A Loss for Words

Okay. Yeah, it's been a while. But I have a reason...



Those of you that know me well know that I like to be organized. Very organized. For example, when I decided to study Japanese, I made these flashcards. There are 1945 Japanese characters in common use, so I made a card for each. One side has the character and the other the meaning, stroke order, readings, and examples. Upon hearing that I was doing this, at least one person remarked, "that's...crazy". It was a lot of work, but I was hoping that the fact that I had expended the effort in making them would force me to use them.

And, because I'm so (some might say pathologically) organized, to further these studies I created a series of documents about Japanese. One was the history of the language, one was a grammar guide, and many were situation-oriented (for example, at school, at the barber's, at the convenience store, etc.). The latter included vocabulary and useful expression (i.e. "Can I get that to go, please?").

I don't want to bore you with non-interesting, non-Japan-related stuff, but listen. Just listen. There's a point here. My methods were important. If I had a book that had vocabulary I didn't know, I would photocopy that vocab, find out the meaning, and add it to my list. I would then throw away that book or photocopy as I wanted all the information on my computer (there's always an idea in the back of my mind that, if there's a fire, I can simply grab my computer and I'll have all my music, writing, ideas, pictures, etc.. It's all about convenience, baby.) So, I amassed a huge amount of organized info - enough for a book.

Since coming to Japan, I've had a lot of time to study Japanese and ask native speakers about useful expressions. Every time I heard something I didn't know or that sounded useful/interesting, I would type it in. I even started a "book" of sorts, with a complete outline and about 30 pages finished.

But, hey, I can hear you saying, if you're so organized, well, why don't you post to this blog more often? The answer lies in my very first post: I don't want to waste your time with useless/boring info. I arranged a series of folders with new topics (i.e. Drinking in Japan, Safety in Japan, etc.) and new pictures. Accompanying the photos were a series of outlines with interesting/relevant stories.

You may have noticed the use of the past tense here. The reason is that all that information is gone. What happened? Oh, let me tell you. Everything was fine. I was listening to music (on the computer, natch). I walked away for a moment. When I came back, the screen was black and it wouldn't wake. I restarted. It would not restart and chose to make a disturbing clicking noise instead. I am computer-friendly and clicking noises or noises of any sort mean hardware failure. Thus, things had suddenly shifted into Non-Good mode.

Failing all other methods, I brought the comp to the Apple Store, where I waited two hours for a one-minute appraisal: the data was gone, the drive was dead and needed to be replaced. The couple next to me, who had been loudly complaining about a minor problem with their comp (I think it had a poor network connection or something) grew quiet as I contemplated the loss of thousands of hours of work, some of which was irreplaceable. My future blog posts, all my Japanese study, even my book-in-progess were completely gone. I did not have a smile on my face.

But, you're so smart, surely you must have backed up, some wiseguys must be asking. Actually, I had backed up about 95% of my other stuff (ironically, relatively unimportant/replacable crap like tv shows or movies) and it was only stuff I was currently working on that was lost. Also, I was using DiskWarrior, which is supposed to alert you about possible disk failure (it didn't, by the way). Finally, the computer, while not even a year old, had failed and been totally replaced about three months prior. So, it was only three months old.

I must mention that, prior to this Macbook I had an iBook that needed a logic board replacement. Three times. As this not-yet-a-year-old thing has already seriously failed me twice, and a friend also had continuous problems with his iMac, I can and will no longer recommend Apple as providing quality hardware. I love the OS, but...

The pain - initially equivalent to the loss of a relationship and yes, I'm serious - has gone down to a dull ache. The prospect of "just start again" is tiring to even think about, yet I suppose that is what I have to do. If you take anything away from my nightmarish experience, I hope it is this:

• No computer system is perfect.
• Back up whatever is important to you.
• Now.


P.S. I will blog about my trips to Okinawa and Thailand next. Those bastards the Fates may have got my notes, but they didn't get my pictures or my memories.