The good news and the bad news

The good news:

Two days ago they moved the computers out of my room, well except for the ones in the closet (which makes putting clothes away impossible). I was ecstatic. When I walked in I noticed the walls had gone French-cheese on me (moldy), so I cleaned that up with some bleach for good measure. Although, now parts of the wallpaper are whitish instead of the beige backgroud for the matronly flowers. Matters. I went to the supermarket that's far away and found some NEW sheets. Yes my friends, the prison-issued sheets of cardboard have been retired. I have real sheets. And my comforter cost me only 7euros; you can't get a coke for under 7euros in Paris! It's a cool red/pink/orange design. The funny part is that I ended up buying 2 fitted sheets on accident. I didn't think they even had fitted sheets here, but they do, and I have 2 of them. Apparently that's what "drape de housse" means. Remember that if you ever decide to buy sheets in France (not that I know the name of regular sheets). At least I managed to find the single bed ones! So I'd say I came out on top in this one. Oh and funny part: the not-that-friendly key keeper lady (who took away my key the first time) told Irene after I left that Rachel and I needed "to clean up" our apartment. Ha! You try keeping things organized when you live out of suitcases for a month. Neat piles are the best I can do. Though to be fair, the kitchen did need some work (though not all my fault...).

The bad news:

Well the first bit is that I'm on vacation with nothing to do. Paris and Caen with Irene got cut, so now I'm chillin in Avranches tout seul. But, I think I'm going to spend this time exploring my little city here. I haven't really done all the things there are to do here, and if I don't do it now I never will. So I guess it's not really bad news.

This is bad news: my computer is on the verge of death. If any of you remember 'the lark' (my Buick skylark circa '92), I'm in a similar situation. I have to treat my computer gently, know how to best run it, and it'll work. But, it could die any day now. The other day my computer froze up and I had to shut it down the bad way. Upon attempts to restart it, it came up with only a blank screen. Five restarts later, it came up to a screen where you select how you want to boot (smart mode, normal, etc). I tried choosing each one, and each time it froze after I selected it. So I left it frozen after an hour of trying, and asked God to please keep my computer alive. I came back to it in about 2 hours and it was alive. It had unfrozen itself, or something ;) , and was at the regular screen. Well how 'bout that. The obvious problem was that it ran super slow and after clicking on a folder or program it took about 2 mins to open, which obviously is a bad sign.

Now because I had so many problems trying to start it up, I was hesitant to shut it down, so I just let it hibernate. When I came back and started it I got this warning: SMART failure, hard disk failure imminent, back up data IMMEDIATELY. Well, shucks, that's great. I'm no computer whiz, but I'm fairly computer savvy, and of all the warnings I've encountered, that one seemed the most daunting. Thankfully, I backed up all my music/photos/files on my external hard drive before I left. I don't have it with me now, but no matter. All my new files are also on my USB key, so if I loose everything it won't be that big a deal. Of course I failed to bring any of my recovery disks or program (XP/office) disks with me... but as I write KC is searching my room for them. All signs point to buying a new hard drive, which isn't that expensive. But, I have yet to see a computer place in this city. I'm sure I need a car to get to one, so that's going to be a problem.

To draw out the slow death of my computer (which could die literally right now or 3 months from now), I've freed up some memory and defragged it. I was operating on less than 3% free memory, if you can believe it, and the only time I defragged it before was once and I only got half way through it because I was sick of waiting. The stupid part is I knew better than to let my computer get bogged down. It's just like I know my car needs an oil change every 3 months, but it's lucky if it gets 2 a year. So this may be too little too late. The service engine light has come on and it's only a matter of waiting. How long will it last? Maybe the whole time I'm here (though really really slow and skype isn't working great which is wonderful). Unlike my car, I can keep this sucker till it dies because I'm not jeopardizing anyone else's safety. The lark had to be retired, but this computer's going on life support. Here's to hoping it doesn't fail on me...

AND I am open to any and all computer advice I can get :) (big thanks already to Travis and Matt)