Confessions of a broken sphere

When I was in grade six, the Johannesburg College of Education (JCE) somehow communicated with my parents that I should take part in their program for “Gifted Children”. The college presented various extra curriculum activities to children that they thought were gifted. (Up until today, I am uncertain how they drew my name from the gifted hat, or rather, how my name ended up in the hat for starters.) They offered courses that included pottery, electronics, web programming, and other activities that would interest a variety of children. At first I jumped into the electronics class. I absolutely loved that (Although I haven’t done any electronics since, I would love to get back into it), but I felt a tad out, as I was one of two girls in a class of 20. The boys would just bombard the teacher with a million questions, and after her nerves grew increasing thin, she just quit. There, end of electronics. No other courses really interested me after that. I wandered around the building awhile and found myself in the web programming class.

Starting off on HTML was possibly the most mind-opening experience I have ever come across. It felt like my mind exploded from excitement as to what was in front of my eyes. English words (American English for HTML) set up in some strange alien form shoved between brackets and random punctuation created simple and elegant websites. I would sit for hours on end just creating random websites. I started reading every single book I could find on HTML. I was 12.

I then discovered JavaScript, and soon coded my own chat client, inviting all my friends from school to join. Not a single child was as enthusiastic as I was. I then scrapped my chat room, and joined a popular chat room hosted by one of South Africa’s national radio stations. That sparked my obsession for chatting – there were days where I didn’t sleep or eat. I would just sit in front of my computer embarking in conversation after conversation. I won’t explore the consequences hereof, or any of the events that chatting has produced in my life, but I can say that it had made me conscious of what was going on around me.

By the age of 16, I could honestly say that I understood life through the eyes of any person I could come into contact with – online or in real life. Chatting has taught me how to deal with people. Yes, even the rude know-it-all characters that actually are nitwits in real life. It had removed me from the shell I once hid in to show me the colourful world I live in, and that I’ll always be grateful for.

I am still online; however, my obsession has decreased significantly. Some days I curse JCE for showing me the deep darkness of the Internet, but on most days, I praise it for exposing reality to me in a sheltered way.