In Continuum.

In A Package

Bad news, they always come in a bulk, or a package. It's like somebody out there puts them together in a single cardboard box and sends it to your home address, as his form of surprise on a random, weekly basis. My package arrived about a week ago, and it's probably something that I wasn't looking forward to, not in any particular way anyway. I guess the person that sent it, saw it as a practical joke of course. After all, our lives are not a smooth sailing ship on a plane of glass. We get out bumpy rides and we get our soothing rides, we get our nauseous rides and we get our comfortable rides. On the days with those unpleasant rides, we just have to suck our vomits in and move on with life, because the ship is not going to stop for you to throw up over the edge. Even if the wind catches your vomit halfway down the hull of the ship and sends it back into your face, take it. That's the message that life tries to tell us day in and day out: Take it.

It all started with the horrendous Computer Science mid terms that I mentioned a couple of entries below this one, about how I screwed it up and how everybody else didn't - through their various means and ways. Not to point any fingers at anybody, but we did manage to obtain those unreal grades in the past through illegal means, so let's just not be pretentious about it amongst our peers. But last Friday wasn't so lucky for me, and I tripped badly on the rope that the Dark Enforcer has so cleverly hidden within the bushes of his computer world. It is made worse that everybody noticed the rope and jumped over it conveniently, leaving me behind in a cloud of dust, choking on the sand and my own failure. You know how it is when you are facing your own failure, you'd want everybody else to fail just as badly as you. Humans have the mentality that if they cannot obtain something, nobody else can get anything better. It's cheap, but it is natural. We are naturally cheap, and I cannot run away from that claim myself.

Enough about Computer Science, because that is a topic even I am trying to avoid, to be honest. I don't want anything to do with that subject, or the lecturer, or anything that resembles a Boolean equation or a flow chart. I swear, if anybody draws one of those accursed pictures in front of me, I am going to tear the paper into a dozen pieces and eat them. The worst part about the week didn't just end on Friday, and it pretty much lasted throughout the week until now. On top of the failure in grades, there was a failure in my beloved laptop. Something went wrong with Sophia the other day, and nobody has given me a satisfying answer to it yet.

It happened when I reached the school for my Computer Science lecture. And I swear there must have been something between the lecturer and everything bad that has happened recently. The moment I stepped into the class, Naz asked me if I have checked my grades on the website. I said yes, and I asked if he has checked his own grade. Having not been told on the previous night, I offered my laptop to him just to check the grades. The usual steps of turning on the computer was performed, nothing was amiss in the process. I unzipped the bag, took out the laptop, flipped the screen up and pressed the power button. There was a flicker of light on the screen, and then nothing. Nothing happened afterwards, not a sign of life. The operating system usually starts up within twenty seconds, but that wasn't the case that fateful morning. Something was seriously wrong with Sophia then, and she needed immediate treatment.

I called up Apple Care Center, and the guy - I think his name was Arthur - asked me of the model number of the laptop. I told him that I didn't know, and he asked me to follow his instructions through the desktop just to find the model number. But the problem was, the computer couldn't even be turned on. Amidst all the confusion and his weird Australian accent, I managed to get the case number down on a random piece of paper, and decided to head down to town straight away with my Macbook. Hannah was kind enough to follow me there, and it seems like I wasn't the only person having a bad day at the Apple Care Center. The German woman next to me at the counter had some minor problems with her Macbook, something about the ejection port and how her computer fails to start up every once in a while. She started a big fuss on how it was impossible for her warranty to have expired, and start blaming the lady behind the counter for not speaking in proper English. I half expected the German woman to take out a machine gun from her handbag and shoot every last living soul in the store. But seriously, at least your Macbook was able to start up, mine was as dead as a piece of mutton.

And so it is, Sophia would be spending a week in the Intensive Care Unit, under the supervision of Apple technicians, and hopefully they'd be able to figure out the problem without wiping out the data in the computer. I am prepared for the worse, but I don't suppose there is any harm hoping for the best. The worst part about having my Macbook stowed away in some forgotten warehouse in the Apple Care Center, is probably the fact that I am back on a PC. My sister took this chance and started bragging about how stable her Sony Vaio is, and she gave me a whole lecture of how bad my Mac is, and all the sentences that ended with "I told you so!". It pissed me off, and I did have a little less faith in Apple afterwards. But as compared to this PC I am using, Apple is still lightyears ahead in terms of technology and style. It feels like I am driving in a car powered by steam engine. It just doesn't work here anymore.

Aside from the problem with my dead laptop which I am going to get back in a week, give or take, there is also this other issue concerning certain readers of my blog and its content. A certain post has provoked certain members of my social group, and it might have sparked off a few unnecessary stares and a few unnecessary looks. Though both sides do not hold me accountable, I still feel a little bit guilty about this whole issue, being blown absolutely out of proportions. The parties involved know who they are, so I shall not be giving names - as per my tradition. I'd just like to say that this issue has been on my mind ever since I was being told about it last Saturday, and a few people have been unhappy with the fact that the secret has been spread out in the open. Names were not mentioned in that post, nor were there any obvious hints to point out the individuals involved. People who do not know a squat about the incident are not going to figure out what I was talking about. The issue here really is about how people - who shouldn't have been told - found out about it.

The setting was in a comfortable room on a comfortable Saturday afternoon. I was told about the story not because I was curious, but it was just being told through the mouths of my friends. Being deeply affected by it, I decided to write a fictional account of the non-fiction story. The people that told me the incident never had any malicious intents, neither did they tell it to me because they wanted to gossip about the personal lives of fellow classmates. Though their reasons are unknown to me, I don't suppose they are capable of such tactless things, people should know this better than myself. They were concerned about the situation, and it was a harmless slip in the tongue by the individuals involved. Respect for the personal incident clearly went out of the window, but it was not revealed for the sake of harming you as a person, but rather protecting you in a warped sense and unknown reason. It may all seem a little abstract here, but I just need you to understand that they - and myself - are not trying to hurt anybody, whatsoever. I hope you - yes, you - would understand. I do not wish that a single post of mine would cause any friendships to be broken, or any hatred to be born. We still have a long way to go being in the same community, so let's just be friends and try to understand our intents. Have a little respect, and a lot of love.

So that is the end of the bad week that I've had, with those thoughts swirling in my mind, it has been a little hard to concentrate during lessons. But I guess it was a comforting thought to hear that they are OK with each other, and the psychology test was - to put it in Jonno's words - piss easy. Like the advice I give to friends all the time, you can't get any lower than rock bottom. I hope that this is going to be a turning point of things for me, and it is possible to move out from the gloom in any given situations. So perk up, and let's just face the rest of the music with the courage I had before - or at least the stupidity that got me through the last semester. Not to forget though, a whole lot of respect and love. Respect and love, remember that.