The Computer Who Went to Junior High

The Computer who went to Junior High

fiction
edward w pritchard

Reader-see first Statistical Prediction of the Future- Feb blog same author and The Beats-Gabby, and The Hippies-Beverly

Gabby was back in Junior High School but it was her super Computer, nicknamed Craybo after the Cray series computers, that was having issues adjusting to his new school and was becoming overly sensitive to criticisms from his fellow students and teachers. Despite the fact that her very expensive computer required maintenance and a complete electrical rebuild after only one semester back in the ninth grade the project was a huge success and Gabby was able to have the results of the study published in a prestigious Ivy League academic journal. Even after Craybo's rehabilitation however, Gabby and Craybo took several months to reestablish their working relationship; for Craybo having learned some human sensibilities and adaptive skills in the project in Junior High directed his misplaced anger at his fellow students toward his programmer Gabby and indirectly Craybo's co-programmer Han Peile, Gabby's mentor, who had passed away over two years ago.

Gabby had been getting burned out at her job as a programming and network specialist at the Kent State University School of Business and requested a three months sabbatical to do specialized research in the "field". A large Akron, Ohio corporation [ see The Blues Singer who couldn't carry a tune-same author] funded a three month project for Gabby to, by using various unorthodox methods, develop human sensibilities and emotions in artificial intelligence. It was a very lucrative grant and would pay Gabby a very handsome salary on top of her Kent State salary. As an aside in our story, Perhaps it was divine intervention because Gabby badly needed money at this time in her life and she never before had been the recipient of much good luck financially. With the grant however, she was able to devote her full attention to the grant project and both her and her super computer Craybo, although Craybo was now represented by his more mobile self in the form of a very expensive laptop, jumped into the project head first as Gabby was inclined to do. After about a week of moving the lap top computer around to various locations and situations around Kent Ohio, Gabby became impatient with Craybo's progress in learning and developing human sensibilities and decided to mistrust gradual and incremental improvements and try something drastic.

That's how Gabby and Craybo found themselves in Akron, Ohio in an inner city-junior High School in the Fall of 2010. Gabby as a teacher's assistant and Craybo as the new student in the classroom, having entered two weeks late into the Fall term.
end part 1