System Requirements

It's been one of those weeks that my wife would refer to some relative motion of the planets to explain the way that machines and technology have fought against me. As the officially anointed "tech guy" at my school, I have spent the better part of the past three weeks connecting this to that, chasing down this piece of software and eliminating this or that bug from this or that system. All of this I do with a smile on my face and joy in my heart because in another version of my life I am still repairing modular office furniture for IBM.
Things at home have been just as frustrating. The power cord for my laptop has become useless unless it is held at a certain angle with a very specific tension in order to charge the battery. My bike had a flat tire on Wednesday morning. Machines at all levels of complexity are failing on me and I am scrambling to keep up.
But this is also the first week that I am getting back to teaching kids. As challenging as I found last year's class, I am already enjoying my new position as prep teacher in a palate-cleansing-sorbet-kind-of -way. I don't teach twenty-four kids. I teach three hundred and fifty. I get to meet all of them. I get to learn all of their names. I get to teach the whole school. I am especially fond of the kindergartners. This week all we managed to get through was the rules and procedures for the computer lab, but they were excited about that. And they were all excited to see me after school too. "Hi Mister Caven!" they squealed from across the yard as they headed toward the gate at the end of the day, waving furiously.
Kindergartners don't care if the scanner you are trying to install is compatible with the operating system on your CPU. They want you to know what their mother's name is, and when they need to go to the bathroom (which is often). I'm even getting hugs from the third graders. I know that it won't always be like this, but I know that the machines will start working again soon too. It might be the motion of the planets, but it's much more likely that it's the first weeks of school.