Techno-stupid

I am a college student. Have been in school for going on 9 years, starting with community college and now in grad school. Have experienced a measure of approval and validation from being a college student. Let's face it, I'm good at it. Not so much like being a mom, especially to teenagers, where my one hope was that I could get them to adulthood without them becoming axe-murderers. They both have reached the age where their insurance premiums have decreased, and as far as I know neither of them have bludgeoned anyone to death with sharp or blunt instruments.

But I digress. Normally in my life I feel fairly intelligent--I can discuss politics fairly fluently, can read (and sometimes understand) regression models in soc. journals, and even know enough to always refer to Snopes.com whenever someone sends me some scary e-mail about psychopaths waiting in the parking lot at Wal-Mart.

But the modern computer world? Now, that's a sure-fire way to make me feel as stupid as poor old Crystal-the-kitty, may her furry little soul rest in peace.

So Hotmail just ate another really important e-mail before I could save it, and I'm fed.up.to.here. My kids have convinced me to switch over to gmail--they swear it's wonderful--but what a hassle! I've got years worth of folders and messages that I can't move over easily, if at all, not to mention getting address books changed all over the place.

So my Beloved-Geek was trying to get me onto Outlook or something, and talking about Exchange and servers and POPs and who the heck knows what else? And I'm looking at all these options and thinking, can't we just keep this simple??? Is that really too much to ask?

Sigh. I hate computers, I really do. Except when they work. And when they make my life work. Which is most of the time. But right now I'd like to take a baseball bat to the GD thing, because they make me feel really, really dumb, and that is not a place I like to be.