Material Girl: a Four Hour Journey

4:33 pm, on a train to Osaka by way of Kyoto. I have been without a home computer for nearly six days. It hasn't been as life-changing as I thought it would be. I do spend less time ruining my eyesight for the numerous tv shows that I follow. I've cooked for myself three times this week, which is already twice more than usual. Having no money to eat out also encouraged my volition to use the food in my fridge.

By the grace of Kim-Chi, I made an appointment at the Apple Store's Genius Bar in Shinsaibashi, Osaka. I was nervous, and not only because I would be traveling to Osaka alone, maneuvering through unfamiliar railways. I hadn't been able to specify that I needed the Apple Store to speak some English.

After a nerve-wracking trek to the Apple store I got a professional's confirmaton that God was watching out for me. Not only did I make ALL of my trains and arrive right on time, but the young guy dealing with me can speak the English. This was after telling me that he didn't speak English, but could understand a little. "First I'm going to check the hard drive. Do you have a backup? Okay, it will be five or ten minutes" qualifies as speaking English, in my opinion. I would know, you guys. I teach the language.

Right now it's 6:33 and I'm sitting at the Apple store. Typing this helps me look busy and not so pathetic. I was hearing an old school robot voice and thought that someone was playing with the word processor function that reads text aloud. It recurred at uneven intervals, so eventually I turned around. It was a man with one of those voice boxes. He barely looks to be fifty years old; it makes me wonder what might have happened (assuming his condition is not related to tobacco).

The lady next to me is learning how to use her iPod Touch properly. If I understand correctly, she was saying that it wasn't working properly. The store employee basically went through all the iPod functions and told her why nothing was wrong with them. It reminded me of my mother, who also refuses to read manuals. She's never had to go to a store to lean that she wasn't using a device properly, so that's one up on the lady customer. My mother is blessed with quasi-patient family members who read manuals and answer her questions.

Ingen, my personal Genius Bar staff member, just told me that there is no damage to the hard drive and the expensive buy-a-new-computer mechanisms seem to be fine. The problem likely deals with the logic board. I nodded like I knew exactly what that meant, but the only part I cared about was how a logic board by itself would otherwise cost upwards of $700. For a flat repair fee of about 450 American greenbacks I can get my computer fixed within one week. If it turned out that dear Ingen-san was wrong and the repairs would be more expensive, I can simply cancel the repairs.

Then he turned my computer over to take the battery out again and something flew out of it, skittering over the counter. "Eh?" said Ingen-san. He peered into the laptop's underside. "What was that?"

"Er, rice," I replied in Japanese, pinchng the offending grains between my fingers. There was no waste basket nearby, so I dropped them in my purse. Ingen laughed at me.

7:56 pm and I'm on the train back to Kyoto.I entrusted my computer to dear Ingen, and will return sometime next weekend to retrieve it. Despite the lure of being in the heart of Osaka's shopping district and in the proximity of a Krispy Kreme I opted to head home. I am exhausted, friends. Given my workload this week (and how I had a jam-packed weekend), not having a computer to keep me up late was a blessing. The blessing masqueraded as a terrible, expensive disaster, but in retrospect I'm not sure I would have survived the week otherwise. Going to bed by 10:30 every night save one has left me enough energy to teaching five classes per day and play with students during all of my breaks.

The title of this post should tell you that I had originally prepared to tap out a diatribe/expose on how this experience has taught me that I need to simplify my possessions. You know, something about how I was going to get rid of half my stuff and take better care of what I keep. As I close this post I'm aware that maybe it's more about the lengths to which I'm willing to go for my own comfort (Internet in my own home) and the stress I'm willing to endure for one of those possessions whose hold on my life I'm supposed to resent.

8:34 Now I'm going home from Kameoka station. I'm going to cook the steak I have thawing in the fridge, which I purchased on a whim back when I had money.

Computer Murderer

I had about three blog posts typed up and ready to post yesterday . It would have been glorious. One of these posts was about how unsteady my life has been recently. I have terrible mornings, then teaching is great, then something goes wrong in the afternoon. A day starts off wonderfully, then something terrible happens, then it ends well. For example, I had written about when I went to my alternative junior high only to realize that the library was closed. I thought that meant I had a day off, so I went home. Then I learned that though the library was closed, the school had been open on its third floor. In the original post there was a lot more wit and self-deprecating humor, along with a transcription of my thoughts (goig home had made sense at the time) and the conversation I had with my supervisor on the matter. Up and down, up and down. Don't worry, I still have a job. 

