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A Ricochet Confession
How long has it been since I last checked into Ricochet? A month…six weeks? I know I’ll find an answer as soon as I check my notifications; the reality is that it has been (in scientific terms) “quite a while”. Why is that?
Simple: I’m pretty much sick of living my life on-line, of being on the receiving side of a computer screen. As such, the prospect of voluntarily stepping into another digital platform lost all attraction.
Let me be clear (“LORD, how I hate that phrase!”) Look, I’m grateful that I was able to work from home. As a college adjunct lecturer, I shifted my classes to remote instruction and carried-on. Be that as it may, I discovered that trying to maintain the same degree of engagement with students meant three-to-four hours extra time on-line, not counting the totally-expected time preparing lessons and materials. Workdays stretched to 12-hours on average…necessary to meet expectations, but way outside of my contractual compensation. I tell people (jokingly) that I’m “semi-retired”…that means I get paid for part-time work and DO full-time work!
So, by the time 7:30 pm rolls around, then grab some dinner, the prospect of checking into the PIT just doesn’t cut it. I’m sick of hunt-and-peck typing, sick of looking at the computer, sick of digital media.
And about now, I think about all those people across the country who have lost their jobs, lost their businesses, lost their savings, and are now facing the loss of their homes. And feel ashamed that I’m complaining; I’m blessed, fortunate to have what I have.
So. Grades are turned in, the semester is over, and I have a job in the fall (I think). Maybe it’s time to check back into Ricochet, and see how others are doing?
Published in General
Well now we all feel stupid for staying here on the receiving end of a computer screen haha. This stupid quarantine hasn’t affected my daily life at all, since I’ve worked from home for years. I do get what you’re saying about being sick of living life online; however, for me Ricochet has thrown me together with people I love and cherish and with whom I would never have crossed paths otherwise, so there’s that. But it’s important to keep having real-world and real-life experiences as well. We just have to find a balance. And since we are Americans with freedom bred in the bone, we don’t like that choice taken away from us by the government. Open it back up.
Welcome back, Hop! We’ve kept the R> engine idling, waiting for your return.
See I’ve been the opposite – I have spent way more time on Ricochet than I normally do.
I am retired and so have few reasons to be on-line with people (worship, Bible study, and weekly meeting with fellow choir members are the few), and all of my in-person social gatherings have been eliminated and not replaced with electronic meetings.
I have almost completely given up looking at “news” sites because they are so awful (biased, sensationalist, badly reported, etc.). I rely on other Ricochetti to bring to my attention news of which I should be aware.
Ricochet is about my only source for rational presentation of information and intelligent conversation.
Testify, sister!
So, that means, in time that otherwise might be spent on R were you not flogged by new, online work requirements, that translated (prison-style) more pushups, burpees, and Hindu squats. Right?
Amen.
I wish that I could truthfully say I’ve used the time to develop my at-home exercise regimen…but I can’t. The additional on-line time almost exclusively trying to create the replicant, artificial-person simulation of actual face-to-face teaching.
If it’s any consolation Doc/Colonel/Hop, everyone’s sick of your hunt-and-peck typing.
I have an engineering degree and a graduate degree – plenty of education, but by far the most practical course I ever took anywhere was the semester of personal typing I took during my senior year in high school. (It included lessons in the use of carbon paper, to offer a geological data point.)
I don’t always work from home, but I do so often, and regard working from home as the best work circumstance. Yet I’ve bristled from Day 1 at being forced to hunker-in-place, at being sentenced to home office arrest. Open it back up.
Dammit. Busted.
Alright alright. I’ll get busy.
I’ve been away for the same reasons. Can’t stand being at home on a computer for any longer than I have to be and honestly the news cycle is really wearing on me. But I do miss you guys and I’ll be back!
Testify, brother…testify!
100% agree. (No carbon paper, but we did use IBM Selectrics!)
48 wpm when I took my high school typing course back in the 80s. I was the 2nd fastest typest in the room. There were 32 people in the class of which 2 of us were male. I was beaten out by a female piano player, which I consider a form of doping under IOC rules.
The IBM Pavilion at the NY World’s Fair, 1964-65, impishly styled to look like the famous Selectric typing ball.
I took typing in Jr High, the first class used manual typewriters. The second/advanced class had electrics. (But not Selectrics. I think they were Olivettis.)
During the time I did some contracting/consulting work, occasionally I found positions through temporary agencies. Including even Kelly Services. (Yes, for a little while I was a “Kelly Girl.”) But most of the time, rather than programming, they wanted to send me out for data entry, because I was one of the fastest and most accurate typists they had. Problem was, I could type quickly the things I was thinking – program code, for example – but not so good at transcribing documents, typing what I hear, etc.
I knew I was onto something with the Hindu squats. Nobody talks about those. 150 morning, 150 evening on non-legs days. I also know that Mongo’s going to crush my numbers.
So it’s true. God does use a Selectric.
If He makes a mistake, He backs up and makes it disappear.
I’m working on a joke about CPT symmetry, but it’s not matching up.
Nah. I’m still trying to figure out what exercises are “smart” to do with my current infirmities, that won’t screw me up any more than I am. But, 150 HS in the morning is the usual SOP. Full this disclosure: Not at once. I go out in the morn and do 50, then walk dog #1, then do 50, then walk dog #2, then do 50.
Years ago, I was racing another Ricochetti (when we were both active duty and Ricochet wasn’t even a glint in Rob Long’s eye). Every month we’d add a hundred, until we got to 1,000 in a single, non-stop step. We were at 700. Then 9/11 happened and HS became catch-as-catch can.
Oh, on that last round, I did 702, because I knew that @dajoho would do 701, just to beat me. When we reported our results, he had done 703. He knew that I’d figure he’d do 701, so would do 702, so he knocked out 703. Crafty bastard.
Brilliant, how many people on this thread found typing to be the most productive thing they learned in high school.
Yes. I only wish I’d had the opportunity to take shorthand, too.
It’s up there. I may have been the fastest in my class, but i don’t remember for sure. My math, science, and history classes were all of long lasting use, too.
I think I got the Hindu Squats one time, in Mexico, after eating street meat.
Just watched a video on Hindu Squats. 700?
What’s *wrong* with you people?
In any school.
Mrs. Hoplite has made the same observation more times than I can count. (This thread also illustrates how it is impossible to predict what direction a Ricochet conversation will take.)