urbandruid

I'm sick. I have a cold.

And somehow, saying that doesn't remotely convey how horrid and miserable I feel. My throat is killing me, my head is all stuffed up, I ache everywhere, all I want to do is go back to bed and sleep for a week to ten days, however long it takes for this shit to go away... and i have to go to class. hang out in the library for 3 hours, go to psych, takes the bus home.

and as if that didn't suck enough, my keyboard is starting to die again.

headdesk.

Too much about computers and their issues lately, not enough about me.

I'm pretty tired- school has been running me a little ragged lately, but doesnt it always? Im losing more keys, randomly now, seems like- the far end of the numbers, obviously the apostrophe is on the fritz again, and earlier today, the shift keys took a powder. Pretend the previous bit was in parentheses, those are screwed up too.

I have my first Abnormal Psych exam tomorrow, so I need to study a bit tonight. I'm not really too worried about it, though- I know this stuff. At least most of it. I think my first Geology exam may be next week. That one could be tricky- there's a hell of a lot of info in the first couple chapters.

Speaking of Geo, it amazes me how things can be so interesting in lecture- fascinating, actually... and then I go to do the reading. And I immediately feel like nodding off. Or like I'm about to nod off. For those insomniacs on my flist, I highly recommend this one: Earth, by Edward Tarbuck and Frederick Lutgens. No, I am not making up those names. I swear. This book is stupefyingly boring. I think when we get there, these two will have somehow managed to make even volcanoes boring. And I love volcanoes. In the sense of neat really destructive stuff I wouldnt really want to live near... Yeah. You know what I mean.

My book for Abnormal Psych is only a little bit less dull, but I expect it to get better with the next chapters; tomorrow's exam covers the boring chapter on the history of psychology, the chapter on the medical & psychodynamic models of psychology, and the one that's been putting me to sleep most recently- diagnostic tools & research methods. More specifically, the research crap. Maybe if they had examples of real studies that were a little less lame... Oh well.

Mentally, I'm hanging in there. Not doing too badly at all, actually. School is stressing me a bit, but I think its more in the range of normal stress than... well, than what happens when I'm not coping so well. The thing with Anna and her keyboard has really been throwing me lately, especally as it's so sporadic, and now the problem seems to be spreading. I can never count on everything working when I boot her up- I can't count on anything working. That's frustrating, and annoying, and on days when I'm coping less than brilliantly, it can be enough to have me bursting into tears. Stupid depression.

I'm not writing as much as I usually do, because of Anna's issues, and I think thats a big part of my stress and general feeling of crappiness. I do the bulk of my writing at the keyboard, for a number of reasons. One is convenience- most of it gets posted somewhere online, so already having it on the computer is a good idea.

Also, my handwriting is awful- no, I mean really really bad. It's a hand/eye coordination thing, and for some reason I'm not so fabulous at those. Every time I see the handwriting analysis guys on CSI, I chuckle, because I'm pretty sure they'd read mine wrong. I don't think it's changed much since, oh, junior high... Half the time I end up not capitalizing things, not because I'm going the e.e. cummings route, but because of the way I learned to write so that I could see it. Probably started in grade school, when they had us dropping the tails of letters down from the line... well, I wanted the space they were taking up for the next line. I drove my teachers crazy.

And this is my printing. My cursive- do they still even call it that? is atrociously bad. Like the printing, I can make it neater if I try, but that takes a lot of time, and mostly I don't bother. When I have to sign receipts and stuff, well... you can probably make out the C at the start. Other than that...

I guess the other thing is kind of related to the handwriting, which is that even when I'm not taking the time to make it really neat, it still takes me longer than most people to write stuff down. This is only mildly annoying for things like lecture notes- I usually just let those get really sloppy, and if need be will copy them out again later. But for stuff like writing, a keyboard has always been the only thing that could ever keep up with the speed of the thoughts in my head, exactly as I want to put them down. By the time I finish writing a sentance longhand, I'm five lines beyond it in my head, and struggling to catch up.

All of which makes writing a more frustrating experience than an- You know, its weird. It really isnt a leisure activity- I don't write like I read, or watch TV or movies- not just because I enjoy it. I write because I have to. Even if it's just a couple lines every day, maybe even every couple days if I'm really busy, even if it's just a couple lines scribbled in a notebook bitching about stupid crap like the vending machines at school- evil, money eating things that they are, and apparently some of their soda is really old and nasty, according to my honor society buddies.

