Hello Again, Hello.

I know it seems impossible, but the only logical explanation of what happened to my computer is that it caught my ebola, and its insides liquefied. Right?!? So, I went more than 5 days without access at my house. I don't have enough time at work to do much more than check my e-mails, and not even reply to them. (Not that junk necessitates a reply, but still!)

So Mister Computer Man came to my house Tuesday evening and tried to turn on my PC and tsk tsk'd and then muttered something in Korean (that sure sounded like "ebola") and unplugged everything and took it away. I trusted he was far more skilled than I, as he didn't turn it on and off 500 times like I had on Sunday before figuring out it was kaput.

He returned with my computer tonight, and lo and behold, here I am back online! I got Windows loaded in English this time around, so I may not be as utterly useless as I have been. I lost everything that was stored before, favourite links and pictures and the like. No real worries, a lot of my photos are in e-mail attachments or on photobucket, so all is well.

It was very quiet at my apartment, and I lost count of the number of times I went to turn on the computer, only to remember it wasn't there. It's amazing how many times my mind comes up with a request for some kind of information that I only have to push a few buttons to satisfy. It got me wondering what people used to DO with themselves before the internet?! I know what I was up to, I was busy being a kid. What did the adults do? Like, talk to one another? Face to face? Really!!???

I have to say, 5 days without the computer left me feeling pretty lonely. I have to think more about that, too, as I don't think it's good to have a social life that only involves children trying to climb me. It might be time to seriously consider hitting the road again.

Anyhow. Speaking of kids, I actually convinced a class of eight 10 and 11 year olds that this animal:

lives in Canada. I drew it on the board and labeled it "Bearmonkeychickenbird." I told them there were many many of them in Canada, that they were very slow, and very very delicious. The kids had a lot of questions about this creature. I told them we don't cook the bearmonkeychickenbird, we sneak up on it, pounce, rip it's head off, and eat it. I circled the head of the creature I'd drawn on the board and said "delicious!" in English and Korean, and then circled the rest of it and said "not delicious."

The kids said "really?" and the Korean equivalent "jinja?" about 200 times, to which I replied absolutely straightfaced, "yes."

There is also a couple dozen small children in Japan who think Canadians and Americans have only four toes. The slippers I used to wear at work hid my baby toes, so the kids could only count four digits on each of my feet. I told them that was normal and acted all shocked that they all had 5 toes. "Do your mother and father have 5 toes too?" I would ask all wide eyed! Really!!!

Kids are fun.