A New Earth: Reflections from My First Class
Posted: Monday, March 03, 2008
by Barbara Clark
http://www.spiritedstrides.com
As many of you know, tonight was the first class of the discussion of A New Earth on the web with the author, Eckhart Tolle and Oprah and about 380,000 people from around the world. I signed on at my assigned time of 8:40 ET and waited patiently for class to begin. Playing on the screen was a rerun of a recent Oprah show where she was discussing the book with her audience. The reception was great and I was feeling quite confident in my computer's ability to receive the broadcast without a glitch. I quickly called a friend who is also taking the class, as I couldn't see him! He said he was already in the class, too, so we chuckled at the thought of not seeing each other and quickly hung up since the class was about to start. The great thing about a web class is that we all get front row seats, so I was excited with anticipation of being a part of this historic, world event. Front row seats indeed; assuming our computer and the technology cooperates!
There's a section to the right of the screen where participants can send a question to them, so I immediately did. I have no idea whether my question will make the broadcast or not, but I am curious to know what they think. My question went something like this: The impact that this class has to create a new Earth is enormous, as is the potential for this class to feed and bolster your egos. How are you handling this?
Shortly after I submitted my question, it all stopped. Eckhart Tolle's face was frozen on my computer screen. So I came here to write about it. I actually feel like I'm cheating as I'm supposed to be in class right now. It's not that I skipped it or asked a friend for the notes, but it feels funny as I want to be in there and not here, but I figured I may as well make good use of my waiting time.
At 9:47 p.m. I got the picture back on the screen to see a woman named Erika from Germany who had called in using Skype. But it all froze again. Maybe it's the Chicago winters, I chuckled to myself. Another moment of hope came around 10:00, but it quickly froze up again. I've restarted several times but it isn't looking good.
There is only less than a half hour to go in what is a 90 minute class so I have missed a whole lot. No student would wait this long for their professor to show up in a real university setting, I thought. Perhaps I should have used this time to finish the book, which I still haven't done. But there is that possibility that I might get a glimpse back into the class once more, so I wait. I can always go back and look at the archives, which they promise to put up on her website tomorrow and one can even download it on iTunes. But there is something exciting about being part of something in real time, live...especially something as enlightening as creating a new Earth.
I waited it out until 10:30 when the class was supposed to end and found that I got back in, but the audio skipped like a young girl playing hopscotch. Our teachers kept us a bit beyond the end of scheduled class time by a few minutes, so we might be late for our next class. I didn't get much out of these brief moments of study, so I look forward to seeing the download tomorrow and creating my own Earth....even if it is a rerun.
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