It took up half the room, and was agonizingly slow, but to me, it was still the coolest thing on earth. The functions were limited. We had a few games that had come with the computer, like Solitaire and Minesweeper. I am not sure I understand the rules of the latter to this day, but I played it anyway. Mostly, I used it to type up my stories and poems. I was always creating, and typing on something other than the typewriter or the word processor was a novelty that didn't lose its thrill for years.
When we got the internet, I was amazed at all the information that you could so quickly and easily access. Of course, I was still very young-probably about ten years old, so my parents (wisely) didn't let me use it very much, as they were afraid of who and what I might be exposed to. I am surprised how much children use the internet now, though I'm sure the parental control options are better now. I understand that there are even Playskool laptops. It's funny to think that when I was young, laptops didn't even exist.
Well, I soon got hooked on the internet, and began to wonder who made web sites, and how they were made. Hence, almost as early as I can remember, I became interested in web design. In high school, I began to play around with it. I volunteered to create web pages for school clubs, whether or not they had even expressed a desire to have one. I came up with any excuse I could to develop my skills in the area of web design, and I got quite a few compliments on the sites I created over the years.
My interest in the area only grew the more I played with it, but I was not yet aware of the increasing amount of opportunities in the field. It wasn't until my junior year in high school that I began to really hear about the fact that you could pursue web design as a profession, and that certain schools, particularly technical institutes, offered courses in it. I was delighted to learn that you could even earn degrees specific to it. Naturally, I immediately made up my mind that that was what I was going to do for a living.
Unfortunately, when I told my mother that I wanted to go to school for web design, I was in for a rude awakening. She just didn't have the money to send me to school, and since the field was still fairly new, there really weren't many established scholarships for it. I applied for the few I found, but to no avail. We tried for student loans, but she didn't have good enough credit to be my cosignatory, so it seemed that my dream would, at the least, have to be delayed a while, until I could come up with money for my tuition.
With a dream to work toward, I took any job I could get, often working two or three jobs at a time for four years. I saved as much money as I could, until I could finally afford my goal. I enrolled in a technical school, studied hard, graduated two years ago, and have finally begun work in the exciting world of web design, as I always wanted. I guess it just goes to show that nothing is impossible if you put your mind to it.
