Falling Far From the Tree
Tomorrow, I will re-enter a group I belonged to back in college, before it became cool: Mac users.
UPDATE: Oops--I didn't realize I had actually posted that sentence. I'm lucky it was even a complete sentence. I started writing and it was time to leave, so I thought I hit save, but accidentally hit post.
Anyway, my old Dell laptop, which my parents bought for me as a gift to celebrate passing my doctoral exams, has served me well (that is, with the assistance of a number of beleaguered souls in India). I wrote my dissertation on that laptop, carrying it back and forth to Davis Library at UNC on the S bus every day (ah, the S bus . . .); I conducted my job search on it and received the invitation for my on-campus interview here on it; I developed materials for about 30 courses, including 16 at my job here. It was with me just about every day from March of 2003 on.
But now it's time to think about a successor. My old computer is slow and doesn't really work with our fancy home network, which does things I don't quite understand the appeal of, like playing iTunes through the t.v. In thinking about what to buy, I had to confront the reality that at our house, the Windows operating system receives no technical support. Or rather, it receives only very grouchy technical support (those people in India were comparably very cooperative, if unintelligible) as my husband is a Mac professor--and that is in the deeply religious, zealous, even evangelical sense that the early Christians were "professors."
Thus, in the interest of marital harmony, I've assented to making the switch. I used a Mac in college, and when I say that was before it was cool, I don't mean I was ahead of the curve--I mean it wasn't cool at all when I did it, didn't even have a hint of future coolness. I'm not sure how I feel about switching to a brand that now has such a distinct identity. I am not sure I am cool enough for my new computer.
UPDATE: Oops--I didn't realize I had actually posted that sentence. I'm lucky it was even a complete sentence. I started writing and it was time to leave, so I thought I hit save, but accidentally hit post.
Anyway, my old Dell laptop, which my parents bought for me as a gift to celebrate passing my doctoral exams, has served me well (that is, with the assistance of a number of beleaguered souls in India). I wrote my dissertation on that laptop, carrying it back and forth to Davis Library at UNC on the S bus every day (ah, the S bus . . .); I conducted my job search on it and received the invitation for my on-campus interview here on it; I developed materials for about 30 courses, including 16 at my job here. It was with me just about every day from March of 2003 on.
But now it's time to think about a successor. My old computer is slow and doesn't really work with our fancy home network, which does things I don't quite understand the appeal of, like playing iTunes through the t.v. In thinking about what to buy, I had to confront the reality that at our house, the Windows operating system receives no technical support. Or rather, it receives only very grouchy technical support (those people in India were comparably very cooperative, if unintelligible) as my husband is a Mac professor--and that is in the deeply religious, zealous, even evangelical sense that the early Christians were "professors."
Thus, in the interest of marital harmony, I've assented to making the switch. I used a Mac in college, and when I say that was before it was cool, I don't mean I was ahead of the curve--I mean it wasn't cool at all when I did it, didn't even have a hint of future coolness. I'm not sure how I feel about switching to a brand that now has such a distinct identity. I am not sure I am cool enough for my new computer.
posted by Tara | 1:09 PM
2 Comments:
Woo-hoo. I'm a little jealous. This does NOT, however, mean that I would be amenable to a non-essential mac purchase in my own household.
Mac is SOOOO much easier. Even without technical support (my husband is a PC guy), I can do so much more on my Mac--video publishing, slideshows, photo stuff--than I could even consider on a PC. Plus, my little UltraMobile PC that I bought for work has been nothing but trouble. Welcome--you'll love it!
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