In the little K-9 school I went to, the grade 5 homeroom teacher was a very forward thinking guy named Mr. Mateika. Around the time I was in his class or maybe grade 6 or 7, I actually can’t really recall, he was the mastermind behind not just the school’s first computer lab but the entire school division’s first computer lab.
These large, odd looking, green screened, floppy disk driven PC’s filled the perimeter of that classroom. I remember he was very excited about it and I really didn’t understand why.
He even had a local television station come from a larger town about 2 hours away to do a segment on it for the 5 o’clock news, it was a big big deal in the mid-80’s.
At first all I can recall is playing King’s Quest on them but soon we were learning to type and ASDF became permanently imprinted on my brain.
We were taught to type by feel of the keys and not allowed to look at our hands. I remember being frustrated at first but with practice, and being forced to sit at a computer practicing over my lunch break, it came. The result was that I became very fast at typing.
I loved sitting there working on these computers and I took a number of computer classes in high school. Spreadsheets were my fave. Making these formulas that could just magically compute things for you, it was so cool.
Sometimes I wonder if I should have pursued it further and made a career out of it.
bloom.planted.north 
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