Over Spring Break, I had a bit of a crisis. No matter how much ginkgo bilboa I funneled, I could not remember some of the most basic details of my youth; like what my crush was wearing on the first day of school in fourth grade, what he was wearing on the second day of fourth grade and where I buried that hamster-packed time capsule I'm supposed to dig up this year.
Fortunately, I was safe at home in Chicago and had easy access to the tower of cardboard boxes in our attic that contain every treasure map/diary I've scrawled in since I was about nine years old. I took a look at these documents, and what amazed me even more than the notion that I once wanted a mushroom-cut hairdo was the simple fact that my handwriting used to be totally, amazingly, awesome.
I had the kind of handwriting that qualified me to roll with the "artsy kids" -- those who drew on their hands with jelly-roll pens, wanted mushroom-cuts and printed the letter "z" in that fancy-pants "zed" kind of way. (I'd demonstrate for you, but I can't find the right key on my computer.)
Back in those days, my lowercase i's had an adorable, curly-Q tail and were never dotted with superfluous hearts or flowers, but rather with objects that called attention to the subject of the sentence at hand. (For example: The i's of the previous sentence would have been dotted with mini versions of the letter 'i.' Had that sentence been about Dartmouth, they would be dotted with pong balls.)
I blame my computer for the fact that my handwriting sucks now. My cursive no longer cons people into thinking that I'm artsy -- it only makes them slightly suspicious that I rule at Japanese.
My Japanese speaking skills are limited to: "California Roll?" but if put to the task, I could probably hit up Google Language Translator and maintain this "multilingual, no big deal" front for just about as long as I want to. Japanese speakers are pretty artsy sometimes, so I guess I forgive my computer for destroying my handwriting/life.
Back in my "Dear Diary" days, I had no use for a computer. I had a rad, water-resistant walkman, several Billy Joel mix-tapes, a killer hair-do and I was perfectly capable of interacting with other people "on the phone" and even (gasp!) "in person."
As soon as I was launched into the cyberdome that is Dartmouth College, I became an iTunes savvy, Safari Surfin', socially inept freak (a.k.a. "a Mac person"). I was so seduced by my computer's brightly-colored interface (n), that I rarely made time to interface (vti). Many of my friends complained that I was neglecting "girl time," but what could I do? I had met my match and I was quite sure it was love.com.
1) Definition (zX'd/zV'd from Microsoft Word)- Interface: (n.): "a common boundary shared by person and a device, across which data or information flows, for example, the screen of a computer." (vti.): "To make people interact, act together, affect each other."
We broke up after about a year. My ex-computer didn't have a powerful enough hard drive for the kind of work I needed it to be doing, so it got dumped pretty quickly. To be fair, I admit that I didn't give it the respect it deserved and was kind of, well -- abusive. So, needless to say, we went our separate ways for a number of reasons. There's even more, but the whole thing is really a long story, not very exciting, I really won't get into.
It's just that it had these really irritating control/alt/delete issues, ya know? I'm sure I'm not the only one who has been through this. We'd be typing on a Saturday night, it would be totally turned on and then suddenly, without warning, it would totally black out and start re-booting on my bed.
When it would finally regain consciousness it would have no memory of anything, I had word processed and for some bizarre, "Back-to-the-Future"-esque reason, the date/time settings would claim that it was December 31, 1969 at 7:02 p.m. -- which was a blatant lie. Then this window would pop up, warning me that this blip in the calendar may cause some applications to behave erratically, which was great and all, but by that point I pretty much just wanted to get my homework done.
In case you were wondering, this frequently-occurring date readjustment made absolutely no sense. As you know, there was no such thing as a computer in 1969. (Don't even try to argue with me. Those enormous HAL refrigerator-bots don't even begin to count.) My computer's irritating dating issues got me wondering about what the single life must have been like B.C. (That's "Shut Up, Alice" for "Before Computers.") How did Dartmouth students roll on December 31, 1969, at 7:02 p.m.?
Back in 1969, the closest thing to a computer on the Dartmouth campus was the fro-yo machine. Computers didn't exist until our whiz kid College President John Kemeny accidentally invented one during a Sudoku game that went awry one fated afternoon. The result was the beginners all-purpose instruction code that basically allowed non-rocket scientist students to join the rocket-scientists in their pursuit of terrible social skills.
Once he wrapped up that computer schtick, he got back to the fro-yo lab and finally came up with his career-defining accomplishment: the molecular construction of Orange Creamsicle. (Note: his career is defined as "nasty.")
Before Kemeny decided to be a genius, Dartmouth students were probably a lot smarter/fatter, (Vanilla Bean, every day.) They had no auto-spell-check, no auto-thesoar-err ... thesaurus and no "The Real Housewives of Orange County," (not Kemeny's idea, but still notably dumifying.) It should also be pointed out those poor hippies didn't have any games like Snood or Text Twist to distract them from Psych lectures and their only means of escape from Chem 5 was the acid they dropped in the back of the lab.
Our generation of Dartmouth students may get (Key)stoned from time to time, but BlitzMail and Facebook.com are our two most disabling addictions.
I have a suspicion that I'm not the only one who pretends to be Blitzing/poking my infinite friends while I eat (alone) at Collis Cafe/The Hop/Simon Pierce. Being a Facebook-worm is hardly "sweet," and according to that fabulously big-brother, "Currently Logged in from Stalkerville" feature, it seems as though many of us around here are, well, "hardly sweet."
Ladies and Gents, I've studied your Facebook.com profiles, I've debated requesting friendship, but the truth is I'd love to get my interface (vti.) on sometime. Just shoot me a Blitz and I'll keyboard you into my iCal. My current computer and I are kind of on the rocks now, anyway. I think I'm going to declare this "An Open Relationship," and see what happens.
- 01011... That's "BASIC" for "later." (Google Translator strikes again.)
