// Basically what the title said.
- Sunday Night, Nov. 16 -
It's Sunday night. Right before I go to bed I decided to update my Windows laptop. I click "Update and Shutdown" and went to brush my teeth while I kept my laptop plugged in charging. I come back to a black screen so I figured the update must've been completed. Naturally, I closed my laptop, put it away in my backpack and went to bed.
- Monday, Nov. 17-
The time is 10 am and I'm sitting in my math lecture. I needed to sign up for something real quick so I pulled out my laptop. Turned it on, saw my lock screen, and before I could do anything the screen turns black. "Huh, that's odd." I thought. Pressing the power up button——nothing happens. Tried holding the power up button——nothing. Acquaintance next to me quipped that a similar thing happened to their friend's laptop and it was a hassle to fix, which didn't inspire confidence in me.
As I sat through the math lecture I got more and more worried. I tried to convince myself that maybe the battery is just dead for some reason, even though I know damn well it was charged to 100% last night. And I have good reasons to be worried too: my enrollment registration window opens at 11:30 am and I'm looking to enroll in a class that only accept 20 people so I NEED to do it ASAP. Immediately following that, I have a zoom interview in order to complete my language exception exam. If my laptop doesn't work, I am absolutely screwed.
After class I made a beeline straight to my reserved study room in the school library. Lucky for me, my laptop turned on! However, concerning things started happening: there is an odd sizzling sound that I'm sure shouldn't be there when I plugged the charger in, and the laptop immediately turns off when I unplug it. It was at that moment I knew that my laptop just shat itself and the only way to fix it is to get it to a repair shop. For what it's worth, the laptop held, and I was able to enroll and do the zoom meeting just fine. I passed the interview btw! Now I don't need to take any language classes yay... kinda... I had wanted to take Japanese, but my schedule simply doesn't have room it, or for any fun class for that matter :/ Anyway, back on topic. I knew that my laptop is cooked so I immediately went to borrow a laptop from the library. What sucks is that I can only have it for two days; there's a 1-day cool off after I return it before I can check out another one! Oh why did this have to happen to me the day before two midterms (on Tuesday and Wednesday) :')
How does one go about finding good local computer repair shops? Reddit, of course. I went to my school's subreddit and found a couple posts regarding computer repair. Two people independently recommended a tech place ~15 minute drive away from campus. It had pretty good reviews so within probably less than 5 minutes I decided yep, I'm going there. But wait! I didn't pack lunch today because usually on Mondays I go back to my dorm and meal prep! Clearly I can't do it now, so I ran to a food place on campus and bought a croissant (it had blueberry fillings it was good!), then ran to print my homework because I know I won't have time to do it later, and hauled my ass onto a bus. By now you might be wondering, what's with all this sense of urgency? Well, by now it's about 1 pm and I needed to be back on campus by 6 pm for my lab. Ideally before 6 because I need to go home and eat dinner first. (My lab is 6 to 9 pm and I was not about to starve.)
I got to the computer repair place just fine; had to walk about 20 minutes but it was worth it. Turns out it is indeed a battery issue. Tech guy gives me a quote that it's gonna be $280 to get my laptop battery replaced. I was hoping to get it fixed for under $150 but it is what it is... I mean my other option is to buy a new laptop and yeah that's definitely not happening. The bad news is that they don't have the battery in-stock, but the good news is that they have a local supplier who can deliver the parts, and I'll be able to pick up my laptop by tomorrow!
So I left the shop feeling hopeful. For my own sanity, as a treat, I decided to go to a Walmart nearby. (I said near but I walked for 25 minutes.) Ever since I got into Transformers, going to random local Walmarts and Targets sort of became a fun thing for me to do :] I like to go in and look at the toys they have in stock, even when I'm not planning on buying anything in particular. This time though I was actually hoping to find Cyberworld Optimus. A month ago in this blog post I wrote that I didn't buy CBW OP because I didn't like his design very much. Well guess what I changed my mind lmao. I wanted the toy to go along with my CBW Megatron toy. I think they would look really cute together... Oppy sitting on Megabull... heh... Anyway I got to the Walmart and they did not have him in stock :( They did have CBW Elita and Starscream though! Elita's toy looks really good actually, it looks way prettier in person than in photos I've seen online and I was a little tempted to get it lol. It was a pleasant surprise to see Widow Maker (or I guess her name is actually Widow?); I really like her mold. And lastly, Deluxe figures at $27.97!? Yikes... I knew that the price increase was coming but I did not think it would be this soon. Man I remember when Deluxes were $20 or $25. I left that Walmart with a brocoli and mushrooms, because I figured that while I'm there I might as well grocery shop.
I made it back in time to eat dinner and go to lab :) On my way back I saw a Peterbilt truck!! I believe it's a Peterbuilt 388? Could be totally wrong though I have yet to learn anything about trucks. Sorry for the shitty photo, couldn't get a good angle of it on the bus. After the lab I was tired AF, but I somehow managed to do my physics notes + homework of the day and study for my statics midterm tomorrow. My heart was not in it bro I was hanging by a thread I did not want to study. And thus concludes an eventful and stressful Monday.
