My mother bought a PC at last! She said she would like to try e-mail and net-surfing. It's a horrible age, isn't it?
I visit my mother's house once a week to teach her about PCs. But she also calls me incessantly and sometimes leaves a short message on my answering machine like "Why can't I play the mahjong game."
Another message was, "The screen disappeared while I wasn't there!" (The PC had just gone into standby mode.)
One day, she complained over the phone: "Nothing has happened though I've been waiting for ages since clicking."
I replied: "Not one click, but click click-two times. How many times did I tell you about double clicking? You should write down everything, or you'll just forget it." "I'm busy watching the screen, moving the mouse and typing on the keyboard. How can I note? You take notes." "Why should I ...." We're almost always quarreling!
And it was also a long and difficult road for her to learn alphabetic typing. Although there's the alternative way of "kana" typing, my mother wanted to master the English style of typing, insisting that "alphabetic typing is more common than kana typing these days." A few days ago, I found on her desk a workbook like one for elementary school children. Written on the pages were my mother's handwritings like "sha" and "kya." She must have traced with a pencil the dotted lines of the examples many times. Logically, it's useless to trace dotted lines for typing training, but when I saw her awkward handwritings, I was moved and said "Good girl," patting her on the head.
We should always have interests and aspirations. I can't help reflecting on my negligence when I realize my mother is still studying hard even though she's over seventy!
"Why don't you join us for flower viewing?"
Yesterday evening, an old woman called out to me as I ran through the courtyard of my apartment block with a shopping bag in arms. I stopped to look around and found a Queen of the Night with two large, fascinating flowers blooming in a pot. It was really lucky to see these flowers because they bloom once a year for only a few hours. I squatted down and watched in fascination the milky-white flowers that exuded a delicate fragrance as if invited to do so by the faint moonlight. It was a happy autumn evening for me.
Incidentally, some people asked me about how my mother's struggle with the PC progressed, so allow me make a second report. She has now enrolled as a student at a PC school and is keenly learning Word and Excel. Her instructor is a much kinder, more skillful teacher than her former unkind instructor, that's me, and she says "I'm now more eager to learn!" (I'm afraid its because new instructor is a young man ...). I really cannot lose this game! (For what?)