(Im)Patience

After my treatment this afternoon, I hiked up the hills south of Loma Linda. Turned out to be a pretty steep hike up roads used primarily by off-road vehicles and mountain bikes. The top of the hill where I turned around afforded a great view of Loma Linda and beyond. The large white building to the left is Loma Linda Hospital. The little white structure in the middle is the physicians' office building. The low-lying building to the right and somewhat in the distance is the Veterans' Hospital. In the far distance is San Bernardino and beyond it the mountains that separate the Inland Empire from the Mojave Desert. Growing up in southern California, I took the mountains for granted, an oversight corrected by living for 14 years on the Llano Estacado—one of the largest expanses of flat land in the world. Returning now to this area, I'm constantly amazed by the mountains that rise on almost every horizon. Reminds me of Billings, Montana.

Texas Tech's internet system had a hitch in its git-along today. All day. Operations that normally happen almost instantaneously like opening an email or closing it took 3 to 5 minutes and sometimes simply didn't happen at all. Talk about frustrating! And of course, it happened on a day when I needed to receive and acknowledge assignment submissions from 20 students. Also on a day when we needed to use the system to support my conversation with my Dramatic Analysis Class via Skype. For the latter, we finally resorted to using a student's cell phone set on speaker phone—a kluge, to be sure.

I felt like I got nothing done. I spent what seemed like hours staring at the little wheel on my computer screen spinning and spinning and spinning, telling me it was tryin'—tryin' real hard. Frustrating!

So frustrating that it didn't occur to me until I was hiking up that hill that 20 years ago or so, I couldn't have done this at all. Most students didn't have computers, cell phones were unknown, and if there was email, I didn't know about it. We used the mails. "Snail mail" we call it now. As for Skype and its ability to transmit both voice and video like something out of the Jetsons (and to do it free of charge)—forgetaboutit. Twenty years ago, getting an assignment from 1000 miles away and only waiting a mere 3 minutes for its arrival— Well, it would have seemed like a miracle. Twenty years ago we didn't need the word "kluge."

Twenty years ago, I would have been on sick leave or leave without pay. Period. But then, 2o years ago, there was no proton treatment for prostate cancer.

So I need to develop some patience and remember to be thankful for the technology that makes my life possible—even when it pitches its little fits.

Treatment Count: 19 down, 26 to go.