Gone With the Wind

On Sunday, after months of struggling with a crappy Internet connection, my laptop finally gave up on itself. The hard drive died, along with all my data. It all started on Sunday morning.

After my connection failed, I rebooted the laptop to restore it as usual but to my surprise it took a really long time to shut down. When I restarted it, there was a blank black screen with the words UNABLE TO LOAD WINDOWS. I knew at that moment that it was all over. I searched my shelves for my Windows installation CD and popped it into the drive hoping this would solve the problem. Of course, it didn’t, in fact the screen did not even change. With an assignment due on Tuesday, I knew how important it was to get access to a computer, preferably my computer, so I headed for the library hoping to get the technician there to fix my laptop, or at least use the computers there. Unfortunately, it was snowing really badly and by the time I got to the library, they were closing it. It was only 1.30 and they were closing the library because of the snow. I rushed to the main campus hoping to find a computer lab that was open. None were. Finally, I decided to head for the other campus in Surrey where I could use the computer lab and/or find someone to fix mine. At the bus stop I waited for half an hour for the bus before someone came up to us at the bus stop telling us all buses have stopped coming because of the snow. So here I was trapped on the mountain with a broken computer.

As a last resort, I decided to ask a friend who was in the Computer Science Programme to have a look at my laptop. However, I did not have much hope. Just because someone is in Computer Science does not automatically mean he/she could fix computers. It’s like assuming all paramedics could perform surgery. Anyway, my friend looked at my computer, pressed a few buttons and concluded that the hard drive was definitely in bad shape. All I could do now was wait till Monday and get it checked at the computer store.

At 4 pm, the snow started to clear up. I decided to try for a bus once more. The only bus that actually came up to campus was the bus to Metrotown, a mall about 45 minutes away. I decided to take it because the mall has a computer store that might repair my laptop. Unfortunately for me, the bus moved extra slowly because of the snow. By the time I arrived at Metrotown, it was already dark. As the bus neared the station, I glanced at an electronic board outside the mall. SUNDAYS 11 AM – 6 PM. I looked at my watch- 5.30. Wonderful. I only have half an hour till the shops closed. I rushed into the nearest computer store but they told me they were closing already. So my trip here was wasted.

On Monday, I checked with the computer store on campus and they gave the final verdict- the hard drive was beyond repair. The only thing I could do, besides buy a new one was to contact Acer and get them to send me a replacement part. Seems like all my stuff is gone forever. Luckily there wasn’t anything really important on it but still…

Now there’s just the long wait till the replacements arrive, if they arrive. I have never really appreciated the library so much as I do now.

A Christmas Carol

For the recent Christmas celebration, I was fortunate to experience it with most of my extended family even my relatives from Singapore who came to Kuala Lumpur. As usual there was a splendid Christmas dinner which most of us (but me) helped to prepare and as usual, there were carols to be sung. I had never really paid much attention to Christmas carols before, but this year, my mom wanted me to prepare a selection of carols in MIDI format to be sung later on. After looking through the list of songs, I realized that many of them had little connection to the actual meaning of Christmas. In fact most of them had nothing to do with Christianity. I read the lyrics for ‘Frosty the Snowman’ for the first time (really) and found nothing in relation to Christmas. The song was about a magical snowman and him having fun before his time went out. Songs like ‘Jingle Bells’, ‘Winter Wonderland’, and ‘Let it Snow’ are mostly about the season of winter which would be unfamiliar to us living in a tropical country like Malaysia. Perhaps those songs originated in Europe or America where Christmas was during the season of winter but the fact remains that such songs have totally influenced the meaning of Christmas. Most people associate Christmas with snow, Santa Claus and other commercialized features and some even forget why the holiday is significant in the first place. Of course, there are some carols that reflect the Christian meaning of Christmas like ‘Hark now hear the Angels sing’ but they are too few in comparison to the other ‘commercialized’ carols. Even in malls when they play carols for the pleasure of shoppers, how often is it that one hears the carol ‘Mary’s Boy Child’ compared to ‘Jingle Bell Rock’?

I was reminded of another holiday I experienced in Canada- Halloween. Last year was my first encounter with Halloween (which is sadly not celebrated in Malaysia) and I too found it disturbing because like Christmas, Halloween has become over-commercialized. People dress up in outrageous costumes and get drunk all night but how many people know the original reason for celebrating Halloween? It started out as the Celtic harvest festival Sam Hain and people used to believe that at that time, the boundaries between the living world and the spiritual world would weaken, hence all the dressing up was to frighten away evil spirits. I asked one of my friends if he knew how the name Halloween came about and he was clueless. For those of you who are also clueless, Halloween is a contraction of All Hallows (saints) Eve as it was on the eve of All Saints Day- November 1^st. The church intentionally chose that day as it was already familiar to the people as Sam Hain.

I would give a brief history for Christmas too, but I expect more people would know it better than All Hallows Eve. I certainly hope that when I return for 2008’s Christmas, there would be more emphasis on the Christian, rather than the commercial aspect.