Hilarious!!! (by Todd)

Last night I was relaxing in the house after a full day in Los Izotes. Since I was a computer science major in college, one of my favorite ways to relax is to program computers. In other words, I was doing a little programming for fun.

At one point, James was reading stories to three little boys who are 5 to 7 years old, and they wandered into the room where I was programming. James, trying to model positive career options, told them that I was programming the computer, and that they could someday learn that if they wanted.

"Can you program computers?" James asked the kids. They all bounced up and down, saying sure - you move the mouse this way to go right, this way to go left. I smiled ruefully at James and said, "I don't think they really understand what computer programming means."

So James explained it to them. "Look," he said (in Spanish), "I can give you instructions." Pointing at one of the boys, he said, "Brinca," which means jump. The boy jumped. Then James pointed at the other two boys. "Brinca. Brinca." They jumped, giggling.

James continued. "'Jump' means brinca in English," he told them. "I can tell you to jump in English." "Jump" he said in English, pointing to them. After a short hesitation, they all figured it out and jumped.

Then James made his point. "Todd can give the computer instructions in a language called Java," he said, "just like I can give you instructions in English." (For those of you who don't know, Java is a computer programming language).

The little boys nodded and seemed to understand. Then one of them turned to me and said, "Tell the computer to jump in Java."

James and I must have lauged for five minutes straight. Hilarious!!!