrophe. I was seriously stumped.
Too embarrassed to admit that I had no clue how to work the quotation button, and having no aunt around to ask anyways, I decided to just skip them. "Oh well" I thought. My teacher probably won't notice.
Well, book report time comes and I go to the front of the class to present. I hand her my paper to look over and start with my oral report. She asked a couple of quick questions about the paper. Then she asked me why there were no quotation marks on the conversation I was fictitiously having with the author. Of course I was way too embarrassed to admit that I tried but couldn’t figure out how to type them, and that each time I tried to get them to show up I just got an apostrophe, so I simply told her that I forgot about them. And that was embarrassing too. Followed by a lecture and a lesson on the proper uses of quotation marks (as if I didn’t know!) It was quite awkward for me.Cause the entire class knew I'd forgot about the quotations. "Duh Jerilyn, that is like English 101" I am sure they were all thinking.
What a disastrous first experience with typing on a computer.
I figured that would be quite a humorous story to share with my future kiddo’s, since I have a feeling they will be born from the womb ready to program computers and use fancy Ipads and other things that haven’t even been invented yet.
Well future kiddos, your mamma was born right about the same time as the computer was. It was years before a computer was a normal thing to have in a home and she had no idea how to use one until, well basically until she got to college and had to take a computer class.
Oh the memories.
I'm linking up to flash back Fridays.
Each Friday a different memory from Jessi's or John's past is posted. You are invited to join the fun and record a memory of your own, too, whether it be on your blog, in your journal, in an audio file, etc. The objective is to foster an appreciation and desire for personal record keeping as we are forming our personal histories. Also, if you chose to blog your memory, you are invited to link up to our memory (but only if you wanna).
