Typing practice

In my new two bedroom apartment, there was a big living room connected with a small dinning room, a kitchen, a bathroom and two balconies one is connected with main bedroom, the other one is connected with kitchen.

I live in the bedroom with a balcony. The other bedroom, I set up as a reading room which have all my books and a bed that I can lay on it when I am reading. I love to read. After work, I stayed in my reading room a lot. Also, when there is a company to come, reading room can be a guest bedroom.

There were simple maple wood furniture , a TV set and a VCR borrowed from my sister’s in the living room. The coffee table which had never been used for coffee but for everything else. It was a glass toped table. It was clean and clear. It was surprisingly different because undernease of the glass top, there was an artificial keyboard. It was a peace of white paper were drawn a computer keyboard. It was attached to the glass top so people could see the keyboard. On the glass top, on the letter “F” and “J”, there were two peace of clear tape so I could feel these two letters and practicing typing on it.

In Haikou city, I worked as a administration doctor in a private boarding school. I got paid well enough which almost were 4 times than I got in the mainland hospital. I also got a free apartment to live. But I didn’t feel my life there were stable. I always had the feeling that some day I will have to leave. So I didn’t spend too much money for furniture and only got few I needed for basic living. I didn’t have a computer. That was in 1998 in Haikou, China.

Working as school doctor was not terriblely busy.

The desire of learning to use a computer and the need for typing all the documents I had to write is the powerful motivation for me to learn and practice typing skill which was not common as my generation in China. It was not something I had to do when I worked there. Everything was in paper and in hand writing. People actually evaluate your hand writing, but your typing speed. There was a professional type writer in every organization or company. There was not the really needs for a doctor to learn to type. It was the self motivation, the eager to learn the new technology, the … that is how I practiced my typing skill and where I started to learn the use of the computer.

I did practice typing on the coffee table everyday. I borrowed a book from my sister which taught me how to use my fingers. I sat there and followed the instructions to practice for at least 20 minutes a day. At the beginning, it was hard. I had to look on which finger suppose to go where to make it right. And again, there was no screen for me to see if I did correct or not.

I did fine. After a few weeks practice, when I went to my sister’s house to use the real computer keyboard to type, I felt much better. I still needed to look on the keyboard, but much quicker though. I kept practice on the coffee table during the week where I had no computer to use at work. I practiced on the computer during the weekend when I stayed in my sister’s.

I will never forget the coffee table in Haikou Jingshan School. I will never forget my sister's where I actually learned how to use computer and the internet.

I think I was the first one in Jingshan school learned how to use the internet. That was because my sister, her house had the internet at that moment. She taught me how to use it and let me go to her house every weekend to practice and search for information. I am lucky having such a wonderful sister and the opportunity to get involved with this modern technology.

I remembered once my friend Yvonne and Deanna went to my apartment, they were surprised with my strange coffee table. They got the idea right away but still were so different with the world they came from. They are Americans.