While sitting here at work with nothing to do I thought I would work on my lessons and try to catch up. I do not like having nothing to do so thought it was a great idea. I got my notebook computer out, connected it to the power and started to read lesson 3. But as I was reading and starting to work along with it, I realized I needed to validate my work as I completed each part. Oh no, a real big hiccup here! So I sat here thinking about what life without the internet would be like, now that we are so adicted to it. My thoughts ran wild and it actually became quite scarry to imagine a world without the interent and convenince it has brought us. There are a lot more advantages of the internet than I have mentioned here but I am just trying to come up with subject material for this lesson and not do a theme paper on this subject.
First I thought of what I do each morning when I get up and several time a day too. I go to my computer and check to see what email I have received. I would really miss this aspect of the internet! I keep up with friends and family on a daily basis. Read the latest news from my news groups. Make new friends from around the world in places I have never even been to. Share a smile with the jokes forwarded to me. Discover Bill Gates is going to give me a large amount of money if I forward this email to everyone in my address book. And the list goes on and on....
Then my thoughts shifted to what else I do on the internet. First came to mind the convenience of paying my bill online and not have to write checks anymore. That is a big relief since once the accounts are set up with my bank all I have to do is go in and enter the amount I want to pay and to which account I want it sent and one click pays the bill. In the old days I would have to wait until the bill was received in the mail then write the check, put it in the envelope, stamp and address it, then put it in the mail. If I was out of checks or stamps it meant an extra trip to town to get the supplies needed to just pay the bill.
I have been an eBay seller for a few years now and want to tell you that it is a lot more fun than having a garage sale. On eBay I can list something to sell when I am short of cash or am wanting to buy something else that has drawn my attention. Didn't get as much as I needed for this item? No problem, I just list something else and the money for the items are sent to my PayPal account ready for me to make my purchase. In the old days I would have had to work for days getting together all of the things I wanted to sell. I would have had to put price tags on everything, stack them neatly on tables lined in my garage while my car sit outside in the weather. When everything was all set up I then had to call the newspaper office and place an add, usually a week early so it had time to get in the issue of the paper I want the add to appear in. With that done I had to start my artistic sign project. I had to make signs telling of the garage sale and the morning of the sale we had to get up at the crack of dawn or before and post signs at every intersection we could think of pointing the way to our sale. Then the real fun began. All day in the hot sun with people pouring in wanting us to reduce the prices we had marked on our items by 99% or more. Nothing was neatly arranged anymore and usually a few items walked away with unsuspecting customers. Then when the sale was over, it wasn't really over. The cleanup process began and trying to decide what to do with all the junk left over. It usually went to the Good Will store as I couldn't stand to look at it anymore. Wow, I didn't know that I disliked having garage sales this much. I love eBay and it would not exist if it weren't for the internet.
I have a lot of hobbies and areas of special interest that each have their own forums. I have had to cut down on the number of forums that I belong to as each takes time to read the post and keep up with the members and what is going on there. But since I saved time paying my bills online and selling my garage sale items online I have a little extra time to play with. What would I do without the internet to keep up on the most recent news on my hobby of doll making and graphics. Just in the doll making area alone, I belong to 3 forums right now. The internet has made it possible for me to converse with others that have the same interest as I do from around the world. I have learned many new things from my friends in Australia, Germany, and the UK that I would never have met if it wasn't for the internet.
This may be the last topic of my discussion but it is definately not the least important to me. I love taking online classes, many of which are taken here at LVS. I have taken several PSP graphics classes, some Digital Photograpy classes and Digital Darkroom classes. I also take some online classes on making reborn dolls which is my most recent passion, along with photography that is. I am planning on taking the full series of Web build classes as I want to design my web site to look more professional. I am enjoying the coding classes more than I ever realized was possible so it may be my next hobby if I can find more time for it. Wonder what the internet has to offer so I can save some more time, I am in need of some right now.
My current main advantage of the internet, while we are on this subject of "Online classes", is that I could actually get my lesson done for week three if I had access to the internet here at work, so I could valadiate my work.
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