Last Updated on May 12, 2021.
It is late at night on a Saturday evening and I am in my recliner working on articles for this blog. I’ve been pouring through my files (files in the cloud these days) and I happened to come across one of my college papers. The research paper that I wrote many years ago, was written mostly on paper instead of this 13″ little Mac that is sitting on my lap now. Back then, I still wasn’t very confident on my very, very first Windows computer in 1996/1997 so most of my organization was many piles on the floor with a lot of hand notes. After all, I don’t think I had ever used the internet but once in my college career. Two of my friends got email and I thought they were SO COOL! They didn’t have very many friends to email though because few of us had even thought of having our own dial up.
My research included going to the Med School Library at the University of Cincinnati. I would look up articles on the fancy computer there and it would direct me to the periodical I needed so I could go and copy the article at the copy machine. That itself cost me a small fortune as I had no less than three reams of paper when I was done. I just had to be sure I knew what I was going to be writing about. I couldn’t complain though b/c my freshman and sophomore year at Capital University in Columbus still had CARD CATALOGS!
My precious final project was saved on a floppy disk. I remember how hard it was for me to understand how those “hard” disks were still called floppy disks even though they were much newer and not floppy at all! Sixteen years later, I’ve found my paper in a file within Dropbox. How awesome! Who would have thought I can find something so fast at my fingertips. Even when I didn’t know I was looking for it!! Will my kids be storing their work in outer space?
Little did I know how much writing research papers would help me with what I am doing today! Research papers – not essays with opinions. I wasn’t always quite on track with staying on course with my professor’s lines of thinking. Those who know me well are definitely not surprised 😀 I love to research from my recliner and I’m always putting other’s thoughts and opinions up against my own experience, knowledge, and testing. That’s just one more thing that makes me – me!
