School Daze
Embarrassing personal writing from Dr. Psy Chosis.
Summers are getting shorter. At this rate, they'll disappear completely by the time I'm thirty. By then, the year will be one big, happy panorama of work. Work, work, work, work, work. And I'll be another brick in the wall. Another cog in the wheel.
Work sucks. Who can work with so many murderous aliens invading the earth? The Colonial Marines need me, damnit!
No one understands. When the scum of the universe takes over, it won't be my fault. I served my country, by God.
So I rise at seven to make the nine o'clock show. The class is an experimental program. They call it E-school. Advanced chemistry. Theoretically, this will allow the student to do his/her assignment from anywhere in the world. Wave of the future, man. The internet is not just the billboard Microsoft wants it to be.
Today is Day One. We file into the computer lab to meet then instructor. The room is ice cold to keep the army of computers from melting under the assault of each other's heat. 32 miniature ENIACs crowded together. Forty years ago, this room would have to be twice its current size to hold just one. In another forty years, computers will be small enough to hold in the palm of your hand, and beam the Web directly into your brain.
I just hope they leave the ad banners behind. I've got enough crap in my head as is.
The instructor is a jowly man with a very phallic name. He and his wife team teach, along with back up in the form of a woman named Michelle. She's thirty. He is pushing fifty and, from the look of him, male pattern baldness is about to claim itself another victim.
He hands out a syllabus. "I don't need to read this to you," he says.
I look at the clock. It's 9:20
He begins reading.
It's going to be a long day.
***
The concept is simple. A perfect use for the internet. Virtual Classrooms. No ad banners, no Java clocks, no corporate sponsorship, and no way Bill Gates can make a profit off of it. Potentially, the class could have a student body that spans continents.
I can name at least three dead sci-fi authors, and two, very much alive, Web authors, who would be very proud of us.
If only the instructor would shut up.
He reads the syllabus to us and introduces us to our computer. We're told basic things, this is a web page, type in an address, and never, never, never, never, give someone your password. Things most of us have known since our early teens. But the man is oblivious to this. He seems to think everyone is on his level. They certainly can't be higher. We're just kids, after all. Sometimes, he sounds like a PBS kid's show host:
"Kids, this is Mr. Computer. Mr. Computer is good. No, no, we don't bite Mr. Computer, we Surf the Web with Mr. Computer. That's good, children. You'll all get milk and cookies latter."
It's the paradox of the computer age. The students are two steps ahead of the teacher. Around me, the paradoxes I call friends whisper to each other, or try desperately to stay awake. Summer hasn't lasted long enough for any of them.
As we break for lunch, I have the sickening feeling that, someday, a show just like that will replace Barney. I'm not sure whether to laugh, jump and sing . . . or cry at the stupidity the human race seems to be embracing with open arms.
***
Lunch is served downstairs, in the basement/meeting hall. They're serving fajitas, hot of the grill. I eat, and converse. For many of my fellows, this is the first we've seen of each other in months.
It depresses me how little about most of them has changed. They either hate their mothers, hate their boyfriends, or love both unconditionally. Everything seems to run in those to categories. Not surprising, really. The company I keep comes from broken homes with too many siblings.
At this point, I silently thank the Gods that I was blessed with loving parents, and no damn little brat to watch over. I finish my meal, and go explore.
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