ZOOMING ALONG, AT SNAIL’S PACE
I have mentioned in past columns that I am a computer klutz. Although I have used a computer since the late 80’s I still am rather a novice.
Whilst I consider myself of a decent intelligence quota, I am a very lazy student. At school I did OK in English, history, science and other subjects where I could let my imagination run riot, however, when it came to actual learning of subjects that required brainwork, I was too lazy to put in the effort.
In junior school I liked my math teacher and found it an interesting subject, so did fairly well, but things changed when I went to high school
The math teacher I had for four years was not a very nice person. If you were a poor student, instead of explaining the process better, she would ridicule you. Being made to stand in “shame”, does not endear any student and I was usually among the ones who handed in incomplete or incorrect home work. If I liked my teacher, I would work hard and try to excel at the subject but Miss Thomas was mean and seemed to relish making poor students feel worthless.
I remember the horrible feeling of standing with the other “failures”, as she named us, I really hated her and in later years came to realize that it was she who was the failure as she didn’t take the time to teach us the methods properly.
Sixty years later and I still hate to be a failure and I strive to do well at anything I take on but, I must admit that the computer is my nemesis. Word processing is easy but to actually enter the commands required to do many functions is beyond my patience, so I give up. My ex tried many times to teach me to copy and paste, while he sat there I managed to do it, when he was absent the process was beyond me. I go through the motions but just cannot complete the function.
Covid has changed many things and one of the hardest things is not meeting up with family and friends. 2020 brought new words to our vocabulary, one of them being Zoom. I used to think the word meant to move fast but no, it means doing weird things with your computer so you can talk to one or many people at the same time, what a great idea this sounds until you try to do it. I am not blessed with a great deal of patience so the actual method involved in a zoom meeting still is beyond me, and I am now unwilling to try.
I have managed to do the phone call meeting on Facebook, but usually manage to lose the picture of the person I am calling. This is actually not a bad thing as I find most people call me before I am dressed so the image of myself on the screen is a bit disconcerting. I find that I keep looking at myself and trying to pose so my double (or triple) chins do not show. My early morning face looks very unattractive and wrinkles seem magnified on the screen.
When I do manage to get the image of my correspondent on the screen, I usually get a great view of their nose hairs. Surely they can see themselves on their own screen so why do people hold their tablet or phone so low down? The advantage of talking to people this way is that you can correspond, free of charge, to anywhere in the world. However, long distance charges are very reasonable and we have the added bonus of not looking up someone’s nostrils while we chat.
Unfortunately for me, my daughters are all u to date with technology, they have tried repeatedly to drag me into the twenty first century but I still resist a cell phone. I believe the phone is a great invention but do not feel the need to carry it with me so I can be contacted any where at any time. I get really annoyed with hone conversations at the dinner table, especially in a restaurant. I think it is rude to conduct a conversation with a third party, especially when it is just passing time of day. I understand if it is an emergency but it rarely is.
I love to walk and really am not interested in being interrupted to chat about nonsense, while I am enjoying the fresh air and uplifting feel of being outdoors. If people have something to tell me, they can leave a message and I will contact them on my return home.
During this rather depressing era of so much alone time, I do love to chat to family and friends but I have a phone and mail at my fingertips, I really do not need to take part in Zoom meetings which is just as well as it is worse than learning trigonometry to this dinosaur. Roll on 2021 when we can hopefully talk to our friends across the dining table, being fully dressed and not needing the nose hairs trimming.