Still Learning

 I like to consider myself one of the more technology-comfortable teachers in my school district. I'm not intimidated by new technology and I will spend lots of hours playing with this new app or that new tool, looking for ways to use them in my classroom. I've gotten good at trouble-shooting problems when they come my way, and there is rarely a problem that I can't fix with a good old-fashioned Google search. 

So it was a little puzzling to me last Friday when I tried to save a file on my school computer and I got an error notification. The pop-up window said I no longer had access to my file on our school's network. I thought it rather odd, and assumed that somewhere along the line I probably missed an update. I ran the updates through my computer and shut it down for the weekend. Things were clicking along nicely on Monday morning until I tried to save another file...NOPE. Still no access. The school's network is out of my range of responsibility, so I sent in a tech request for repair and made it through the rest of the day.

This morning, I wandered into school and made my way to my classroom. I passed one of our tech guys on the way and he followed me to my classroom to check out the problem. I logged in, tried to save a file, and up popped the error message. He frowned a little and said, "I've never seen that error code before. I'll check it out and be back in a bit."

Roughly 10 minutes later, he returned...with another tech guy (!)...and said, "Well. This is a first. It would appear that your machine is currently holding SEVEN TIMES the amount of data that is typically allotted in our district." (For the record, he spoke in lower case, because he is nice and calm even when he has a very good reason not to be. I added the all caps because WHAT IN THE WORLD HAVE I BEEN DOING HERE is what I want to know.) 

I kind of laughed nervously and said, "Um, what?" 

He said, "And they're all videos and pictures, which are very large files." 

There was a pause while we blinked at each other and they waited for my response. It took me a minute, but eventually my light bulb turned on.

I'm the Student Council Advisor, and I've been in charge of student activities for about 8 years or so. In that time, I have made (among other things) 8 Homecoming Nomination Videos, around 40-45 Candidate Introduction Videos, 3 Senior Banquet Videos, 3 graduation compilations, and 8 Spring Recognition Videos. Each video ranges anywhere from 10 - 45 minutes long. And while I use a program in the cloud to house those final productions, every single photo or video clip I've used in the last 8 years was being backed up somewhere on our network drives. Because it never occurred to me to delete them when I was done. 

Oops. 

I guess the network finally reached it's limit last Friday. I had asked for another download and it promptly locked me out. So Tech Guy #1 said, "Start deleting." Tech Guy #2 said, "We'll go see if we can get you back into the network...we'll be back later. 

Feeling a little sheepish, I started opening folders. 

I have a lot of folders. The folders all have sub-folders. And those sub-folders have sub-folders. And once I started looking, I found video clips EVERYWHERE. I started dragging massive numbers of files to the recycle bin. Did you know that your desktop Recycle Bin actually has a limit for how much you can put in it before it makes you empty it? Well it does. When you reach a little over 3,000 individual items, it makes you empty it. You read that correctly...and I emptied it three times.

Somewhere in the first hour of deleting, I found an interesting folder in my drive. It was filled with sub-folders whose names were simply dates. When I opened one, it took me a few minutes to figure out what I was looking at. As it turns out, every time I connected my phone to my computer, it automatically backed up every photo and video in my phone to my school computer. There were 63 separate folders. With photos and videos in every single one.

Oops.

But here's where the story starts to get a little bit happy. Back in 2016 when my Mom died, I connected her phone to my computer one afternoon. I was trying to download her passwords so Dad and I could start reconciling her accounts. I had no idea that she had 783 photos and videos in her phone that automatically backed up to my computer. When I opened folder 08/15/16, I opened up my Mama. She was suddenly everywhere again - in my kitchen, on our farm, holding my babies, reading them stories, laughing and smiling and whole and beautiful.

The next twenty minutes was pretty much just me crying at my keyboard, but my heart was just SO happy. Isn't life just so strange? What a wild and wonderful way to launch my Thanksgiving weekend. 

When Tech Guy #1 came back, my computer was lots cleaner. The network was still skeptical though - it wasn't letting me back in easily. Apparently it's low on tolerance for fools like me. It took him another twenty minutes and a million overrides to get me back in. But by the end of the day - I was back in.

When the whole mess started this morning, I was feeling pretty guilty. I meant no harm, of course - I make those videos every year to celebrate our kids and show off their accomplishments. I sure didn't mean to strain the network, so thank goodness my friends hold no grudges over my carelessness. They know my heart. 

And like Tech Guy #1 said to me before he left, "Even in the hard lessons, there is good. Think about that - if it hadn't locked you out, you might never have found your Mom's pictures."

There is good in the hard lessons. You just have to look for it. Happy Thanksgiving!