I remember when I was a kid and my mom brought home a modem and told me that we were going to have this thing called ‘the world wide web’. I rolled my eyes at her as she connected to the college library for the first time ever, subjecting me to my very first screeching dial-up tone. At the time, though I don’t remember whether or not I said it out loud, what went through my mind was a very dismissive ‘mom’s all excited about some silly fad again’.
When I'm wrong, I'm really wrong it seems.
I owe an even bigger debt of gratitude to advances in technology and the internet than the average bear though. It keeps me informed. It keeps me connected. It keeps me sane.
Even just a few months ago I backed out of another job, pretty much at the 11 and three quarter hour, largely on the grounds the new job I was offered would have significantly less offline time. No Skype? No facebook? For weeks on end? Nope, no thanks. It's sad but true. (And this was all before I was even introduced to pinterest.)
Even just a few months ago I backed out of another job, pretty much at the 11 and three quarter hour, largely on the grounds the new job I was offered would have significantly less offline time. No Skype? No facebook? For weeks on end? Nope, no thanks. It's sad but true. (And this was all before I was even introduced to pinterest.)
Advances in internet technology also mean that most of us can pretend to be much smarter than we are because nearly anything you want to know is just a click away. Which brings me to today’s anecdote.
But before I get to that, let’s also recognize how archaic any of us who can remember when you actually had to go in to a bank to do your banking, had to use a phone connected to a wall or can think back to when you got your first email address – I was 16 – will seem to our kids. I mean, not too many years ago one of my cousins was AMAZED that I could open my car door with a key. “That’s so cool!” he exclaimed, wide eyed and mesmerized because I hadn’t use the button thingy on my key chain; “Can I try??!” I can already foresee my future self, sitting around tisking at youngins because ‘back when I was a kid L8R wasn't in the scrabble dictionary and we actually had to learn to spell correctly because red squiggly lines wouldn't magically appear on the page to cover for us and give suggestions of what we might be trying to say. We just had to study. And be smart. Now run along and write some more of that code stuff all you kids are in to these days cause there’s a glitch in the software that runs the kitchen and granny’s on a fixed income and too tired to upgrade the server”.
Anyways, I digress. I was going somewhere with this.
Other than pinterest - which is consuming my every spare waking moment lately and filling my head with cupcakes and inspiration - I’m also a big fan of google translate. It’s part of an arsenal of tricks us girls with international intrigue can lean on to dazzle men with our linguistic abilities. Swahili – English – Swahili has been a personal favorite lately and although it had been inciting some jealousy (“who is teaching you bad Swahili??”), guys need to be kept on their toes, and this was doing the trick. Until this typed conversation with Trainer over skype awhile back:
Me: hi
(no response)
Me: hmmm… is he sleeping?
(Heather types Heather is disappointed into google translate)
Me: Heather ni tama
(a little while later)
Trainer: mmmmh, I’ve just woken up
(Trainer then types a bunch of stuff that Heather is too shy to repeat here and at the time only laughed at in reply)
Me: hahaha
(Heather types now Trainer is disappointed? into google translate)
Me: Trainer sasa ni tamaa?
Trainer: Si afadhali nikutamani mpenzi
(Heather pastes that into google translate and comes up empty handed)
Me: I don't know what that means
Trainer (is on to me): What's tamaa in English?
Me: disappointed
Trainer: That's not the meaning of Tamaa!
Me: oops. What is it?
Trainer: Disappointed is "Kuudhika" in swahili
Me: I've been led astray
Trainer: Tamaa is to "desire"
Me: HAHAHA!
Me: serious?!
Me: so instead of saying I was disappointed I was saying that I was desiring you. Hmm. That is actually quite hilarious. AND explains that other stuff you were saying…
Trainer: Yeah serious
Me: SO FUNNY. Well, to me at least. Probably not to you. I bet NOW you’re kuudhika (and glad that you taught me the word).
…
…
(a little while later)
Trainer: you are desiring me though, just be honest
Me: labda kidogo...
1 comment:
Consider this fair warning - I am forwarding this post to one of our speakers from today's school meetings - she referenced our ESL students and the flawed use of translator programs.... I chuckled throughout, recalling your post... I'll get Seneca students reading your stuff one way or another! I think that they would make for great classroom discussion in something other than Business Math or Statistics.
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