In The Middle of Midterms??? Really?!?!

LAPPY D. LAPTOP

September 2009 - December 2010

It is with great sadness, wailing, and nashing of teeth that I woefully announce the Death Of Lappy, My Laptop. He was a great little laptop. Sometimes. He served me well, enabling me to turn in assignments on time, get long-distance cooking instructions from my Mom via Skype, and watch free and I'm sure perfectly legitimate (*shifty side eye*) movies that were still out in the cinemas. I say "sometimes" because he could also be a bit belligerent at times, mischievously placing the cursor in the middle of what I'd just typed, so that when I looked up at the screen my entire essay was fragmented into a jumbled mess, for example.

I went to turn on my laptop a few days ago, only to notice that it wouldn't power up. Oh, the battery's probably dead. No problem, I thought. Let me plug in the power cord, and I'll be good to go!  But no, that wasn't to be.  I quickly realized that (one) the laptop still wouldn't turn on, and (two) the charge light remained off because (three) apparently one of the connector pins that is supposed to make contact with the power cord had somehow broken off.  After the initial waves of extreme denial washed over me, the stress of having no laptop as I entered this full-course midterm, half-course final exam period grabbed hold of my rationality.  I threw my hands up in the air dramatically, threw my head back, and muttered a few expressive Trinidadian expressions (ahem) that shall not be translated here. Because, of course, that was going to help the situation... My laptop (who I am purposefully imprinting a human-like personality upon so that I can better make sense of this random ridiculousness) thought long and hard before deciding to Die. Right. Now. In. The. Middle. Of. Midterms. Before, of course, I had the chance to back up important files.  Nay, fine reader, Lappy could not wait until the December break to break my heart.  He chose to just up and leave me, taking all of my schoolwork with him.  You see, in order for me to get those files off of my laptop and onto a memory stick, I'd have to be able to turn the computer on. And since Lappy has made it very clear that that's not about to happen - my beloved files remain waiting to be rescued from cyber purgatory. When I collected myself after my mini tantrum, I gathered the remains of Lappy and headed over to Robarts library.  The Information Commons Help Desk at Robarts library has always been very helpful to me. The number of times that they have seen me in recent months means that I am now on a first name basis with a couple of the folks who man the desk. Hmmm... I'm figuring that that should have been Clue Number One that my laptop was on its way out. On one particular occasion I managed to pick up a particularly nasty piece of malware that slowly wormed its way through my computer's entire system. I turned the computer on one morning to be face with the White Screen of Death.  No-no, not the Blue Screen of Death - for that is something entirely different. What my computer had was a white opaqueness that covered the screen, rendering me unable to access any of the files. I couldn't even get it to shut down without force-quitting. But I digress... the young lady at the help desk was super-friendly, and took a look at Lappy for me. Unfortunately, there was nothing that she could do for him, because the help desk deals with software issues only.  My laptop obviously has hardware issues.  However it was really nice of her to even look at it for me.  I suggest that anyone with software laptop issues go to the help desk and book an appointment. The folks there are  pretty much versed in all things software, and go above and beyond what's required of them to help out. As for Lappy, I am going to hold off on my first impulse to cremate him via vengeful bonfire, until I can think of more appropriate funeral arrangements. Le Sigh.