Job Hazards of the Sheeple

Well.  It's been a bit longer than I expected it would be.  And I have several things to share, so I guess this is where I introduce my love of bulleted lists.  Onward!

- I passed all 5 of those tests.  Some more passingly than others.  More on that later.  Just a tip, though: if you are ever contemplating going three weeks with an average of 4-5 hours of sleep a night... don't.

- Friday afternoon marked the beginning of Spring Break!  Matt was gone on a short trip, so I spent the entire weekend sleeping and/ or playing Final Fantasy XIII.  One of my classmates did not know what that was when I mentioned it last week, which made me deeply sad for them.  They will never understand; video games are either something that you are raised on or something you miss out on, in part or in whole, forever.

- My computer is borked.  The place I took it to initially just called and said it is probably a hard drive failure.  Allow me a moment to rant about this computer of mine.  When I started school in August, I was told that I really should have this one extra-special Toshiba touch-screen laptop that costs $2000.  I was told it was an important addition to the learning experience, so important in fact that they had made a deal with this one company to give us the computer and wait for payment until our student loans had come in.  So I bit.

Cut to four months later.  I no longer take notes on my computer because the touch-screen note-taking software is too unreliable and I can't afford to keep losing what I write.  The screen keeps getting a wet-looking spot in the middle from being in my backpack; the casing isn't strong enough to keep the computer from getting compressed, and so the screen gets smushed.  And one day I turn my computer on like normal - and it freezes.  And continues to freeze no matter how many times I turn it on and off, no matter how virus-free it is.  And now I apparently need a new hard drive on a computer that is less than a year old.  The screen doesn't always track well, the mousepad will sometimes stop working for no reason, and the stupid thing has been running slower and slower despite my spotless registry and fully (and regularly) defragged memory.  And before you point out that clearly a computer with this many issues is just a defective one, let me say that I can list multiple people in my class who are having the same or even more issues.

Even better, the place we bought our computers from is actually in Dallas, and they will make you wait weeks on your computer while they fix it.  I'm assuming they are just very busy, but that doesn't change the fact that when I need a computer, I won't have one if I use my warranty.  Luckily a friend of mine owns a computer company and is willing to help me out.  You always pay in money or time, right? 

Honestly, though?  I wish I could just return the thing.  It kills me that I could have spent $1500 on an excellent normal laptop instead of $2100 on a lower-tier tablet.  This is the price you pay when you allow yourself to be one of the sheeple.

Sheeple

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sheeple (a portmanteau of "sheep" and "people") is a term of disparagement, in which people are likened to sheep.  It is often used to denote persons who voluntarily acquiesce to a perceived authority, or suggestion without sufficient research to understand fully the scope of the ramifications involved in that decision, and thus undermine their own human individuality or in other cases give up certain rights. The implication of sheeple is that as a collective, people believe whatever they are told, especially if told so by a perceived authority figure believed to be trustworthy, without processing it or doing adequate research to be sure that it is an accurate representation of the real world around them.


Sigh.