small world

I noticed again this past week how much the world, my world anyway, has changed.

8:00 am, Guilin, China – My Mandarin Chinese teacher, Quentin, is in Guilin, China at the Chinese Language Institute. We have classes via WeChat (Wēixìn 微信) video chat for an hour two times a week.  When I speak with Quentin at 8:00 am here in Atlanta it is already 8:00 pm (on the same day) for him in China. Wǒ de zhōngwén zhèngzài gǎishàn! (我的中文正在改善!)

10:00 am, Barcelona, Spain – A little later in the morning I spoke with my wife, Francis, over WhatsApp! video chat. She is in Barcelona, Spain visiting family and will make her way to Salamanca, Spain where she is finishing up a master’s program at the University of Salamanca this summer. We talk several times every day.

11:30 am, Gurgaon, India – At 11:30am I had a work meeting with Yatender, my coworker in Gurgaon, India. We spent about 90 minutes in a Webex voice and screen sharing session where we can see the same computer screen and work on a technical issue together. We were working through why some data we receive had incorrectly calculated check digits. It sounds quite boring, but actually it was a great puzzle for us to work on together. We have worked this way together for more than years.

5:00 pm, Quetzaltenango, Guatemala – I dialed Flor in Guatemala over Skype video chat. Flor has been teaching me Spanish for a couple months now. She teaches at the Proyecto Linguistico Quetzalteco school in Quetzaltenango, Guatemala where they teach Spanish in classrooms in the early part of the day then have online classes into the evening. When I see her at 5:00pm at my home it is 3:00pm in Guatemala and she has just arrived home from teaching at the physical school. Hablamos en video de Skype durante una hora dos días a la semana. ¡Mi español hablado está mejorando!

The whole world is at our fingertips.

David