Life as I know it...

Technology, what a blessing, and yet what a curse at the same time. In an instant, we can communicate with someone in the remote desert wastes. On the other hand, when technology chooses to cease to function properly (see later paragraphs for SEVERAL specific examples), our world seems to come to an end. So many other pros and cons, but since the cons seem to be on my mind as of late, let me share with you some recent moments of frustration.

As you may notice by the extremely long stretch of time since my last post, I have not had much chance to spend time here as of late. This is, primarily, due to my still non-functional home internet situation. Seriously, just don't even get me started. I could rant for days about the attitude of neglect towards residents of the trailer court these days. Just because it is technically closing in 2011, it seems that university housing has decided we deserve a permanent place on their backburner. Well, I'm definitely getting heated up. :)

So, I am actually writting this when I really should be madly working on homework and/or work, since it's piling up like there's no tomorrow. Ah, school is definitely back in session. Which brings me to my next technology woe. I arrived plenty early to my first class, set up my laptop (also struggling these days), and played Free Cell diligently untill my teacher arrived. As it got closer and closer to the time for class to start, two things came to light. First of all, no other students were joining me, and I have since discovered that I am the only student registered at the Logan site (I have several classmates at other sites, as it is a distance ed broadcast class). So, I prepared myself to be the center of my teacher's attention for a good part of the time. Not really what I had in mind. Secondly, the technology which makes it possible for these classes to be broadcast across the state to my other classmates had also ceased to function. Instead of a view of our instructor, the other sites saw a pixelated jumble of part of the computer screen, part of the instructor's face, and probably parts of the technology ghouls hard at work. And, since my teacher was not the most technology savvy soul, we made little to no progress in the technology area as we plodded through a syllabus we couldn't see and went on to watch a video made in 1996 (yet another long story). I think we were assigned some readings, as well, but since I haven't been able to look at the syllabus, I really don't know.

Which brings me to one final technology woe. All of my classes are distance ed, meaning all are broadcast across the state, and much of our homework/readings/etc. are posted online. And, since I have no online access at home, this is FRUSTRATING!!! And that truly is an understatement. And, as a result of these woes, you do not find me using this short amount of online time to catch up on the massive amounts of online material I have to process, but instead updating my blog so that the world can sympathize with this disgruntled grad student.

Kudos to the wonders of technology.....