Thursday 26 January 2017

Teaching a Monkey Mozart

It has been more than a week since I gave you all an update on my ever-increasing computer prowess. Perhaps prowess is too ambitious a word. Let's call it computer incapability or maybe numerical ineptitude? However we term it, I'm still here and I'm still plugging away, a stranger in a strange land, but I did require a short sabbatical this week from the infernal machine in order to regain my ballast.

But before we made our way out of town, The Husband once again sat me down to inundate me with technobabble involving hrefs, hyperlinks, attributes, command/shifts, and divs. I am like the only Earthling amongst a gaggle of Martians. I yearn for easy language and reasonings for why items are defined the way they are, but so far all I seem to get in response is "that's just the way it is." Years of evolving as an advanced society has brought us to "that's just the way it is." An entire world dependant on the functionality of machines has led us to the remarkable conclusion of "that's just the way it is." I am feeling so less safe knowing that my entire history and financial future is being housed and handled by people who live by the motto "that's just the way it is." 

We (meaning me) decided that we would continue the probably futile work of constructing a new website for Dawn Ponders. I say futile because I am starting to realize that by the time this project reaches fruition, all independent thought locations on the web will probably be shut down in the new world order, and fancy pull down tabs, pretty charts, and new hyperlink addresses will be seen as ridiculous endeavours. But, in the name of education and science, I persevered.

I decided that I really didn't like the spacing of the title, so I asked The Husband to show me how to move it to the left of the page. He eyeballed me with a side glance and sat as mute and stoic as a teetotaller at a frat party. After I ascertained that he wasn't suffering from some form of aphasia brought on by a stroke, I asked him again. He said, "How do you expect to learn if I tell you everything?"

Seriously!! He said this.

Years ago, I had a swimming teacher who would throw kids into the deep end of the pool and expect them to start paddling furiously without the benefit of a single lesson. Most of his students sank and required rescuing. What did they learn? More often than not, they learned to fear the water. I refused to be one of those living in fear, so I paddled furiously instead. Here was my very loud and very vigorous paddled-response to The Husband.

"How the f*** do you expect me to learn anything if you sit there like f***ing Marcel Marceau?"

While I may not have been entirely genteel in my language, my goal was achieved. There seems to be a need to continually remind The Husband that this little project was his brainchild and, for better or worse, (mostly worse) he has committed himself to being my tutor. I vociferously explained to him it is impossible to learn something new without a thorough lesson. I also ranted that some children (me) require endless reiteration of previously taught facts they find difficult to absorb. Not everybody is a fucking computer genius who was building his own machines at the dawn of the fucking ice age. I tried  to give him a lesson in teaching and I explained to him in my patient, B'nai Mitzvah-tutor inside voice that all students aren't as smart as their teachers.

Not surprisingly, my little tirade brought him back to my reality and we were able to create the following. It only took us 2 hours, but hey...progress is progress.


Once again, don't get too excited. The entire code page is only 51 lines long. This creation all happened last week, and I can't for the life of me remember how we did it. (I actually had to ask him to remind me of what some of the commands were called in order to write this post.) Kids take note. That is what happens without constant repetition and refusal to do one's homework. 

I do realize that The Husband is doing his level best. I know it's like trying to get a monkey to play Mozart on a washing machine, but teaching is often more difficult than learning. I guess this process has something for both of us.




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