This week has been a nightmare for me. I travelled to Ohio on Monday, June 23, 2008. My wife had to to take two entrance tests for a Nursing program at Chamberlain College in Columbus, Ohio. The first exam was scheduled for Tuesday and the second exam was scheduled for Thursday. She passed the exams and we have decided to move to Columbus, Ohio at the end of this month. Her classes start on July 7, 2008.
While in Ohio, I was staying with my brother. I knew my brother had this Dell PC computer with Internet connection. All the news we get from home (Zimbabwe) is through online media houses. I assumed that my brother had high speed Internet connection. I was wrong. When I went online to do my assignments, the Internet connection was painfully slow. I could open pages and read even though it took me ages. When I tried to go to Second Life, the whole machine just stopped. It could not open the page and I gave up. On Thursday evening, I was on the Greyhound Bus back to Silver Spring, Maryland. I spend the whole night on the bus and it was an uncomfortable experience.
As soon as I got home, I started working on my assignments. I wanted to get done since the deadline had passed. Two hours into the assignment, I knocked off. I had not slept properly for two days and my body just gave up. I went to bed and slept the whole day. Today is Saturday and I am still working on my assignment. I am done with the other assignments but still working on the Second Life. I have been asking for help in the Anderson Computer lab but all the assistants said they know nothing about Second Life. I have been able to create my avatar and taking it from there has been the challenge. I completed the tutorials but I am still struggling with the assignment.
While the week has been a nightmare in general, it has revealed to me that there are things I take for granted vis-a-vi new media technology. First I was shocked to see that there are people who have not jumped on higher speed Internet connection. My brother is a case in point. The other revelation is that not all digital natives are well versed with all new media practices. When I asked for help from the computer assistants in Anderson computer lab, they told me that they did not know what del.icio.us and second life are. One of them asked me if del.icio.us is tha same thing as a blog.
