Teaching a Monkey Mozart

It has been more than a week since I gave you all an update on my ever-increasing computer prowess. Perhaps prowess is too ambitious a word. Let's call it computer incapability or maybe numerical ineptitude? However we term it, I'm still here and I'm still plugging away, a stranger in a strange land, but I did require a short sabbatical this week from the infernal machine in order to regain my ballast.

But before we made our way out of town, The Husband once again sat me down to inundate me with technobabble involving hrefs, hyperlinks, attributes, command/shifts, and divs. I am like the only Earthling amongst a gaggle of Martians. I yearn for easy language and reasonings for why items are defined the way they are, but so far all I seem to get in response is "that's just the way it is." Years of evolving as an advanced society has brought us to "that's just the way it is." An entire world dependant on the functionality of machines has led us to the remarkable conclusion of "that's just the way it is." I am feeling so less safe knowing that my entire history and financial future is being housed and handled by people who live by the motto "that's just the way it is." 

We (meaning me) decided that we would continue the probably futile work of constructing a new website for Dawn Ponders. I say futile because I am starting to realize that by the time this project reaches fruition, all independent thought locations on the web will probably be shut down in the new world order, and fancy pull down tabs, pretty charts, and new hyperlink addresses will be seen as ridiculous endeavours. But, in the name of education and science, I persevered.

I decided that I really didn't like the spacing of the title, so I asked The Husband to show me how to move it to the left of the page. He eyeballed me with a side glance and sat as mute and stoic as a teetotaller at a frat party. After I ascertained that he wasn't suffering from some form of aphasia brought on by a stroke, I asked him again. He said, "How do you expect to learn if I tell you everything?"

Seriously!! He said this.

Years ago, I had a swimming teacher who would throw kids into the deep end of the pool and expect them to start paddling furiously without the benefit of a single lesson. Most of his students sank and required rescuing. What did they learn? More often than not, they learned to fear the water. I refused to be one of those living in fear, so I paddled furiously instead. Here was my very loud and very vigorous paddled-response to The Husband.

"How the f*** do you expect me to learn anything if you sit there like f***ing Marcel Marceau?"

While I may not have been entirely genteel in my language, my goal was achieved. There seems to be a need to continually remind The Husband that this little project was his brainchild and, for better or worse, (mostly worse) he has committed himself to being my tutor. I vociferously explained to him it is impossible to learn something new without a thorough lesson. I also ranted that some children (me) require endless reiteration of previously taught facts they find difficult to absorb. Not everybody is a fucking computer genius who was building his own machines at the dawn of the fucking ice age. I tried  to give him a lesson in teaching and I explained to him in my patient, B'nai Mitzvah-tutor inside voice that all students aren't as smart as their teachers.

Not surprisingly, my little tirade brought him back to my reality and we were able to create the following. It only took us 2 hours, but hey...progress is progress.

Once again, don't get too excited. The entire code page is only 51 lines long. This creation all happened last week, and I can't for the life of me remember how we did it. (I actually had to ask him to remind me of what some of the commands were called in order to write this post.) Kids take note. That is what happens without constant repetition and refusal to do one's homework. 

I do realize that The Husband is doing his level best. I know it's like trying to get a monkey to play Mozart on a washing machine, but teaching is often more difficult than learning. I guess this process has something for both of us.

A Day of Distractions

My day started as uneventfully as any other. I was sitting on the couch, pushing the refresh button on the Blue Jays homepage every two minutes or so hoping for updates on the supposed and still unconfirmed Jose Bautista signing, while alternately blocking asshole misogynist anti-Semites from my Twitter feed, when I suddenly realized that I was circling back to the same information on every news site known to the internet. I looked at The Husband and I whined:

"It's finally happened. I've hit the end of the internet."

The Husband, ever the understanding and so very patient problem solver, expressed his deep-seated and heartfelt sentiment to my plight. 

He burst into gales of laughter.

As he wiped the tears of mocking from his eyes, he actually gave me a look that elegantly crossed grave sincerity with pity and said:

"You need a new project. I think that you should learn how to program."