Whatever, however little it is, I have to write stuff down. And lately the mediums for doing this have turned into a whole mess of frustration on their own. But I need to write. When I can't, when I haven't at all for ages, weeks, months, I can turn into a pretty horrid person. Not as bad as I am when Im in pain and without drugs, but just all tense and stressed and... I don't know. Its kind of hard to explain. Sometimes it'll feel like there are too many words stuck in my head, like I need to open a valve and let some of them out.

I suspect I'm going to end up using a lot more paper before the computer thing resolves. I'll just have to get used to going slower.

In other news, Sam is still being Sam, cute and occasionally very annoying. Last month she got into Moms closet- which, okay, no problem, though Mom would rather she didn't stay there forever. But we have one of those big plastic things you put rolls of wrapping paper in, right? And it has a lid, with a compartment where you can put your ribbons and your gift tags and whatnot. And Sam, clever little thing that she is, knocked over the container, and the ribbon thing must've fallen open, because the next time Mom went into her closet, she found... ribbon.

Ribbon everywhere, those spools of it that come like yarn, just wrapped around themselves. Well, they weren't wrapped around much except each other when we found them, and I discovered that however they put those together at the ribbon factory, it can't easily be duplicated by humans. I think the cat had a blast, though.

She's grown tons since the last pictures I posted of her. I have newer ones, and sometime (hahaha, right, in my *cough* spare time) I'll post them. She's gotten bigger, really just filling in. And that disgusting kitty-tuna canned food the vet suggested we put her on, has made her fur all sleek and shiny and OMGSoSoft!

She sheds like mad. White fur for all your dark clothing shedding needs, grey fur for all your light colors. :)

This is coming to you from Morden, again, and I can't begin to tell you how much that doesn't thrill me.

When last heard from, I was going to get ahold of the name of my grandparents' tech guy, give him a call, and see if he could help with Anna's keyboard. Well, we got ahold of the grandparents, and their tech guy has a day job now. They had someone else come out to their house- someone random from the phone book, I gather. It cost them $100 just for the guy to walk in the door, and Grandpa wasn't too impressed by him.

So much for that. So I said, okay, let's call my aunt and uncle who live near San Francisco. They're easily the most tech-savvy members of the family; Grandma only calls me for her tech support needs because I'm not long-distance. Anyway, they're both incredibly bright programmers who have laptops. I didn't figure they'd know exactly how to fix it, since they're more on the software end than the hardware one, but I figured they'd have some clues.

They do, and said clues aren't good. First, my uncle said that the problem I'm having could be caused by any number of things. Second, he said that while replacing the keyboard might do the trick, it's not something he'd do himself. That he's tried replacing hard drives and such in laptops, and has ended up with a mess. Apparently, under that sporadically working keyboard, it's a mess down there. Cables and ribbons and stuff. Now, I was already put off by Gateway's instructions for do-it-yourself laptop keyboard swapping, involving as it did a.) opening the case, b.) prying large chunks of the computer apart, and c.) the necessity of using something called a "grounding glove", which must be anchored to a non-metallic surface at all times...Think it was non-metallic. That'd make more sense.

Anyway, I was like, ...yeah, if he doesn't recommend it, I'm sure as hell not gonna try it. So. Bust on that. Aunt and uncle are doing good, though, which was good to hear.

Next we took a look at the computer repair places in the phone book. I was sort of hoping one would jump out at me, in the sense of "I remember that place, they're good" or "I think that's the place x friend took their laptop, and they fixed it." No such luck. Ended up calling the Fresno State bookstore, because their computer department used to do repairs. The computer people weren't working on the weekend, but the person we talked to said she thought they could at least tell me what was wrong with the computer, if not actually fix it. So Mom called them on Monday. They don't do repairs, but "you could try CompUSA or Best Buy."

Yeah. I took Anna to CompUSA a while ago, when I broke the SysRq key. I'm pretty sure that they super-glued it, and their manner when I dropped the compute off and picked it up, didn't fill me with confidence. So I'm not sure how I feel about them maybe taking apart the case- okay, yes I do. I don't feel good about it at all.

Which kind of leaves Best Buy.
( Except... )

It's doing it again. I replied to one of the comments to my last post, & it took a lot longer than it should've... & I don't hve time to keep c/p'ing, got to get ready for school. I'll try & fix stuff later, if the stupid keys are working again. (& there're some I've got to c/p, b.c. 'again' is 'gin' if I don't. So glad the grbge guys got me up erly, so I hd time to do LJ posts tht look like greek, or some kind of scry plebe code.

Dear anna/shadowtech keyboard,

I love you lots. Please work. Please just freaking work.
argh, I don't hve time for this. truly do not. 'a' key is making kinda sticky sound no hen I try to use it, others don't, but they're still not working either. Seriously, wtf?

frustrtingly yours,
Me