Things I overheard while talking to myself

Loathe as I am to quote Spring Awakening, a musical I hate, the title of that song pretty much describes my situation.

My laptop is likely kaput. As I was heading back on the T from D&D last night the water bottle I have in my backpack exploded, and I didn't notice at first because it was on my back and I couldn't feel it. It got the right side of my laptop, where the "on" button is, wet. So it won't turn on. I discovered this at about midnight last night. The light indicating that it is plugged in will come on when the power cord is in it, but the computer itself will not boot up. I took out the battery, put it back in, plugged it in, unplugged it, etc., nothing. I knew I was fucked.

Because I couldn't sleep well I got up around 6 this morning, and got to the Staples in Government Center as soon as I could. I basically hung around until they opened at 8 and went straight in. They told me that they're going to have their tech come in later today and give me a call about what he can do, but so far they think that saving the hard drive will be all they can do. But then again I told them about 5 times that saving the hard drive is the main priority, and even if I have to get a new computer as long as I have my files I'll be okay. I really don't want to have to start from scratch on my writing projects again. I also had to plunk down $70 on the spot just to have them look at it. They'll probably have a final word on it by Sunday. I'm prepared to use my credit card, which I hardly ever use, if I need to buy a new one, which will probably put me out about $300, but I don't have much choice and it's a lot better than the alternative. Such is what the modern life of a college student is -- you really do need a working computer these days.

The worst part? The other day I had the feeling that I should back it up, but didn't. Fuck. I should have listened to my gut. Oh, and the manufacturer's warranty expired last month, but they probably wouldn't cover this anyway. Water and electronics apparently HATE me.

I am so gonna need a beer, perhaps several, by the time today is over.

I once again appear to be upholding the rule that I can't go on a trip anywhere with something going spectacularly wrong at some point. Case in point: I'm still at the public library, waiting for AAA to show up and jumpstart my car, since I accidentally ran down the battery and can't start it!

I'm still trying to figure out how I did that, but I think I might have done something like left the lights on but not noticed, since I didn't move outside of my car and just worked in the front seat on my laptop, so I couldn't have heard the "lights on" indicator. D'oh! At this point I think I've done just about every blockhead automotive move in the book except for popping a tire.

And *late breaking update* it turns out that they sent a truck to Hardwick (which is more like our house!) and not Harwich on the Cape, so I have to wait even longer. The guy on the phone said the "do this crap" all the time, but it makes me want to bang my head into something. And before this I had been having a very fun day. *headwall*

I'm stuck in the driveway. This absolutely indicates that I need snow tires, and, in fact, after the AAA guy gets here and we get me out (we might just have to resort to pushing me with two people) I'm going down to Amherst Tire and I'm buying snows. This is ridiculous!

And of course we didn't get plowed after the snowstorm because it "wasn't deep enough"... never mind that the real problem is the ice. Dad could get out this morning, but he has a truck that is a lot heavier than my little Saturn. Mom and I literally spent about 45 minutes trying to get me out before I said "screw it" and we decided to call AAA. Even if we just have another person to push we'll probably be able to get it out. It's the damn lip at the front of our driveway (it goes up to the road) and the fact that my car is so light that's doing this. If I had more grip on the front tires this would be no problem.

So yeah, screw the day I had planned, I'm going to Amherst Tire as soon as I get out of here. And incidentally, North Carolina is staring to look really appealing...

They declared my car a total loss. And I really loved that thing. It really, really sucks that it was probably the fact that the airbags deployed is what did it in. So the things that saved my life killed the car. *sigh*

But perhaps as a good sign there's an ad in the paper for a blue 1998 Honda Civic LX with 122,000 miles on it for $3200, below the book price. It's a manual transmission, but I think I might like driving stick if I give it a little time. Plus this thing supposedly gets 32 miles per gallon. And I've always sort of wanted a Honda, though it's too bad that I've had to go through 2 cars to get to one.

So maybe there's a light at the end of the tunnel, though I am pissed off that this keeps happening. Hopefully all this will mean that the rest of my life will be free from this sort of thing, since I think this is already more than my fair share of this crap.

(And if it seems like I'm doing this rather quickly it's out of necessity. Unfortunately getting to school and work both depend on having a car, so essentially this is an ASAP situation)

Well, an email from the dojo about the annual Kendo Federation dues was enough to light a fire under my ass and make me write an email to the sensei explaining where the hell I've been for what must be two months. Damn me for putting it off for so long when I'd gone over what I was going to say in my head at least a dozen times.

I think he'll understand, since I'm kinda new at this whole balancing work and life act, and the main reason I hadn't mentioned to him was that the day the class is happens to be the same day as the time I usually spend with my dad, and considering I'll probably be moving out of the area for college it's precious to me, really. I know it kinda hurt my dad to have me running off on Saturday and the Thursday class isn't really an option, so it really was between a rock and a hard place for me.

*sigh* It's a hard compromise, but I promise I'll pick it up in college, which if it's in Boston has a great Kendo club. Still, I don't like this situation and feeling like I'll hurt someone no matter what they do. Still, I think I'm making the right choice, when I'm in college I'll be able to go off to these without sacrificing time with my dad. Still...

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