Technology and Me

I can't remember a time when we didn't have a computer in the house. My father is very into the computer and was constantly using it. As a child, I remember the computer being almost like a mystical creature that I knew very little about because I never played with it. As my brother and I got older, we got a Nintendo game system. We spent many hours playing the original Mario Brothers and Duck Hunt. I always thought technology was really neat but never felt that I used it much.
During elementary school, I remember going to the computer lab once a week and playing games like math blaster or number cruncher. I remember in 5th grade going to the computer lab and practicing typing on a word processor. We were tested weekly on how fast we could type and navigate through word processing systems. As the years passed, we got more and more personal game systems at home including Playstation, Playstation 2, and the Game Cube. My brother was the child who spent most of his time using the game systems but I occasionally joined him only to lose miserably to him in all of the games, including a Mia Hamm soccer game that I thought I would totally dominate.
In middle school, I remember typing up essays and short assignments. My dad was teaching me more and more about the computer and how things work and connect in it. I never really got interested until I started spending more time on the computer in high school, I started to really enjoy surfing the Internet and exploring cyberspace. I got my first personal computer as a junior in high school in order to be able to finish assignments on time and not hog the family computer.
I got a brand new Dell desktop computer my freshmen year in college. I wouldn't really consider my self a computer nerd or technology savvy but I do spend a lot of time surfing the net, talking on instant messenger and checking my email account. This year, my parents bought me a Dell laptop, I feel like I have graduated to a new class of technology with wireless technology that lets me just pick up my computer (which doesn't weigh very much) and take it anywhere I want to go.