Yesterday, as the blog I wrote can attest, started off really well. Then about 3:00 in the afternoon, the sky went dark, then turned a weird shade of yellow. The wind started to blow, and enormous raindrops started to fall. At the same time, hidden away in my bag, unbeknownst to me, my iPod quietly died.
It wasn't until last night at around 8:30 when I wanted to listen to some music that I discovered that my iPod wasn't waking up like it should. At first, I figured the battery had just died, so I plugged it in, went and put some laundry in the machine, and hung out with my next-door neighbors for a while. (In case anyone is interested, the price of North Korean brides is currently about RMB 2000, down from RMB 10,000 a couple of years ago. It came up in conversation). In any case, after getting my laundry out of the machine, I tried yet again to turn my iPod on. No luck. The screen stayed stubbornly, obstinately black. I started to worry.
I really, really like my iPod. Not so much the thing itself, as the fact that it lets me listen to songs from back home, reminds me of the friends I'm missing, and the experiences I've shared with them. I have a ten minute version of "Call On Me" from the time I spent living in Williamstown, and a TON of random German/Austrian music from the time I spent over there. I have been told many times by many different people that my iPod is way too random, even, "Helena, I feel sorry for your iPod, because it has your music on it..." But it's MY music, and I know what it means! and the thought that it might all be gone, my memories of home trapped inside an unresponsive piece of plastic, was really, really upsetting.
My next course of action, which seems kind of dumb now that I think about it, was to pry the thing apart to see if the battery might somehow have gotten disconnected. The dumbness of this idea became incredibly obvious once I had the thing in pieces, only to realize that I had no idea what the battery actually looked like. And then these little rubber pieces started to fall on the floor. Getting kind of scared at this point, I tried to fit it back together, little rubber pieces included. It all clicked back into place, but it still wouldn't turn on. I ran downstairs to hook it up to my friend's computer, and the computer didn't recognize it. At this point, there was only one possible course of action left.
I called my dad.
At this point, I was just going to mail it back to him and have him send it in to Apple under warranty. But just when there seemed like there was no hope left, my iPod suddenly came back to life. A small white apple blinked, then reappeared. The apple grew brighter. My iPod had risen from the dead! This may or may not have anything to do with the fact that I was viciously squeezing it for the entire time that I had been talking to my dad on the phone - I know you're only supposed to push the top and bottom buttons to restart it, but I had decided to push them all at once to see what would happen. I don't know if that's the most scientific method, but it worked, and it made me really, really happy. maybe yesterday was a good day after all...!
I am now off to sidestep some chickens on my way to class - for some reason, I've started seeing chickens outside the computer lab on a more and more regular basis. Maybe the chickens like exploring around in the warm weather - I don't know. In any case, that's it for now!
