Week 3 - Technical Difficulties

This last week has been a struggle. Not so much about homesickness or loneliness. But technologically.

Monday, after coming home from Sokcho, my laptop decided it would be a great time to stop working. I could not get further than the sign-in screen.

My laptop tried me for three days. And they were the most inopportune three days it could've picked to get a virus. Shit hit the fan on Sunday and I had a lesson plan due Wednesday at 11:59pm. I tried restarting my laptop. Letting the battery die and then restarting it. So many times of restarting!!! I tried repairing. Resetting. AND recovering.


The 4-Rs.

*shudders* God, that sounded horrible.

I reached out to my 79 closest friends in Korea, and unless I had a mac (I don't), they weren't able to help me. 센상님 was able to tell me where a repair shop was, but my schedule was so busy, I was not able to finesse my way to it in a timely manner for Wednesday.

It was a true struggle of stress, impatience, and culture shock.

The culture shock came into play when I realized I had no idea how to look up a computer repair shop due to my limited Korean, google maps does not work here (okay...well it does, but kinda. It's very limited in information. There are other apps that are used in the country), and I had no idea how I would even explain the situation I was in to the Korean equivalent to Geek Squad.

So yeah, while juggling with that, I was revising my first lesson plan to teach the next day with my first co-teacher, and also arranging that second lesson plan that's due on Wednesday with my second co-teacher.

I almost forgot to mention how I was trying to get in touch with my parents for a good part. I needed to have a password for my laptop, but my dad set it up and Papa Bear wasn't picking up.

How was I balancing any of this out?

Well, thank God cellphones are little handheld computers. I was finessing on google docs like a pro.

And then...Tuesday night rolled around. And I stumbled across something while trying to "hack" my laptop, despite already having arranged a time to go to the repair shop on Thursday. It was a different kind of "restoring". I bit the bullet and decided that it wasn't like I could make it any worse. (That's a lie. I really could've. But let me live my hacker dream, Fam.)

I did what I'm good at doing when faced with options. I made a decision.

For the next two hours, my laptop would restart multiple times as it restored itself (I prayed). I made sure to inform my 79 friends that "I hacked my computer. Pray for me". Or something along those lines.

A little bit before midnight, my laptop was saved.

I saved it.

Me.

It was a glorious and fulfilling moment.

Truly wonderful.

Next thing that happens...I go to bed five minutes later, slept for six hours, woke up, ran through the revised lesson plan for the last time, taught my first class...ever, lunch, four hour culture workshop that low-key inspired me to go back to school, dinner, worked on my second plan on my improved laptop, and finally went out in celebration for a job well done.

Because I earned it.

More so than usual. 😀

Listen, you can take the girl out of Germany, but not the German out of the girl.

True story.

Now excuse me...I need to go buy some protection for my laptop to prevent this mess from happening again.

#SaveOurToya