It´s all moving too fast

When I last worked, I was known as 'The Technology Expert'. People came to me for advice. I did research on how we could improve technology usage within the workplace. I designed our intranet site. I had a computer at home, a scanner, a camera. I knew how to use it all as well as program the video.

Since then things have changed. I spent about 3 years travelling, keeping up to date with my friends via dodgy internet cafes (if I was lucky). I had an e-mail address (the same as I have now). I knew how to book air fares on-line and look at the Lonely Planet web site. I didn´t know how to chat or do anything tricky, but then I didn´t need to. I was living my experiences. My trusty film camera which didn´t have any zoom recorded all my images. I recorded my travels in a sketch book which I used as a journal. I telephoned my family. Sometimes, like when I was living in England, I used a telephone card where it was quite complex having to first telephone a number and then give them the code on the card (although in one flat we had to get a new telephone as it wasn´t a push button phone).

Finally I settled down and lived permanently in a house. Pregnant and tired all the time, I wanted to sleep and read books, not look at the computer. This was good, as we only had internet access on weekends as the internet here was expensive. My treat was to spend about an hour on Sundays writing to all my friends in Australia. I continued this after the girls were born. F. Would watch the girls for an hour while I wrote my e-mails (often to friends even less technically aware than I am). For 8 years I lived in blissful ignorace of the technical world which had developed.

It was late last year that I decided that I needed to do more with my life than get caught up in small village politics. I went looking for an on-line course and enrolled in a Masters course at UNE. All on-line. We needed to upgrade our internet access and discovered that we could get Broadband cheaper than we were paying for our 2 weekend hours. Internet whenever we wanted it. In a moment of serendipity, I then met the first Australian who lives near me. He invited me to look at his Facebook site. Facebook. Introduction to an activity that has lead to me neglecting my children. I discovered my past. I spent time writing lovely letters to old friends. It was through one friend that I discovered the world of Etsy. Again, another time consumer. Again the same friend introduced me to the world of Blogging (I looked up her blog on her facebook site). From one site you are lead to another, to another, to another. Lovely stories, words of inspiration, ideas and tips, people who I will never meet who seem like old friends. I have happily spent the whole of this rainy day reading on-line while my girls played by themselves. I realised that I could start a blog to record all the thoughts and stories which are going around in my mind.

While I managed to start my own Blog, it has lead me to realise that technology has left me behind. While I finally upgraded to a digital camera this year, I don´t really know how to upload pictures or how to change them so they fit in the blog properly (I also haven´t worked out how to develop the photos as I haven´t taken the time to read the 623 page manual which I have to download anyway and for some reason my computer freezes every time I do it). How do people add pictures from the past before digital? I tried taking a photo, but it didn´t work. I no longer have a scanner as my husband says that they are outdated and he will do something at work with his photocopier. But where do I put the little stick that he gave me? What is this stick? Where is the CD Rom? Or the floppy disk that my computer still has a drive for? Where do I find the time to learn all of this as I now have to find the time to keep up with all my new friends, write my own thoughts down, spend time with my family, clean the house, cook dinner, go to work, work in the garden...... AUUUUUGGGGGGGHHHHHHH get me off this wheel of propensity. Let me live in my little world. Don´t make improvements too fast. Let me adapt to these new things before they change again. Give me another 8 years or so.