Technology is an amazing thing

In this world we live in, technology can be a bad thing. So many people have their faces glued to their phones while they are at dinner. Other people can't go two seconds without some sort of "major" life update on Facebook. (In quotations, because many FB life updates are not major!) Even blogs which connect people can cause drama.

But in many ways, technology is an AMAZING thing. I experienced one of those ways last night.

My high school English teacher has been teaching for 50 years! Can we just take a second to applaud that? 50 YEARS. Say what??? She's an incredible human being and to recognize that my old school is naming the English building after her.

Back story: I was in the International Baccaluareate program, basically a really international intense version of AP classes. Since it was just starting, my group was small. I had all the same classes with the same 23 people from sophomore year on. We spent every waking moment together, and needless to say by graduation we were done! We've kept in touch on Facebook, but with the exception of a few I hadn't spoken to many of them since then.

Mrs. Olin was our teacher junior and senior year. She taught us to really think in our philosophy class. Introduced to me some of my favorite books senior year. I definitely consider her to be one of my teacher inspirations. So when a friend of mine had the idea to set up a Google Hangout so that we could record messages to her, I was down.

And here's where technology is amazing... the hangout let us connect people from literally all over the world. One of my friends ended up in Japan. He was able to join us on his way to work! Another friend was in Denver, one was in Baltimore, and one was in NYC. In our typical IB way, it took us a minute to figure out what we could tell our teacher, but it was wonderful being able to catch up with all these people that were such a huge part of my life for such a short while.

I am sure Mrs. Olin will laugh her head off when she sees our video, but I hope she loves it to. I certainly loved making it!

Ever caught up with old friends? How was it?