A mere 6ish years ago I didn’t own a computer. My first real experience with such a device was back when my old boss moved our cash out procedure from napkins to spread sheets – much to my utter chagrin. Confused one night after following along on the list of easy steps – I called him to say I couldn’t find a file. He says, “look on the desktop, it’s right there in the folder” I am beyond frustrated, ” I can’t find it!” patting the desk looking under all the papers, he says. “Michel, where are you looking?” “ON THE DESK – WHERE YOU TOLD ME TO.” He laughs. I am not amused. “NO you dummy, on the computer!” to which I reply “So why did you tell me it was on the DESK TOP!!?!”
I have made a few improvements, lets just say. But it was definitely Adam and his half-wit, hair-brain idea of pulling us into the 21 Century that opened me up to the possibility of digital photography and this power horse I heard people talking about called Photoshop.
Fast forward 1 1/2 years and I’m packing my bags, a truck and moving to Edmonton to attend Digital Media classes at NAIT. At 29 I decided what I wanted to be when I grew up!! I was going to be a graphic designer. I didn’t know this profession even existed 6 months prior but now my life was going to be room-mates, college parties, Tim Hortons, late nights and mouse clicks. How utterly exciting! I walked into my first HTML class, sat right up front and pulled out my new pen. Our instructor opened his mouth and noises came out but apparently I was transported into the future and this tall man was talking a language he just made up. Clearly I wasn’t the only who thought this!! I looked around to see that everyone is following along while I’m still pecking my username into the computer I just figured out how to turn on. Holy. Shit. Balls. Where am I? I felt like barfing. This is not exciting! this is TERRIFYING! It took me a minute to snap out of it and I leaned over the the dude next to me, “have you done this before?” his screen was filled with text – he hit refresh on his browser window and it turned RED. pardon? “uh, yah, I guess – I’ve been coding websites since I was 15 or so” hm. 15 hey, so like when I was in University the first time? awesome. Needless to say Sheldon was the ever-present nerdy life-jacket that kept my head above water that first year.
These two dudes are a few of the bricks that helped built the house in which my life now lives. I wholeheartedly believe that so I say thank-you. And for the record I now have an understanding of the difference between Save, and Save As.
Michel
xox
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by Ampersand Grey
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