You may wonder why I'm telling you about a blog post rather than post it. The reason, good friends not only explains why I wasn't able to call my mother on Mother's Day, but also is related directly to that rollercoaster ride of emotions, the battle of Good Day, Bad Day. Yesterday started off well. I went to Paulette's shakohachi performance, I had TGIFriday's for lunch, church was great, then I learned I had won a "color changing fiber light" in a raffle at the morning's performance. Much needed for my home disco parties, to go with my lava lamps, glowsticks, and supply of Hallucinogens. Then, in an accident of devastating proportions, my laptop got wet last night. I was carrying the device while attempting to multitask (wash dishes, do laundry, bathe, make lunch for today) in preparation for a busy week. I got too close to a tub of water. In a nightmarish, fumbling, slow-motion moment of horror I lost my grip on my laptop and dropped it into that tub. It shut off immediately. I haven't cursed like that since I pursued the guy who stole my purse, back in college. Thank the Lord that I had just backed everything up on my external hard drive.

I did not give up, friends. I happened to have my blow dryer and a vacuum with a hose nearby, so I suctioned and heated and prayed. I remembered that Margaret had not yet returned from her trip to Australia, so I used the spare key to break in (I felt like such a creep) and use her computer to search the term "save waterlogged laptop." The internet told me it could be done by popping all the keys off the keyboard, drying it as best I could, and packing it with desiccants. Another suggestion for waterlogged iPods and iPhones suggested immersing the device in uncooked rice, which would absorb the moisture trapped inside.

I had both rice and desiccants. I spent about thirty minutes removing the keys from the keyboard, vacuuming at every step. Then I grabbed some bubble wrap and dumped rice into a pile. I smushed my laptop into that grainy bed, scooped more rice around the sides, put desiccants packets on the naked keyboard and put rice over that, then sealed the whole thing up and left it overnight.

Perhaps this technique only applies to computers that haven't been dropped into water. As of 7:00 this morning there was no sign of life. I spent another thirty minutes standing outside of Paulette's apartment to access her WiFi through my iPod, just to make sure that no urgent emails awaited, and to find out if it was going to rain or not.

To top it off, I left my pencil case with all of my flash drives inside on the bus this morning. I have one green pen on my person. There's a chance it will turn up at the lost and found, but I need to research how to ask for it, first. Basically, Bad Day has been winning since 10:24 p.m. on Sunday, May 9.

1st Addendum: I just read a testimony from someone whose laptop revived, slightly handicapped, after drying for three days. I've decided to see if I can Lazarus my computer. There maybe hope.

2nd Addendum: About two hours after I had finished writing this, my junior high got a visitor. While this wasn't unusual I was nevertheless startled to hear my name. The pricipal of the elementary school next door had brought my pencil case, which the bus driver had left with her in case one of her students had dropped it. Yes, I ride a schoolbus to work sometimes. Though the event was embarrassing it seems as though Good Day hasn't given up fighting just yet.

Done Like To Got

I don't think most Americans believe that there are dialects in our country. Instead we talk a lot about accents and ebonics (which I do not think is a separate language, but is easier to say than African American Vernacular). We may admit that Creole is a pidgin language, or that Cajun can be nigh-incomprehensible. Still, when I was asked if America has dialects like Japan, for a long time I’d say no.

I attended some friends’ joint birthday party a few weeks ago. Two of the attendees (one of whom was a birthday boy) were Australian at the time. Now I don’t know, but then, they were definitely Australian. Anyway, we inevitably started poking fun at each other for our funny speech patterns and weird customs. I’ve always thought that Australians had the advantage; who can understand them when they start using all their slang and abbreviations? Plus, American media is popular everywhere, and therefore the anglophones in other countries are frequently exposed to American accents and slang. With everything from rap to Grey’s Anatomy (yeah, I consider those things opposites) reaching the Land Down Under, how could I compete with cuppas with brekkie or baby-eating dingos?

Thank you, Lord, for giving me a country-born and bred grandmother, for so many reasons. 

A couple of years ago, at the end of one trip to see my aunt’s family in Dallas I was sitting in the back of the car. We were all packed up and ready to go, but at the last minute we realized that our dog was still running around. She was quick to come when called, so someone dumped the animal in my lap without ceremony. My grandmother leaned over and addressed the dog.

“Why, Tiger,” Grandma exclaimed, “you done like to got left!”

Take that, Australia.

Close proximity to my grandmother and spending the greater part of my life in the Midwest has left me with a certain fondness for country accents, but it wasn’t until I was able to stump the Australians with my pronunciation and twisted grammar that I was genuinely proud of it. I may not know what a combie is, or how a man could chunder, but if someone is fixin’ to tan my hide I sure as heck know to hightail it outta there 'fore I git walloped.


Edit: The subject of American dialects intrigued me so much that I wrote a short essay about it for an adults English conversation circle. There was a pretty good turnout at the conversation session; nice to know that the attendees find dialects as fascinating as I do. While doing research for the essay I ran across this site, and it made me homesick.