Character Map and Disappearing Gmail
Just in case anybody ever wanted to use my asus, I think I have now rendered it completely unfriendly to others. Not on purpose. But it has worked out that way.
I have both an English and French dictionary installed. And have added about a dozen different html and writing add-ons for Firefox. Today, I changed the character set, because I am sick to death of using the alt-character codes to make an é or anything else requiring an accent and the constant red highlights because I spelled voilá voila. So enter my netbook and not only will you get Firefox with a bunch of add-ons that only a writer and software geek could love, and open-source software in two languages. Your keyboard has gone to Europe.
Welcome.
My netbook has officially become DHs worst nightmare. Not that he has ever wanted to use my computers anyway. He’s been scarred for life by the discovery that the keyboard I had when we started dating had been so worn out that the letters and numbers had rubbed off the keys. I hadn’t noticed. But the look on the face of him and SS was quite amusing.
Since we’re talking multilingualism, my gmail is playing cache-cache aka hide-hide, or rather hide and seek. After a time, messages go missing. I’m absolutely certain that I did this to myself. Because, obviously, I mess around with my software and various settings all the time. Sometimes daily.
You should see what happens when DH or I call tech support for DSL or something. It’s all we can do not to yell instructions at the poor underpaid tech on the line. I want you to release and renew my ip address!
Two very obvious things have come to my attention this week, besides that next year I will turn 40. I can sew clothing for myself. A no-brainer I know. But really, I had hardly thought of it until recently.
And, I can speak French. Another eye-roll please. I had not actually thought of my French as being useful to anyone except myself and family. But actually, it appears that there is tutoring market. I just have to pass a knowledge test, no teaching certification required. I imagined that I could not possibly manage to pass the test. But I hopped over to the BBC language site and took a bunch of beginning and intermediate tests for practice and passed them all. So I speak better text-book French than I thought.
I should, in theory, be able to pass a skills test for tutors. I have a minor in French. But I can say for certain that chatting with Grandma, or getting directions in Quebec is about 100 times easier for me than taking a test and checking the right box when the choices are travailler and travail. That kind of similar but not the same stuff makes my head hurt when the whole test is in English.
And I won’t have my wacky netbook.
This is broccoli. It has nothing to do with the rest of the post.
