Forgetfulness is starting to become a problem for me. A while ago I completely forgot a meeting with my boss. Until the minute the hour we had blocked out for it was past. Rather embarrassing, but thankfully not too much harm done.
There are a myriad of other examples, but a recurring theme is forgetting the board meetings of the Society. The meetings are held in the evenings after work, and I do in fact remember on the day. But the meeting location is 30 miles from work, which means I have to leave straight after work. And it also means that I haven't made adequate arrangements with my family, and I don't have all my documents with me, and I am just mentally unprepared. (And typically, like today, it was a day where I looked at my hair and wondered whether I should wash or whether it would be OK, and end up making the wrong decision.)
Aah well, table full of successful, highly educated and over-achieving women, here I come, with a few scraped-together papers, ratty hair, standard nothing-formal-happening-today in the jeans-or-sweatpant standard work environment of an R&D lab, all frazzled up from a 30 mile drive in metro traffic. Take me or leave me.
::
My motherboard is dying. First the soundcard went, midway through last week. Then the mouse port went a few days later. It is as if the board is rebelling against my impending desertion.
A while ago my boss notified me that I was next in line for a computer upgrade. After all, I still had the same old slow, inherited PC I got when I started here. When I do some serious data crunching I grind my teeth in accompaniment.
So I spent a little time picking out my ideal setup (within budget constraints), debated trade-offs between features, and loaded it as much as I could while leaving room for future expansion. And finally this beauty is only days away from delivery. Should be here on Wednesday in fact.
Which means that it is not worth the hassle transferring my entire setup to another PC in the interim so that I can have a mouse or other pointing device - not just for the sake of a few days.
So for the last few days I have been checking how good my memory for keyboard shortcuts is. I use them extensively even when I have a working mouse. And I've figured out that something called "Mouse Keys" exist, a setting within Windows that allows the numeric keypad to control the mouse cursor. With a few annoying side effects. And it is clumsy, and either too slow or too fast. And did I mention cumbersome?
I've come to realize that some websites are really poorly designed too: Click on the left bar for link #1, then click on the right bar of the new page for link #2, then click right at the bottom of the next page for link #3 before you get where you need to be.
At least I could do most of the things that I need to do, albeit slowly and with much frustration. But some things just won't work, and so there's a side stack of work piling up, waiting for full operation to be restored.
::
Guess I should quit belly-aching and get on the road - you never can tell with the traffic how long it will take.
There are a myriad of other examples, but a recurring theme is forgetting the board meetings of the Society. The meetings are held in the evenings after work, and I do in fact remember on the day. But the meeting location is 30 miles from work, which means I have to leave straight after work. And it also means that I haven't made adequate arrangements with my family, and I don't have all my documents with me, and I am just mentally unprepared. (And typically, like today, it was a day where I looked at my hair and wondered whether I should wash or whether it would be OK, and end up making the wrong decision.)
Aah well, table full of successful, highly educated and over-achieving women, here I come, with a few scraped-together papers, ratty hair, standard nothing-formal-happening-today in the jeans-or-sweatpant standard work environment of an R&D lab, all frazzled up from a 30 mile drive in metro traffic. Take me or leave me.
::
My motherboard is dying. First the soundcard went, midway through last week. Then the mouse port went a few days later. It is as if the board is rebelling against my impending desertion.
A while ago my boss notified me that I was next in line for a computer upgrade. After all, I still had the same old slow, inherited PC I got when I started here. When I do some serious data crunching I grind my teeth in accompaniment.
So I spent a little time picking out my ideal setup (within budget constraints), debated trade-offs between features, and loaded it as much as I could while leaving room for future expansion. And finally this beauty is only days away from delivery. Should be here on Wednesday in fact.
Which means that it is not worth the hassle transferring my entire setup to another PC in the interim so that I can have a mouse or other pointing device - not just for the sake of a few days.
So for the last few days I have been checking how good my memory for keyboard shortcuts is. I use them extensively even when I have a working mouse. And I've figured out that something called "Mouse Keys" exist, a setting within Windows that allows the numeric keypad to control the mouse cursor. With a few annoying side effects. And it is clumsy, and either too slow or too fast. And did I mention cumbersome?
I've come to realize that some websites are really poorly designed too: Click on the left bar for link #1, then click on the right bar of the new page for link #2, then click right at the bottom of the next page for link #3 before you get where you need to be.
At least I could do most of the things that I need to do, albeit slowly and with much frustration. But some things just won't work, and so there's a side stack of work piling up, waiting for full operation to be restored.
::
Guess I should quit belly-aching and get on the road - you never can tell with the traffic how long it will take.
Comments (5)
the kids obliterated my memory.
i have no idea what happened during the 90s. someone ripped out the pages of my internal calendar.
... also, in response to your earlier question, i'm still not sure of my whereabouts in January 2003!
Posted by briggy | January 11, 2005 1:27 AM
Posted on January 11, 2005 01:27
Congrats on the new machine. I hope the old one hangs on until then. I am reminded of that poster from several years back, showing a cat hanging on for dear life, with the caption "Hang in there!"
Forgetfulness ... it's always been one of my weaknesses. And now, in my mid-forties, it's certainly not going away. Since 1988 I have religiously used a Franklin Planner for all my tasks and appointments; without it I'd be totally lost.
Posted by Chrysalis | January 11, 2005 5:48 AM
Posted on January 11, 2005 05:48
For me it's an ambivalent experience with a new computer. I miss the old familiar quirks that I either adapted to or worked around but at the same time revel in the new and shiny machine with whatever bells and whistle challenge me to learn it. This transition period varies depending on the hatred that resulted in the new machine...sometimes it's as quick as a few minutes and sometimes weeks long. Like I said, ambivance are I.
Posted by Karan | January 11, 2005 9:24 AM
Posted on January 11, 2005 09:24
I survived the meeting, and ended up having enough papers with me to answer questions and substantiate my position.
Nothing to be done about the hair, though.
And I did make a lot of work for myself... aah well.
Posted by Sivani | January 11, 2005 2:31 PM
Posted on January 11, 2005 14:31
Oh, and a lovely computer tech came by today (only a week after I reported the issue) with a USB mouse, so I am swooping around the desktop again!
Posted by Sivani | January 11, 2005 2:32 PM
Posted on January 11, 2005 14:32