I have already finished two of my courses within the Skills Development Programme by now - Introduction to Linux and Presentations (working with Open Office Impress).

As I knew quite a lot about the theoretical side of Linux usage like: "Why Free Software" and so on, and I had just started working on a Linux-based PC, I thought the first course would be a piece of cake for me. Just to set the things in order. I imagined something like the Introduction to Word, which I had attended before. But... all of a sudden, the teacher asked, "Have you ever used the terminal?" and I was thrown into the deep, I just didn’t imagine we would be doing things like this. "Don’t worry, my colleagues (who were two very nice women) were very afraid of Linux at first but now they say, "Windows is in a way simple"". I wasn’t afraid, I just didn’t understand where I was. It is funny how men always suspect a kind of fear of technology in women’s nature. I just needed some proper introduction, I know I am intelligent enough to understand most of the lessons which I might come across. So, in the Introduction to Linux I have missed the introduction itself.

You would say that I am not happy with this course. Not at all. I’ve got to know that the terminal exists and some ways to cope with it, I have a list of useful commands. And for sure I know how to present it to people who don’t suspect they might get to work with such a thing.

The second course was a completely different thing. I knew how Power Point presentations look like, what I need presentations for. I was expecting having hard times with the teacher, being too sophisticated for me and I was ready to fight for my rights. And, it turned out to be a piece of cake. It was very funny - like playing a game - adding and modifying text into slides, inserting graphics and creation of slide show. Various fonts, colours, forms, backgrounds. The funniest part were the animation effects. So funny that I made the teacher and the computer freak out. I tried what would happen if a whole paragraph was made to appear letter by letter in the slide show - don’t make this experiment, it’s extremely boring and it’s difficult to cancel the whole activity. But it was my cup of tea and now I am looking forward to making a real presentation for a real training.