Computers and Me

I don't remember life without computers. I moved to San Jose with my parents at the age of three and as far back as I can remember, my parents both had computers in the home office. My mom worked on an Apple II E and my dad always had some sort of crazy contraption. For awhile, we had a Lisa. I learned to type on my mom's Apple, and eventually got my own computer in my room, to do homework and play games on.

I enjoyed typing more than writing, so I began turning in typed reports much earlier than the other children. My fifth grade state report was typed (I wrote about Connecticut because that's where The Babysitter's Club books took place). We had a computer lab at school, connected to the library. At the beginning of fifth grade, our teacher warned us that we would have to take a test at the end of the year, where we'd have to type a certain amount of words on a keyboard without any letters on it. This terrified my classmates, but I figured it would be no big deal. As it turns out, she was bluffing.

I'm not the fastest typist in the world, mostly because I have a tendency to fix mistakes as I go along instead of editing my work afterward. I tried to break the habit after my dad pointed it out to me in high school, but I didn't really stick to it.

I used my parents computers in middle school, and for some of high school. One night in freshman year, I had to do a report in my current events type class that required a news article. My parents were going out for the evening and I told them that before they left I needed them to go with me to pick up a newspaper. They recommended I just print out an article online. I had futzed around with the Internet before, but only for entertainment purposes (I believe I spent my time on Weird Al's website and Disney's website, both quite fledgling), but this was the first time I had actually found it, well, useful. The Internet and I have been close friends every since.

The video card in my laptop needs replacing. I've never opened up a computer before ... so this should be an interesting adventure. I'll let you know how it goes ... possibly from a computer at the library.