- Tuesday, Nov. 19 -
I decided to skip my math discussion this morning because God knows I need that extra hour of sleep. The statics midterm went pretty well—at least I think it did; I don't have the score back yet but I'm feeling optimistic about it! What's even greater news is that I got a text at 12:36 pm from the repair shop tech guy telling me that my laptop is ready for pick-up :D
... And then an hour later I got another text telling me that during testing they found "another issue with the board" and they'll work on it and get back to me as soon as possible. Well, so much for a so-far-so-good Tuesday. Originally I was gonna go pick up my laptop at 5:30 pm, but now I don't know if it's possible. By the time that 5 pm rolls around, still no update from the tech guy. At that point I resigned that yeah I'm probably not gonna get my laptop back today, so I might as well go to the 5:30 pm review session held by my TAs. Because remember: I have another midterm tomorrow :DDD <-- smile of despair. The last bus I can take to get to the repair shop leaves at 6 pm, so for the first 30 minutes of the review session I was frantically checking my phone (in a classroom with frustratingly shitty cell service). But alas, no update from tech guy. That evening I went home, feeling grateful that I at least have this borrowed laptop from my school's library, and studied for my midterm. I needed to return the laptop first thing tomorrow morning, which might pose an issue because there was a chance I wouldn't be able to get my laptop back tomorrow and I have math homework due Thursday. So, I managed to finish my math homework while studying for the midterm; pretty proud of myself for this one :))
- Wednesday, Nov. 20 -
I went to my physics lecture, thinking about my laptop. Then I went to my math lecture, still thinking about my laptop. And then it was philosophy midterm time. I did well! No seriously, this time I'm confident that I 100% Got It. The two questions we got were my favorites from the study guide questions :] I was still sick worrying over my laptop though. I was really scared that it's gonna end up costing something like $500 to fix if there's some issue other than the battery. Despite this, holy shit you cannot imagine the relief I felt when the tech guy texted at 2:34 pm that my laptop is ready for pick up. If it only took an additional day to fix, there was no way that it was that bad, right? I had some other thing to take care of first, but I managed to get to the repair shop around 4 pm. Although unfortunately, I was yet again on a time crunch, as I have to be back on campus by 6 pm to attend a club meeting. This time I had the foresight to pack dinner, in case I get back to campus early enough to microwave my food and eat. I get to the repair shop and it turns out that I was worried over nothing: true to the initial quote, it was only $280!! I say only because I was expecting worse!! What had happened was that, when the battery from the supplier did not charge, the tech guy initially thought there was some issue with the laptop's motherboard. It turns out that it was a faulty battery, so they had to wait another day for the supplier to deliver a new battery. I think he said these batteries have a lifespan of like 500 cycles? Given I've had this laptop for 2-ish years, no wonder the old battery died.
As a treat for myself, for recovering my laptop and doing well enough on my midterms, I walked to a nearby (25 minute walk lol) Target to, you guessed it, look at more Transformers toys! The Target is next to a shopping center—maybe I'll get the chance to explore it another time. Sadly this Target didn't have CBW Optimus, but there was a couple of cool finds.
After my short Target trip, on my way running to the bus stop—because of course I'm short on time—I got stuck at two separate intersections and it stressed me out SO much. But I did see this very cool truck! With the way that it's dark, the reflection almost makes it look like it's red and blue like 07 Optimus's alt mode :3 I think it's a Peterbilt but I'm not entirely sure. I like trucks with smokestacks; it's a cute feature.
It was lowkey really dark at the bus station so I was scared that the bus driver won't see me, but fortunately that didn't happen. Being on the bus when it's dark outside is kind of a vibe. I enjoy it, I think.
I made it back to campus with enough time to eat dinner and go to my 6 pm club meeting. After that I went to two more club meetings—my Wednesday's just crazy like that. By the time I got out of the last meeting it was 9 pm. Earlier in the day I've already decided that if I successfully recover my laptop and make it through the rest of the day, I'm going to reward myself with a cup of boba from my favorite boba place near campus, so that's exactly what I did! When I got home I was really, really tired. I had work to do, but nothing urgent that I couldn't do the next day. So for my own sanity, I decided to sit down and write this blog post instead. But unfortunately, the stress is not over yet: I have 3 more events coming up Thursday and Friday. Sigh. Everything will probably be ok but I gotta freak out a little bit first /ref.
- Thursday, Nov. 20 -
So I naively thought that yesterday would be the conclusion to my laptop repair saga... well I was wrong. While I cooked lunch, I let my laptop charge. An hour later it was still not at 100% so I knew something fucked up was going on. It turns out that the laptop needed to be on in order for the battery to charge. I guess this is what the tech guy meant when he said let it charge from 10% to 100% for a couple of cycles and you can use the laptop while doing that. Now it charges to 46% and stops but is otherwise working fine... what are the chances that it fixes itself? I'm tired boss😔
Oh and it rained. Again. "When it rains it pours" or something like that. Yeah it was pouring. My umbrella was in my backpack this morning; I did not have the foresight to check the weather app, but I had the intuition to not take my umbrella out of my backpack and I'm glad for that decision. The bad news is the umbrella couldn't save my shoes from being soaking wet :') Turns out that the left shoe's sole literally has a hole in it... Dang I really like this pair of shoes and I've had it for only, what, less than a year? Why do I go through shoes so quickly what did I do?? I felt like a wet cat while I made my way back to my dorm. Then I changed into dry clothes and went to the Event of the Day. It was a chill social event, so logically I know I have no reason to stress over it, but I did anyway. It well alright :)
- Friday, Nov. 21 -
Nothing too much of note happened today! The Other Event went by just fine as well. I also went to the weekly arts & crafts event at my uni's LGBT center and worked on a painting of Nightshade which I've been working on for the past 4, 5 weeks or so? I picked it up and am planning on finishing it at home over Thanksgiving break. I also got boba again :] But can you even call it boba if it has no milk and no boba? It's peach green tea with lychee jelly and pudding; it's really good. Now for some bad news: my laptop's new battery is still fucked up. According to the windows battery report, it was at 68% when the update happened, and then immediately dropped to 7%. What the hell could've caused that I have no idea. Ever since then the highest it's gotten was 46%. Sigh. I wish I could end this post on a good note but I guess not. I'm probably gonna take it back to the repair shop either tomorrow or Sunday and add a final update when it's all done and settled, whatever that may look like. It's been an eventful week, to say the least.