And then my computer died

        It turned out that my computer didn't like the fact that I was using it, it seems. It officially decided to lay down and die on Sunday, the 14th of August, 2008. It has been with me for a total of 2 years and 4 months.



        The syndromes started a couple months before. It started crashing all the time, showing me a lot of the scary blue screen of death and so on. But after re-booting it always seemed preforming OK so I never took it seriously. 



        I was going to re-install the system but couldn't be bothered with the hassle while working on the exams, working on the dissertation, working on this or that..., so I put if off once and again...



        I did try at one point to reinstall the whole thing. Format the hard drive and all that annoying crap...sitting in front of it for a full night and turn it into a healthy happy laptop but i just had better things to do. I wrote to my dad asking for another installation disk because just as usual I lost the old one.



        Then came along the dissertation which I officially started and finished within a month. People usually take 2 or 3 months for it so it is easy to imagine my haste and the crammed time, reading, writing, revising, proofreading, meeting, blablabla....



        In other words..., I forgot about my laptop's health completely.



        After the dissertation was handed in I already packed most of the driver CDs away and either shipped them to Manchester or stashed them in boxes in the living room. Then came the moving which only took a day, and the house and job hunting which is still going on...



        Unpacking is still on the list and the laptop already decided it is not going to wait for my mercy any longer.



        It's going back home before I do, it was decided. Back to Taiwan where engineers would try and savage your data before trying to wipe everything clean. In the UK even though you just told them the screen is pitch black and you can't see a thing that's going on in there, they say you are responsible of backing up the data yourself. "Well, that is rather difficult when you can't see a thing that is going on there, is it?"



        "I am sorry but we do not do data recovery" is their reply.



        I am trying to install Chinese input on this very British computer for now. Then maybe just a touch of my computer focused life can be a little bit more "normal". But since I did something stupid the day my laptop crashed I am not allowed to use the administration account on this computer anymore, grounded by my boyfriend.



        So it has to wait.



        Hopefully I can be back online with my own laptop before November. Until then, everything is just chance.