Lost and found again!
This event reminded me of Jesus' parables. Being the somewhat, (fine, really), absentminded person I am at times, I somehow misplaced my keys last weekend while running around on and off campus. I've only lost my one-card at Wellesley once in my 3 years here, so losing both my one-card and dorm keys was... --> -__- I have no words. I had also just come back from a prayer meeting with foreign house church leaders, and I couldn't help thinking ironically, "God, is this my punishment??" Doesn't it sound stupid to care so much about little things like this? I don't know why I made a mountain out of a molehill. (Maybe I need to experience a major tragedy to not care about these kinds of things.) But at that moment, thinking about the extra costs that would be incurred (I think it's $10+ for the one-card, and probably $30+ for room keys??), I was SO ANNOYED AND ANGRY at myself for not being more careful.
As I walked out of the dorm, I prayed and asked God to pleasehelpmefindthesekeysIpromiseI'llbemorecarefulnexttime!! :( Sad and pathetic, I know. God heard me I guess, because an image popped into my mind of me swiping the keys at one dorm to let another girl and myself into the building. I was debating whether I should go to Stone-D first or Caz--but with the image and the H.S's prompting, I went to Caz to see if my keys were there. Sure enough, they were lying on a couch in the living room of Caz. I don't remember feeling this relieved in a long time. Walking out of there, I thought, "Thank you God for your faithfulness in the little things of life. Thank you that these keys weren't lost off campus, and thank you for not making me walk an extra 15 minutes to Stone D."-->I know God is good to me too because He knows how much I hate wasted time. ^^
The resurrected laptop
So before beginning my work-out last Tuesday, I thought it would be a good idea to unplug the power cord from my laptop. The whiney-sounding noise that came from it as I pulled it out proved to be a dire foreshadowing. Thinking, "Oh, no big deal, this has happened before," I tried the power button, pushing down longer than usual. Still no response. "Oh well whatever," I proceeded with my workout, thinking maybe the extra time will help it recover?
When I came back again to try my usual trouble-shooting methods, still no response. I called my dad, and he told me to try different methods, but none worked. After lunch I visited the computing help desk--no help from them either. When the librarian told me that all school laptops were unavailable till next week, the panic began to settle in. One of my semester papers was due on Friday, and all of my work on the paper so far was saved on my laptop. Thankfully, a friend responded to my SOS for help, and kindly offered to lend me an extra laptop. *Shout-out to Andrew: THANKS ANDREW. :D
At this point, I was still feeling somewhat deflated despite the ray of hope offered to me through Andrew, so I waste another hour trying to figure out what exactly was wrong with my laptop. I prayed another pathetic prayer: pleaseGoddon'tletthehardrivediepleasenottheharddriveANDNOTWHENIHAVEAPAPERDUEINTHREEDAYS!!! In the middle of my ruminations, another God-given inspiration popped into my brain--try plugging in the power cord again and leave it alone for awhile. (And yes, God totally takes credit for this because I am the one of the most computer-illiterate, technologically unsaavy people I know--and if my dad and the computing desk at my school couldn't help me, I don't know who can.)
I should mention an important detail at this point. My laptop battery had been dead for some months now, but I was too lazy to order a new one so I relied on using the power cord. I'm guessing that when I suddenly (and perhaps a little too violently?) pulled out the power cord, I shocked my poor little laptop into paralysis. Trying to turn on a laptop with a dead battery didn't help matters, but when my power cord failed me as well, I could only imagine the worst had happened, and my faithful little laptop was dead.
With this little bit of inspiration, I left my potentially fried, battery-dead laptop plugged into an outlet. After a little over a half hour, I saw a sign of life! On the lower right hand corner of my laptop, the power cord symbol lit up! The skeptic in me thought that perhaps this was just like before; earlier in the trouble-shooting stage I tried plugging in the laptop and saw the power cord symbol light up, but after hitting the power button, the light immediately flickered and went black.
I cautiously hit the power button this time, and to my amazement my laptop turned on! I was in the library during this time so I could only express my amazement to my cousin through gchat: OMG A MIRACLE JUST HAPPENED. Even now, I still can't fully figure out if this was a technological miracle or not. Considering the fact that I had essentially done the same thing earlier by leaving the power cord plugged into the laptop--but to no avail--what could be a potential explanation? I'm not sure...whatever the explanation might be, thank you God for allowing my laptop to recover! (And thank you that the problem wasn't with the hard-drive!) I don't know what I would have done if I lost all my files and the paper I had been working on...
Yes, I know I need to do more back-up. Lesson learned there..
Another lesson learned in trust. It's interesting to see how God works in the midst of human foibles and mistakes--thanks again Friend.
