Thursday, November 19, 2009

Blogging and the Phoenix PC

by Awi Mayuga (First Entry)

I used to be a prolific blogger, but during my stay in law school I've noticed that my posts have been dwindling. There are times that I would try to be my prolific self, usually during the breaks, but a month into the new semester and I'm again down to being the sporadic blogger. It is only during the times when I was feeling a tad emotional that I would log in to my blog site and post my thoughts.

Yes, my writing is usually driven by my emotions. My blog is my source of comfort. I find that I have successive blog posts whenever I was feeling particularly down... or disturbed is how I call it. Writing isn't really a big problem for me; I just need the proper impetus. I have written a lot of materials for school, for school-based organizations, for my previous work, and my previous part-time work. I wrote about movies, music, books, technology, and yes, even the shampoo I was using. But my favorite writings are those that dealt with my emotions -- and my blog has been the repository of those often unsaid emotions. Had I lived in Harry Potter's world, my blog would have been my Pensieve.

And now I have enrolled in a course that I believe would give me an excuse to get back to blogging -- to at least force me to write a blog post once a week. Since the topics would be about internet and technology, it won't be a gruesome experience. Who am I kidding? I love blogging (my using quite a few platforms -- blogger, a SixApart product, multiply, the defunct Yahoo 360 and WordPress -- is testament to that), and I'm very much interested in technology. It definitely won't be a gruesome experience... but then again, time will tell.

* * *

I'm not sure how others blog, but usually when I have a lot of thoughts in my head, I write them all and present them the way the newspaper columnists do. And that is the reason for the asterisks above. This section would be devoted to my beloved computer, which I bought in 2002.

I was desolate a few weeks ago, because my computer died. Such an event doesn't really surprise me because my computer is prone to doing that. Yet no matter how many times it happens, death really is a sad experience. Now people might laugh how I could become so sad over my computer dying, but they must understand that I am attached to my computer. I could live without television, but not without my computer. (Then again, that's not a very persuasive expression since the internet offers whatever you can find on television -- be it the news or the illegally uploaded copies of movies, music and tv shows.)

This being my first entry for the course, I thought a previous post about my computer dying would be all right, since there is no topic provided yet (at least I am led to believe that way). Maybe I could get away with sharing a part of me for now... and make up for this in my next entry. (I promise to sound more formal and "law student-ly" next time.)

Deja Vu. (written 11 November 2009)

My computer died today.

Just one file became corrupted. But with that single file, the whole system would not start.

I racked my brain for ways to revive my system. The obvious route was to use the setup CD. Scratched and worn it was, and thus rejected. If my computer had feelings, I could have sworn the rejection was done with much reluctance.

But my computer has no feelings.

The next step was to try to resuscitate the old floppy drive and the floppy disk. But both were too set in their ways, too old to help.

And then I tried to create a bootable CD, but at the last minute the writing software that came with my mother’s laptop apparently cannot distinguish image files. Bootable CD was a seemingly viable solution that was no solution after all.

Near frustration, I attempted to burn a copy of the bootable disk onto a CD. Still no sign of recovery.

Unless I find a better copy of a setup CD – possibly one that is not too scratched nor too set in its ways – my only recourse is to recover my data files through an hd-to-hd transfusion and later on install a new operating system.

It’s good that machines are relatively easy to fix, and somewhat easy to replace. I wonder if dreams are, too?

Only the future knows. but then, maybe even that has been ruined.

I am happy to inform everyone who cares to know -- which would mean just my friends, because this happy event would save them from hearing me whine about my PC not functioning at all -- that I was able to recover my data and reinstall a new system. Perhaps the new system that I've installed would merit another blog post in the coming weeks. For now, this section on my Phoenix PC -- a computer that refuses to die (or at least its owner won't allow it to) -- would appease my beloved computer.

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