To start, press any key
by chuckofish
It was a long week — equal parts fraught, migraine-inducing meetings and low comedy. Yesterday, we could not get the computer to work in my classroom. I say ‘we’ because several tech-savvy students attempted to solve the problem. We rebooted the machine and pushed every button we could find — without result.
We called OIT, and in due course a technician arrived, walked right up to the podium, and touched the mouse. The computer sprang to life. The technician gave us a friendly smile and left. We laughed sheepishly, and to cover our embarrassment, threw ourselves into earnest conversation about Roman tactics at the Battle of Pydna in 168 BC. Now that’s a novel way to inspire discussion.
Spring break starts today — with a snowstorm on the way — but that’s okay because I have no plans for the week other than to read a biography of Julius Caesar and steel myself to go back to work and face the next round of mad initiatives. It is no exaggeration to say that rational discourse no longer takes place in academia. What I need is a good Shakespearian pep talk:
O God of battles! steel my soldiers’ hearts;
Possess them not with fear; take from them now
The sense of reckoning, if the opposed numbers
Pluck their hearts from them. Not to-day, O Lord,
O, not to-day…(Henry V, Act 1, Scene 1)
I’ll turn everything off and stop checking email, get out my watercolors or pick up my embroidery and rediscover how peaceful it is to sit quietly and work creatively.
Okay, my meager efforts won’t come close to John Singer Sargent, but painting is therapeutic, and by God’s grace, life is good!
dual personalities 
Everyone I has had that IT experience! But more often than naught the IT person stares at the computer and then does the same thing over and over and over again (a sure sign of insanity) and then sighs and says they don’t know what to do. Or they google the problem. Ye gods!
But Not to-day, O Lord,
O, not to-day…
IT techs are magicians. They always make me feel idiotic, but then when it comes to technology I am!
I hope you enjoy Spring Break. Fingers crossed it’s a (comparatively) relaxing time, with (comparatively) fewer tech problems. And hey, when in doubt, there’s always Caesar and Shakespeare to put you in a good mood, right?
Your computer woes remind me of a time when I was working at the call center. Customers couldn’t hear me talking, and after a good half hour of various supervisors running diagnostics on my computer, someone noticed that I had accidentally muted my microphone…c’est la vie.
Here’s hoping for a relaxing Spring Break!