As I started to protest that TV network jobs were probably not going to fall out of the sky for a middle-aged Canadian woman who is a few years past the shelf life of the 18-49-year-old target demographic, it suddenly dawned on me that he actually meant computer programming.

As is my habit, I immediately grabbed my laptop, began Youtubing "How To" videos, and read everything I could find about Bill Gates and Steve Wozniak. That's right. I said Wozniak, not Jobs. We computer geeks just somehow know these things. 

Seriously?? You poor gullible bastards. Have you learned nothing about me from reading this space?

After I collected my jaw from its resting place on my boobs, I began to sort through my mental index file of why this idea ranked somewhere between skydiving and spending six months at sea working on a tuna boat on my bucket list.

1. I have never ever ever ever taken a single computer class. Not in high school. Not in university. Not online. Not in continuing education. Not at the Apple Genius Bar. Nada. The sum total of my experience with the dreaded machines is akin to my experience with a car. I know how to turn it on and how to drive it, but I have never had any desire to repair it or understand how it runs.
2. I still get the night sweats from any and all recollections of any course that I may have taken over my academic career that even vaguely included math and numbers. That long directory includes calculus, algebra, economics, physics, chemistry, and if I go back really deep into my history, multiplication tables.
3. I would require a teacher. A good teacher. I adamantly refuse to sit in front of some idiotic internet vids produced by some asshole Big Bang Theory wannabe, who spends his days on Reddit, and works out of his parents' basement in outer Scarborough. In order for me to learn, I need to be able to ask questions without being made to feel like an idiot. I expressed this concern to The Husband and he immediately volunteered. Which leads me to....
4. He kind of sucks as a teacher. Just ask my boys about their student driving experiences. He is brilliant and capable and accomplished. He also lacks patience and would often rather do himself that which he considers easy. He has absolutely no tolerance for stupid. If he was going to teach me, he would have to let me bombard him with asinine queries like "What's a server?" (Yes. I actually asked this.) I gently reminded him of the time his grandmother tried to teach me to knit. I badgered her for months with dropped stitch problems, casting on issues, and ripped purls. The poor woman actually died before I finished my sweater. I just tossed that shit into the trash before our move this past summer. I honestly couldn't imagine a scenario whereby his teaching me would work and we could still happily celebrate our thirty-second wedding anniversary in June.
5. Do I still have any ability to retain knowledge? I have been re-learning Spanish for about a year now and while my comprehension is markedly better and my conversational skills have improved exponentially, (I am a whiz at ESPN Desportes. My high school Spanish teacher Señora Lee would be so proud if she too weren't deceased.) I have noticed that retention is a bitch. This tends to happen at a certain age. I can't even remember where I put my fucking glasses, how am I to recall computer commands?

And this is just the short list.

The Husband assured me that I could learn and learn it quickly. I asked him why he thought this was a good idea and he replied, "Because it's creative, it's fun, and you could help me with a project I'm working on." 

Really! He actually said that. This shit was all about free labour.

He asked me to give him about fifteen minutes and then we could get to work.

Three hours later....

I was still waiting. I mercilessly mocked his commitment to this project and he looked as though he should never have suggested the whole endeavour. But...we were now like a snowball running downhill and I wouldn't be waylaid.

It took him about a half an hour to figure out my computer. Yeah...I know. I couldn't believe it either. 

Once he finally had whatever downloads required, we commenced with lesson 1.

I will be beginning my education with something called HTML. Apparently, it is the language of web-design. Here's what we managed to accomplish in about 45 minutes. Are we impressed yet? If anybody out there is laughing, I curse you all and may a thousand squirrels invade your attics.

The Husband is concerned that the only reason I have consented to do this is for blog material. He is only partially correct in that assertion, although my inability to master this might prove more comical than cat videos. I have also consented because frankly, I need a diversion from the news and this project and trying to recall Spanish past tenses is helping enormously in that regard. 

May God have mercy on both of our souls and may Los Azulejos firman a José Bautista ya!