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Period: to
My Life so far
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Postive: Kindegarten Art
My first memory of communication technology is art class in Kindegarten at Sierra View Elementary in Chico. I can remember fingerpainting the golden flowers and blackberry bushes outside my house; creating scenes of my family using scissors, construction paper and glue-stick; and attempting to copy pictures our teacher showed us using watercolor. It was the first exposure to creative expression that I can remember, and it helped me communicate how I perceived the world around me. -
Positive: First grade: Pencil to paper
In first grade must have been my first experience with writing. I can remember the thin, slightly darker recycled paper they used for our writing exercises, and the smell of wood pulp and graphite that came from the paper and pencil meeting. We practiced spelling the alphabet in upper and lower case and writing short sentences. -
Negative: Third Grade: Cursive!
When I got to third grade, after learning to print on the wide-ruled middle-dashed recycled paper, we transferred that same paper to communicating in a more sophisticated way through cursive writing. I can remember hating the practice of cursive, and to this day I have no interest in writing in cursive because of the difficulty it presented all those years ago. -
Negative: Home Computer 1
My parents had two home computers that I remember very distincly: the first was a Macintosh Classic, on which I can remember word processing school projects and writing letters to my relatives because my mom said my handwriting was too sloppy. Everytime I sat down at that computer, I can remember being annoyed because it meant I had to do schoolwork instead of being outside and playing. -
Positive: Home Computer 2
For our second family computer, my parents bought one of the first PowerMacs. This was a significant upgrade to our old computer, and this became a haven for my technological life in the front den of our old house; a place where I word-processed, played learning games, and eventually surfed the internet. It was a mostly positive experience because of the new tools and games I was introduced to because of this computer. -
Positive: America Online
The first internet connection at our house was a 56k modem hooked up to America Online version 2.0. This was a big step for me because it was the first time I started thinking about a computer as more than just a place for games and schoolwork. Now I could go on websites, communicate on chatrooms, and connect with my real-life friends through exploring the internet. I can still remember the beeping, static, and buzzing of the old modem as it connected to to the world wide web. -
Positive: Fifth Grade: Communications Director
In fifth grade, I was appointed Communications Director of Sierra View's Student Council. My main selling point in my stump speech: my Mom's ink-jet printer that we used to make fliers splattered with clip-art and written in comic-sans advertising various school events. -
Positive: Sixth Grade: Mavis teaches Typing
One of the first computer memories I have is learning to type in my elementary school's computer lab. The centrally-located portable classroom was a beacon on campus, a place where I would hope every day that we were going to go; mainly because if we got to go there it meant we would get to play computer games on the bank of PowerMacs that the school had after working on our typing with Mavis Beacon and other typing games. -
Positive: AOL Instant Messenger
Starting in sixth grade and throughout my teen years, AOL Instant Messenger, or AIM, became a huge part of the way that I connected with peers. I would hide away in my parents' den in our new house, listening to the familiar bell-ring of the outgoing and incoming messages, talking with my best friends who had AIM, as well as experimenting with my first flirtations with the opposite sex. The most vivid memory is meeting my first girlfriend via AIM. She lived about 400 miles away in Valenica. -
Negative: First email address
My first email address was through hotmail: Kinchapimp@hotmail.com. It seemed like all my friends were coming up with clever and funny email addresses and I wanted to follow suit with this pseudo-sexual pun on my name. However, once my Mom got wind of it, I was told to get rid of that name quick or else. -
Positive and Negative: Personal Telephone line
In early high school, my parents gave me my own telephone line for my birthday. It doubled as the line for the computer modem, and ran into my room through a gold phone that my parents bought for me for my birthday when they surprised me with the line. It was an endless source of high school gossip and late-night flirting. I still remember the number as well: 345-1869. On the other end, I still remember my Dad holding the telephone bill and yelling at me. -
Positive: First Cellphone
It was a big moment for me the first time I got a cellphone of my own. It was my junior year in high school, and my parents finally broke down, realizing they would need a way to contact me now that I could drive and had a dynamic social life. It was an old motorola with a green screen and a retractable antenna. I programmed in all my friends that had cellphones as well, and it became my main source of communication after that. -
Positive and Negative: TheFacebook
My freshman year in college, holed up in my 3rd story dorm room in Santa Barbara, I finally caved and got a facebook. My new friends, who would end up being my roommates all four years at UCSB, were already signed up and communicating with new people at school through the new social media outlet exclusive only to college students. I was holding out because I didn't want to let a technological medium dictate how I communicated with people, but eventually I realized I was missing out. -
Negative: Texting
While most of my texting experiences were positive connections with my friends and family, there was an instance that taught me that it can be a form of communication that allows people to be cruel without being face-to-face. I had a big crush on a girl who I loved talking to on the phone and texting with because she went to UCSD and I went to UCSB. However, when I finally got the nerve to tell her how I felt, she texted back that she thought we would be better off staying friends. -
Postive: World of Warcraft
In the summer between my Junior and Senior year in college, I started playing World of Warcraft with two of my roommates and best friends. We played all summer, getting hooked on the challenge of levelling up and having fun bonding through the game and communicating with other players. It was my first real experience with MMORPGs. -
Negative: World Of Warcraft
As I continued to play WOW through the first quarter of my Junior year, I realized that it took a lot of my time. I had four classes, as well as a new job that I was trying to balance that quarter, and on top of that, I was thoroughly addicted to this game. I ended up dropping out of one class, and almost flunking two others. Needlessly to say, the next summer I took summer school and didn't play video games. -
Positive: Skype
From July 2007 to July 2008, I lived in Japan teaching English. As a brand new college grad, this was an amazing experience and one that I will cherish for the rest of my life as eye-opening and just what I needed before coming back home to start my career training as an educator. While communicating through Facebook and AIM were my main sources of connection to my life in America, I was also introduced to skype. I spent every Saturday morning skyping with my family.
