Thursday, March 14, 2024

Tuesday, March 12, 2024

How I began working my way through school (and college)

 In the 1950s high school meals were made in large batches from scratch, so when I knew they'd be serving my favorite meals, I'd join the volunteer students who helped serve and then I could eat as much of my favorite food as possible for free. (me- on the Academic track - got to know a lot of the kids on the commercial track that way. 🙂  

They also pointed out that I could skip the last weeks of school before Christmas by joining their training classes that trained kids to work in stores during the Christmas rush. What's not to like? I got paid plus got the store discount to buy presents for my family. And I had a large family.)

And I used that training to work part time all throughout my college years, even in grad school.

Since I had a year of secretarial training my first year of college, I then had the skill to part-time join a typing pool and then was promoted to operate the very first IBM word processor - the MT/ST Machine. 

 MT/ST (Magnetic Tape/Selectric Typewriter), which connected the Selectric typewriter with a separate magnetic tape drive. Magnetic tape was the first reusable storage medium for typed information.

Friday, March 1, 2024

Driving while unborn

 I have a traffic ticket. I happened to turn right on red -- which is legal in California - but got caught with a traffic camera.  

Two things. The beginning of the pictures they captured showed me turning at 0 seconds, which means it was still yellow (also legal in California) AND the actual ticket sent to me showed NO money owed -- because it put my birth date at 2026. In other words, I was driving a car but I hadn't been born yet.  

The person at the courthouse gave me my ticket back and told me that, if California hadn't contacted me with a bill in a year, I was home free.  

(that year ends in a week - and I'm still waiting for a bill)

Monday, February 26, 2024

Using spreadsheets and other things

 I was forced to take a secretarial course after high school. The only way my parents would let me to away to college (a Junior College/ now called community college) was if I promised to take something that I could use to get a JOB! So I did. Typing. shorthand. accounting and spreadsheets. (and chemistry, believe it or not- the male teacher hated having 'girls' in his chemistry class.)  

Although I transferred to an academic track my second year there (without telling my parents), you know what? I've Always used those secretarial things. (except shorthand. forgot most of it) 

Got a part time job working my way through college as a typist and also typed other student's papers. 

Have used the accounting and spreadsheet knowledge all my life. Very helpful during the times I have to figure out IRS Income Tax reporting. (got my spreadsheets up on my computer right now, calculating my deductions and expenses because of being a writer)

Monday, February 19, 2024

Secondary character takes over the story

 And there I was, writing away, and suddenly a super talkative secondary character appeared. Now, I'm quiet and shy. 

How was I going to write this 'different' character? 

(first readers loved this character more than my they did my main character, so I did him right. But obviously the main character needed more work. How was she going to sparkle with that annoying secondary character around?)

Tuesday, January 30, 2024

Adventures in Grad school - German

 My grad school wouldn't accept my undergraduate German language credit, so I had to take German again in grad school.  

Easy peezy, right? nope. The teacher walked into the room talking in German and she wouldn't stop to translate. Instantly I was treading water there and had to work desperately hard to keep up in that class or else I'd not get my graduate degree.  

We were living in college married housing and I told my husband (also a student) that for that semester, I wasn't doing any housework or cooking. It would be Study German All The Time for me. (yes, I passed. Whew!)

(Some years ago I had met my husband-to be in German class. He was great in languages, so his German credit was accepted by the grad school.)

Saturday, January 13, 2024

Why did you become a librarian?

 I was in Junior College. (nowadays they are called community colleges and offer two years of college at a reduced rate). My mother insisted that I could only go if I learned a skill - so I signed up for the secretarial course, but took as many academic courses as I could. 

In my English class, along with all the writing assignments (and typing other people's papers because I could type - yay Secretarial course), the teacher talked about choosing our profession. I had taken those tests that supposedly told you what profession I was suited for, but it came out vague, right on the line between MEN's professions and women's professions. 

This professor talked about - if you liked this you'd be good at this profession and if you like that you'd be good at that profession, but if you were interested in EVERYTHING, you should be a librarian. Lightbulb moment. !!! I focused on becoming a librarian - working part time in the college typing pool because - Yay secretarial course.