To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer.~ Farmers' Almanac, 1978
On June 9th, the unthinkable happened. My computer broke down. With it, gone were my collection of school-related papers (147 of them, at last count), my simulations (97 of them), my picture collection, my letters, my heart my brain my everything (errrrrr okay now I'm overdoing it a bit).
Before it died completely (yes, only at the last moment) I backed up everything in CD's and flashdisks, but me being me, I still lost some documents.
A friend of my sister's helped me to revive it, but it only lasted 2 weeks before it died on me again. This time, I went to a young guy who helped me set up my desktop two years ago. He said I needed to reinstall the Windows, so I did. After a week or so, again, the computer broke down. I decided to take it to an authorized service centre then, paying Rp 220thousands just to hear them saying what I had already known: The Windows has to be re-installed.
Hell no, I told them, I'm not gonna let you re-install the Windows only. I want you to check the memory, the hard-disk, and everything mounted on the motherboard. All in all it took me about 1.5 months without my computer, during which time I took on a rather big translating project. I used my nephew's and husband's computers to finish the project, and sloughed off school work because doing my school work bordered on impossible on computers that are not mine. For instance, I used Mathcad and Matlab, both of which cannot run on my nephew's and husband's computers. I was also fussy about the keyboards on those two computers, being used with the light keyboard of my own computer. Typing 200 pages using a hard-to-use keyboard was hardwork. Gyah.
Anyway. I am hoping that my computer will work out fine from now on. Just this morning, suddenly it restarted on its own when I inserted a flashdisk. My heart almost stopped. There was a spyware in the flashdisk, and believe you me, now a spyware or a computer virus scare me the way swine flu scares the whole nation. I proceeded to kill the spyware, and cradled my computer dearly. Do not die on me again, you hear me? I love you too much and I suspect that I cannot live without you.
I do not fear computers. I fear the lack of them. ~ Isaac Asimov (1920 - 1992)
