Tuesday, October 14, 2008

What the *&#$^?

I had my first Freak-out France moment today. Where I got all mad at France while peering through my American-colored glasses. It happened in the computer lab at one of my schools.

I spent about an hour last night preparing a Halloween wordsearch. Lots of clipart and stuff. Not hard work, just time consuming. Then saved both a pdf and word document onto my jump drive, with the intention of printing it off at school today.

Problems: Finding the someone to give me the key to the computer lab. Five minutes later, finding him again for computer's login information. Windows98 operating system. Locating jump drive on computer. Already existing hatred for PC computers worsening because this one is in French. Discovering several minutes later from fellow teacher that jump drives do not work. Last night's work wasted. Making new Halloween wordsearch. Internets slow. Keys on french keyboard all in weird places. Typing things such as 'It,s Hqlloween." Missing lunch.

The real problem is I'm spoiled. I own a MacBook Pro (well my credit card company owns about half). Those ancient days before wifi are kinda fuzzy. I guess it's not really fair to expect any primary school to have a magnificent computer lab. I'm lucky they have one at all. With a color printer, nonetheless.

3 comments:

Brett said...

Where are you in France.

I need to weasel my way into one of the few ex-pat newspapers that exist in France. Live in Lyon, write half-assed articles while drinking at The Switch. Now that's journalism....

Brett said...

That was meant to be:

Where are you in France?

Marni said...

I think that living abroad can be one of the most gloriously frustrating experiences known to mankind.

Hope everything is going well!! We miss you back in Columbia :)