From a hidden place, we come forth.

I love the internet. I truly do. It is literally like having the whole world at the end of your fingertips. The possibilities of the internet are endless and exciting. Whenever I feel the urge to travel, I just mosey on over to www.earthcam.com and browse through the different livecam views from around the world. The most interesting one (I think) is the camera they have set up in Times Square. If you're every up and can't sleep at night, and you feel like you're the only person awake, click on that and you'll be amazed at the amount of traffic (both vehicular and foot) that happens even at three o'clock in the morning. I have never witnessed a stabbing or anything like that, and I'm so glad for that. I always wonder if anyone else has, though, and what someone would do in a situation like that. Do you dial *911 and say "Someone is getting stabbed in Times Square! Get the police over there!!!!!"

But enough about that. What I really wanted to talk about in this post is my home and how the Internet came to this little isolated corner in Manitoba.

It's circa 1998-ish and I am in grade 11. We have a computer lab and wow! Those were high-tech computers in those days.

(High Tech Computer)

Our favourite thing to do was play with the text-to-speech program. And play solitaire. They weren't good for that much else. 

Oh yeah, we actually got to type up our work. Yay, us.

Anyway, one day we go to computer class and there is one computer sitting all by it's lonesome in the corner, facing away from the rest of the room. After a few moments of whispered questions, our computer teacher informed us that the Internet had come to Wasagamack, Manitoba!!!!

I was so excited. All I wanted to do was try out this "chat" that I've been hearing about. I wanted to have e-pals all over the world. I wanted a Yahoo! e-mail account. I wanted ICQ. I wanted, I wanted, I wanted.

The only problem with this is that everyone else wanted to. Everyone. Approximately 100 students wanted the same things I did. And we only had one computer with internet access. ONE. And that internet access was dial-up.

So we had to "sign-up" for hour-long slots to use the computer. This sucked because I was lucky if I was able to get connected to the internet once-a-week. 

Oh, and our teachers got into it too. They gave us assignments that we had to do research on the internet for. Which was a very interesting idea. Except that it was next to impossible to finish your assignment in time because of the long waiting list. 

 (Me, circa 1999. I'm happy because it's my graduating year)

(Or maybe I'm happy because I finally snagged this handsome guy. He's my husband now)

But you know how I was able to use the one computer with internet access all summer and all year? I was smart, you see, so I got a job working for the Education Authority as a web designer for their Aboriginal Digital Collections portal. I didn't know anything about designing webpages, but I didn't care. I just cared about the internet. And during the summer, the school opened up the computer lab for the general public's use. But no one really cared about the internet at the time, so no one really came. Except for the kids and all they wanted to do was play with the installed games on the computers. So I worked as a supervisor. Best summer job ever!

Then I graduated, got married. Had kids. Worked at three different jobs. During this time, more and more people were buying personal computers and having access to dial-up internet. Wow, eh? It got to the point where it sometimes took two hours to get connected. To by-pass this problem, I got even smarter. I had an extra land-line installed in my home and used that one exclusively for the internet. It was next to impossible to connect to the internet during the day, so I would get up at 3 am, connect (which took me 2 minutes) and go back to bed. Then I would leave the internet connected for as long as I could. I was so awesome. I even had a blog on Knet (see here). But when that became too popular and I started attracting trolls, I started another one here. It's sad though. I never have time to update them anymore. Facebook has completely killed the blogger in me.

Okay, so then I moved to Brandon. Where they had high speed. WOW! But during that time, high speed also came to Wasagamack. Now, almost every house in Wasagamack has a computer or laptop with high speed internet. And since then, all the computers in the computer labs in the school are all connected to high-speed internet! What a luxury! These kids do not know how good they have it these days.

 

 

(These kids do not know how good they have it these days)

 

What are the implications of this?

 

I cannot wait to go back and teach. It's going to be so bomb-diggety!

Until next time, I bid thee adieu.

Sylvia :)