technology hates me... but the feeling is mutual

i'm fairly certain technology hates me. not just the computer, but all technology. and this is how i have come that that assumption.

upon arriving in korea, i had a washing machine, microwave, rice cooker and a television for electrical appliances. all of which have buttons and directions in full korean. which means when i look at it, all i see are a bunch of symbols that don't mean anything to me. i was finally able to decipher my television (not that i would understand what they were saying anyways), my microwave and of course my washing machine (after all the lights were blinking and refusing to stop for two whole days). my rice cooker on the other hand, i have not figured out. you would think it would be easy to work a rice cooker... definitely not the case.

when i arrived at my school the first day, i was greeted with a dinosaur of a desktop computer and was expected to make the extremely slow thing work for a whole year. definitely wasn't going to happen. after several attempts at getting the internet to work, i gave up and started bringing in my own computer to work. which wouldn't have been that big of a deal except korea and apple products don't go together.

everyone who has seen my computer has been in shock and awe over it. all of my teachers, some of my students, the worthless tech guy at my school and the tech person for my internet company. once the tech guy at my school got over the shock and awe, he was pretty much worthless in all other aspects. couldn't hook up the printer to my computer and couldn't figure out why my internet wasn't work. lesson learned: macs don't go over too well in korea considering everything they use for the internet has to be done in IE (Internet Explorer). have i mentioned my hatred for IE as of late, because i truly hate it.

so i took it upon myself to figure out what was wrong. now while i am not the most tech savvy person, i know a little bit. i believe i figured out that the LAN card in the desktop was broken, making it impossible to connect to the internet. therefore i needed a new computer. after much complaining between myself and my teacher, we were finally able to convince the school to buy me a new computer.

i received my new computer today. i was very very happy considering i have an online course i have to finish before next wednesday. this was supposed to be a great day. very much the opposite. my internet is still not working. i now have the newest computer in the school and the internet refuses to work. every other computer on the network in our office works just fine, but mine doesn't work. it either takes 5-10 minutes to load a page or it doesn't load at all. either way, this still leaves me with having to bring my laptop to work everyday. we have also come the conclusion that my work computer is racist.

lessons learned:
- IE is a horrible web browser
- Macs and Korea don't mesh well together
- the tech people (at least the ones i have dealt with) in Korea are useless
- a beeping/talking rice cooker makes me feel like an idiot