I'm not a tech person, but I have been
learning / researching some things since getting my tablet. And
acquiring knowledge / consuming information in any form is always
good. I think I would've had an even bigger learning curve if I'd
gotten a laptop because the Windows 8 operating system is a bit more
complicated. Android, on the other hand, is pretty simple like a
phone except it has a bigger screen like I wanted.
First, I wanted to be able to access
the desktop versions of websites instead of the mobile versions, and
that turned out to be pretty easy. I learned that chrome is a better
browser to use on a touch screen than firefox. The tabs are laid out
better and I can actually click things and select them and get
drop-down menus that I can't get in firefox.
That leads me to the second thing –
clicking. I got a stylus so I'd have an easier time with icons and
buttons that are small and close together. At one point, I thought I
was going to need a mouse - which you apparently can use with either
bluetooth or a micro usb adapter (because the usb port on the tablet
is smaller than regular usb ports). I even looked for a micro usb
adapter and found that no stores carried them near me. Luckily,
amazon had them, but it turns out I might not need a mouse since I
discovered I can do everything I want without one.
The one thing that is a little more
difficult without a mouse is copying and pasting. You can copy and
paste by pressing down on the text and holding it for a few seconds,
which highlights it and brings up the clipboard menu, but I had to
fuss with it a lot to get it to work. Another simple thing I learned
was how to right-click, which you do the same way – by pressing
down and holding until you get the menu options for what you want
(like opening something in a new tab).
What else? I explored the office app,
Kingsoft Office, a little bit. I sent my resume to myself to test it
out. The layout looked different on it than it did on my computer, so
I tried to fix it by adjusting the margins. For some reason, I still
couldn't get the lines of text to end at the same places, but I guess
that's a minor issue. If I have to really concern myself with formal
documents, I'll be on my pc anyway. But having some kind of office
app on the tablet seems like one of the basic things to have so I
can, at the least, open certain things. I can read pdf docs in it
too, so I don't even know if I need a separate adobe reader app.
Maybe not.
The google play store is where I
download apps from. I didn't even know there was a google books app
already installed, lol. I knew ipads had ibooks and I knew there were
kindle and nook apps for people who didn't have actual kindles or
nooks, but google has its own book app too. Cool. So I downloaded one
e-book so far, a 2.99 novella that was a companion to On the Island,
which I recently read. In doing that, I learned how to make the book
readable offline and how to navigate through other options in the
app.
And speaking of navigation, I did a lot
of navigating through online manuals, including one for the tablet
itself, since it didn't come with one. I had to learn what all the
icons meant, where the settings were, and how to organize the
homescreen and whatnot. I never really used bluetooth before now, but
it's pretty nifty for connecting the tablet to other devices
wirelessly. It's how I use the separate keyboard I got for it. And my
bf was able to send photos to me through it from his phone (without
having to email them). So that was cool too.
In other goings-on, I started work at
the school bookstore. I'm not getting many hours, and the boss wasn't
kidding when he said he'd have around 200 employees. I've never seen
so many people working in one small place at once like this before.
But I guess it's not a major problem. As far as the work itself goes,
I really enjoy it a lot because I'm on my feet the whole time,
there's more to do to keep busy than at many of my previous jobs, and
I'm dealing with books! For someone who loves books and organizing,
it's fun to go through the shelves and have an intricate system like
the one we have for textbooks. I wonder if I'd had a chance to work
in a bookstore at a younger age, would it have led me to a different
career? One in bookselling? I guess it doesn't matter. I've gone
through that stuff in my head before. All is good the way it is right
now for me.
I got my textbooks after my shifts
because I saw they were there and I figured I might as well. With an
employee discount, it'd make sense, right? After I did that without
thinking to research prices elsewhere beforehand, I found out that
our bookstore is so overpriced, I could've done better with amazon
than with the bookstore, even WITH the employee discount. Kinda
crazy. But I ended up renting my statistics books which I wouldn't
have been able to do on amazon without a prime account. So maybe it's
not a big deal that I got them where I did when I did. Technically I
could order my health promotion book from amazon for cheaper and
return the other one to the bookstore, but I don't know. If I knew
for SURE I'd get the employee discount at the end of employment like
my boss said, I probably wouldn't. But I don't know for sure because
of the fact that he didn't schedule me for any shifts this week. I
hope he emails me back soon. It's so hectic dealing with 200 people,
I don't know how he does it.
Another small d'oh moment I had
money-wise recently was seeing styluses for tablets at the dollar
store after I already got one from office depot for almost $14.
Really? I could've gotten one for a dollar? I suppose sometimes we
all overspend on certain things, but I can't fret over every penny.
Especially when there are better and more important ways to spend my
time. Sometimes time is as valuable a commodity as money.
And speaking of time, I'm gonna have to
get into the swing of a new schedule soon when classes start next
week. It sometimes seems scary when you've gotten so used to not
having classes or homework or papers or anything all summer and you
think 'how did I do it before?' But somehow you manage, right? And
you still find time to fit in outside things like family and social
life. So I might be a little busier. So what? I can do this.
Statistics on Tuesdays, health promotion on Thursdays, hopefully GFIT
on Mondays and Wednesdays, and very part-time work in between. Yeah,
I think I'm ready.
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