Wardrobe Malfunction
Last Thursday we had a wardrobe malfunction. I have been through a lot in my nine years of teaching, but never a wardrobe malfunction of this magnitude, I tell you. So, it was a rainy day on Thursday. One of those rainy days where you secretly thank your parents for those swimming lessons because eventually, you know you will need to practice your back stroke in order to get from the car to the front door of the school. The kind of rainy day where you don't even bother to curl or even brush your hair, knowing that by the time you get to work, your hair will be beautifully stuck to your head in a nice wet pattern.
I think you get the idea. It was rainy. So kids were coming in late, things were sort of crazy to begin with. Aaron's parents and I were trying hard to get the crying, flailing child into the classroom, Jacob needed to go to the bathroom for the third time at 8:05 am, and then it happened. The very faint sound of magic... we heard it... a fairy princess noise. Close your eyes and imagine the Disney sound of magic happening... over and over and over. This is what we heard. It was very faint, very quiet, and certainly very mysterious at first. It was clear the rest of the first graders had heard it too. Aaron even stopped crying and flailing to listen for the sound. If you'd have walked into the classroom, you would have really wondered what was going on. We all sort of were walking around the room, searching for the origin of the magical sound, putting our ears on backpacks, lockers, people's pockets, even on Aaron and his dad.
Then, the noise stopped. "Whew!" The source was still an enigma, but we could live now... the magical noise was gone and the kids could finally sit at their desks to read books. Five minutes later, all of the soggy children had finally been dropped off at school, when the magic started again, this time louder and more insistent that we find the origin.
At one point, the noise had driven some of the children so crazy, they were wandering around the room putting their ears to anything that could possibly make the noise. Finally, I noticed one child laying flat on the floor with her ear pressed toward Julie's shoes yelling, "It is here!"
You see, Julie's new princess shoes were so cool. They lit up and flashed a cute little light when she walked. That, she knew. But they also had a cool button on the tongue of the shoe that you could press to make a magical sound. Poor Julie didn't know that her shoes made this noise, so she was just as surprised as I was to see her classmate's ear plastered onto her shoe!
The noise got worse.
Louder and louder the magical shoe sound became, certainly not seeming so magical anymore.
No matter what we did, we couldn't get them to turn off! So I had to make the phone call to her mother.
I understand that parents get a bad feeing when their child's teacher calls them at work, so I tried instantly to reassure Julie's mom that things were ok, but that her shoes were, um, "so magical, that they won't stop". Her mom, finding me rather silly for calling, thought I was talking about the cute little flashy light and she was really wondering why I had bothered her at work to tell her about Julie's flashing shoes.... until I let her hear the magical sound.
Julie's mom assured us that she would leave work, go home, and get some new shoes. Can you imagine having to tell your boss that you need to leave work because the rain had caused your child's shoes to go crazy?
I can' t. But I wouldn't have imagined ever having to deal with such a wardrobe malfunction or the magical sounds of Disney shoes. Every once in a while, I can close my eyes and hear them, over and over again. I have a feeling all of the first graders in my class will, for a long long time.

Switch?

I am a Mac girl. I have always been a Mac girl. I come from a long line of Mac lovers.
I can remember the first time my dad came home with a computer. It was like the size of a shoe box, it seemed, but it was amazing. It required a huge disk in order to work, and could be carried with an actual handle. it was the neatest thing my whole family had ever seen and so easy to use. We didn't need too many instructions to figure out that thing called a mouse.

Then, we got a little more advanced in our thinking, and got bigger and better Macs. I can acually remember my dad saying to me, "you don't need a color printer... the screen isn't in color, so why would you need a color printer?" hee hee. Just picking on my dad there... He very quickly changed his mind and decided that the color printer and monitor were great. My dad packed up the whole family several years in a row and took us all to the MacWorld Conference. There we were in an ocean of glasses wearing, pocket protector having, geeks and we loved it.
We were just as geeky as the rest, oohing and ahhing over the latest in Apple's vast catalogue of wares.
We were on top of the Macintosh world, looking down at all of the IBM losers on the planet.
We laughed when those PC people were cheering for their Windows. "Ha, We had windows back in 1980. It was called, Macintosh ... " Probably OS 1 or something... who knows.

We were the Macintosh family for sure.
Then enter B. You know how they say opposites attract? Well... he was a PC guy all the way. I think my family had their doubts about us for a while. Who could marry someone who was such a PC person? He could have been green with polka dots and that wouldn't have mattered, it was the PC thing that was the issue... that and he liked Fords, but that is a different story. Eventually, my family saw through the PC lover exterior and began to see the great guy he was inside.

For my birthday, B, going totally against his PC beliefs, bought me an IMac. Now, our office is the best of both worlds, the Dell on one very messy desk, and the IMac on the opposite wall, on a slightly cluttered desk space. Seperate, but equal. We live in peace, although we didn't think it would be possible.
We actually have played on each other's computers quite nicely. I have learned to get along with his computer without too much struggle, and he has learned to play on my computer without any more bad words. He still works hard to turn me to the dark side of the PC world. My heart says no.

I am in the market right now for a new computer. My old IMac has had it. It doesn't have the "stuff" to do what I want it to do anymore. I am in need a new system. Of course, my PC friends and my sweet PC husband have all suggested that I make the big leap to PCs.
I will now admit that (listen to me carefully because I won't admit this often) that I have grown accustomed to B's computer. I won't say I like it, mind you, but I have grown accustomed to it.
I like the fact that with it, I can do all sorts of things that maybe are still not available for the Mac, so I will admit that I contemplated that "Dude, you are getting a Dell" concept for a while.
A Dell would certainly be cheaper, would certainly do as much as my new Mac, if not more. So why was I hanging on to the idea of a Mac? Why was my heart tearing when I seriously considered getting the PC. I don't know if it was the idea that I would eventually turn into one of THOSE "PC" people I looked down on in the past, or if it was the memory of how I felt the first time my dad came home with that little tiny computer and told us it was called an Apple.
I still remember loving that computer from the second I saw it.

You'll be happy to hear that I ordered one of the new G5s from Apple. It is back ordered now and I have a feeling it will be totally out of date by the time it actually arrives at my house.
But, I will keep the family tradition alive.
I will keep the Mac movement going... at least until I need another new computer.