Losing the last 3 years

I don’t consider myself to be the most tech-savvy person out there. But I know my basics. I know that when my computer is making noise louder than a blow dryer, it’s time to send it in to get it looked at. I also know that when the company who looks at it tells me “nothing’s wrong” and send it back, that they are the crazy ones, and so I send it back. Again and again. They aren’t happy with me, but I’m not too happy with them either, so that’s OK, we’re even.

Needless to say, my computer has been out of commission on and off since December. As a nursing student, I’m sure you can understand how ridiculously frustrating this is. No computer in class, no computer for research, no computer to type notes! OK, so my mom was letting me use her computer, but STILL, it’s not mine!  I’ve sent my laptop in three times now, backing up all material onto an external hard drive every time, just in case. Or so I thought.

This last time I sent my PC in, it had been gone for about two weeks, and I needed to take a look at my resume and create a cover letter for a job I was applying for (of course, I hadn’t had a chance to sit and do it earlier, so this was all the night before the application was opening up online!). So I go to the external hard drive, and click on my folder, and… “wait, where is everything?” flashed through my head. I searched and searched. I was finally able to mutter out the words, “It’s gone, everything’s gone,” before my brain went into total melt down mode.

EVERYTHING! All of my notes, projects, assignments, EVERYTHING from the last 3 years of nursing school – GONE. Not to mention everything from before then, including a book I wrote in high school. My pictures were there, my music was there, and my documents were gone. I could have sworn I double checked before I sent my computer in. But alas, there was nothing. I spent a good hour sobbing on the bathroom floor, sick to my stomach.

With the help of my fabulous mom, we were able to re-type my resume from a hard copy, and write my cover letter, and get to bed before midnight, but the sadness wasn’t going away. My only hope was that the PC fixer-upper-people hadn’t wiped out my computer entirely. But they were supposed to be fixing it, so they probably had.  My computer arrived the next day, UNFIXED! As frustrated as I was that there was nothing done to fix my computer (AGAIN!), EVERYTHING WAS THERE! What a relief – an answer to prayers (even my grandma was praying for my files to get retrieved!).

Needless to say, I went out and bought my own hard drive, and am triple checking everything before sending my PC in, hopefully for the fourth, and hopefully, last time! Word for the (now) wise: back up everything twice. You’ve worked to hard to lose it all because your computer decides to kick the bucket!