Finding the good

My computer was in the fix-it shop for SIX DAYS last week. Six VERY LONG DAYS.

Things you can't do when your computer is in the fix-it shop:

--Find out who is sending you messages via e-mail and assuming you got them.

--Watch Office episodes you'd missed.

--Confirm that the local theater company mispronounced Jean-Francois Millet 1,000 times during its play.

--Get the agenda of the Kaysville City Council meeting.

--Broadcast your family news to the family newsletter.

--Find out what the stock market is doing at any given second and why.

--Get directions to your next appointment.

--Draft letters and stories for various assignments.

--Download pictures and send them off to interested parties.

--Locate hotels for future travel plans.

--Post new blog entries.

Things you have to do instead:

--Wait in line at the library with mostly pre-teens, for your turn at the computer.

--Get all your Internet business done in 30 minutes due to library rules.

--Listen in on the couple next to you at the computer, who are trying to get a $20 gift card for spending $100 at Walmart by yelling at managers on the phone, while sitting at the library computer.

--Clean your desk at home.

--Clean the drawers in your desk at home.

--Clean your toenails at home.

But, as with every trauma in life, good comes of trial. And this good comes just in time for Thanksgiving. Now, in addition to my usual appreciation for home, family, food, health, church and country, I am thankful for:

--Computers

--Phones of all types

--Cars

--Planes -- so, so grateful!

--Cameras

--Furnaces

--Men who fix computers

It's a great time to be alive!!

Oh, and could I add ... sunsets?!

Out of kontrol

The world would be a simpler place if "cat" started with "k" and "knife" started with an "n" and "face" was spelled "fase." At least in English-speaking countries.

Why do we even have a letter "c" anyway? And why does "s" sound like "sh" in sugar?

I'm not sure how all these variations on exceptions came to be (kame to be), but they never really bothered me until I started teaching English to someone from a totally different culture with totally different language experience. And no writing or reading at all.

How on earth can one teach the differences of the shapes like b and d and p and g, when they're so similar in looks with such a minor variation in sound? Couldn't somebody have come up with symbols that were easier to distinguish?

This falls into the ever-enlarging category of: things I can't change because they're out of my realm of control.

Things like winter coming before you're ready for it.
Or health-care legislation that takes reams of paper to print when all that really needs to be passed is law #1 -- everybody has to have health insurance and law #2 -- nobody can sue doctors for more than $x million.
Or like oil refineries that are eye-sores and safety hazards to your community but that got there before you did so you're stuck with them.
Or like effects of aging that are no fun but better than not aging.

When things are out of your control (kontrol), you just have to go with the flow. That's the lesson that I'm giving my friend from Somalia along with the English lessons. As I try to show how letters become words, like how "b-o-w-l" becomes "bbboooowwwwllll" by sounding it out, and then how "c-u-p" becomes "cup" by sounding it -- oops doesn't work -- I just shrug my shoulders and shake my head and smile and say, "funny English."

That's all you can do sometimes. Shrug your shoulders, shake your head and say, "funny world."