The Original Because of Love

My computer is dying!

I think it will be gone some time very soon. Every day I think, "This is it!". It is still hanging in there, but I know it won't be long.

I have prepared myself. I MADE Josh go to the store to buy an external hard drive and he stayed up very late last night when he got home from work backing everything up. I have a major fear of losing my pictures, church stuff, teaching stuff, wedding stuff, and all the other random things saved to my computer. (I know that I will never need my wedding stuff and maybe not my teaching stuff again, but I would be I would be very sad if they were gone forever.)

I have had this computer since I was in college. Let me tell you the story:

Date: October 31, 2001
Location: University Court Apartments, Indiana Wesleyan University
Time: about 4pm

I had worked weeks on a big 20+ page paper that was due for one of my methods classes. I knew that it was an "A" paper. My computer and I had spent a lot of quality time together in preparing a great paper that I felt very good about. I was almost done and ready to hand it in the next afternoon. All I had to do was finish the conclusion, do a final read through and spell check and I was done! I remember that I was so happy that it was going to be done because Josh had a basketball scrimmage that night and I really wanted it done before I went to that. I sat down and spent about an hour finishing it up. I saved it one last time and then went to the kitchen to get a drink before I printed it out.

When I walked back into my room the computer screen was black. I started to panic a little. I moved the mouse around, hit some buttons, and nothing happened. Now I was really panicking! I remember calling Erica (my roommate) in, she looked at it and said, "Did it get unplugged?" We checked and no, it was still plugged in. Then I thought, maybe we blew a fuse or something, but I looked at the printer, which looked fine and all the lights, clocks, and other random things were fine. Erica said, "Steph, I think it is dead." "NOOOO!!!!," I screamed as I started to cry.

I just sat there. I didn't know what to do. I couldn't call Josh. He was at the gym. (Like always!) I didn't know if I should try to write my paper again, or if I should just call my professor and tell him what happened.

A little later my parents called to tell me that they were about an hour away in Fort Wayne where I was going to meet them tomorrow for my birthday. I sobbed the whole story into the phone. My dad told me not to panic and that he would drive the rest of the way and see if he could help me. Erica tried to help too by calling a guy that worked in IT that she said may be able to help me. When he got there he messed around and found part of my paper! I was very thankful but he only found 11 pages so that meant that half of the work was gone. I decided that I would see the paper half done and not half more to go!

When my dad came he brought his laptop and told me that I could borrow it to finish my paper. That way I wouldn't have to drag everything to the library. Plus I knew that I was most likely going to be pulling an all nighter!

I decided that I was going to go get myself some bread sticks (99 cent Nobal Roman bread sticks that were basically a staple of my diet for 5 years), stop by the gym to watch some of the scrimmage and tell Josh what happened, and then I was going to get to work.

I started working at about 8pm. I finished around 4am. I went to bed, woke up about 2 hours later and then went to school. (I was in my JPY year so I spent the mornings teaching at a local Elementary school and then had classes in the afternoon.) After school I came home and printed my paper out. I handed it in and started to tear up again. (I was so tired and relieved that it was done!) Dr. MacKracken (my professor, probably my favorite from college) asked if I was ok. I told him yes, and told him part of the story. He gave me a hug and told me that he was glad that I worked so hard on it, but I should have called him and he would have given me an extension. ("THANKS!", I thought.)

Later that night, after a full afternoon with no time for a nap, Josh and I drove up to Ft. Wayne to celebrate Danielle and my birthday. We had dinner and then went up to their hotel room to open presents. I then sat and watched my sister open present after present, but mom told me that I had to wait for mine. At the end of the night, I was given a brand new computer.

Now, seven years later, I sit typing this on that same computer. It has been good to me. However, I think that our remaining time together will be short and hopefully a new laptop will soon be my companion.

(Please, Josh! I NEED a computer!)