Living in the future!

Late last fall, toward the end of the semester, my friend and I were sitting in the office grading exams.  The nature of our banter led me to look up at her and exclaim quite emphatically, "We are living in the future!"  We laughed at that and settled back into grading after the requisite comment about flying cars.

That idea of living in the future stayed with me though.  My present was once the future of a younger me.  I wish I still had the questionnaire I filled out in elementary school about what I thought my life would be like in 2000.  All I really remember is being uncomfortable with the question of marriage and something about having a robot maid.  Robot maids and flying cars, while seemingly obvious items of desire, seem useless and silly to me now.  All I really wanted was to ride my bike everywhere, and I've been moderately successful at that.

I wonder what the rest of the questions were and how my answers to them have panned out.  There's no way I could have seen the future that actually happened.  Some of the things I use everyday were pretty new back then (PCR) or unheard of (internet) while other things I do (crochet) are very old fashioned or are a mix of old and new technology (baking bread in a bread machine).  This future that I live in is interesting though, and I feel like I never have enough time to experience and learn and be.  So, as part of this experience, here are some words from my head, illustrated from time to time with photos.

One of the many surprises the young version of me couldn't have foreseen is that I would grow to appreciate both insects and flowers, two things I did not enjoy at the time of the questionnaire.