Long day

I've noticed that a lot of my posts have been a bit cynical and I haven't really talked about the positives much, so I'm going to try to be a bit more upbeat in today's post. Today seemed like it was going to be pretty crappy, but it picked up a bit in the last hour or so. I woke up today and realized that my phone charger or phone outlet or whatever is broken, so I can't charge up anymore. I wasn't going to be using the phone much and I can't even check my voicemail from here, so it isn't a huge loss. I was a bit disappointed that I would no longer be able to use it as an alarm clock though. Luckily, I brought the Stephen Fry alarm clock that Grandma got for me last year, so I'll be hearing his voice a bit more often.

I had my first Latin class today, and I can tell that its really going to be quite the class. We're supposed to do three hours of translation work a day outside of class meetings. It will be a lot of work, but from what I've seen from the PH.D. students, the course REALLY prepares you. Most of them can read just about anything you put in front of them without any work at all. Anyways, Dr. Townsend totally put the fear of God into us today and after class I went straight to the library to start my translation homework.

I wandered around the Ugly Turkey Library for a while, but all my favorite spots were taken. After about 15 minutes I was able to find a seat with an outlet and plugged in. I started my computer and immediately it froze. I restarted it and learned what Apple's Blue Screen of Death looks like. It is amazingly uninformative. There was just a little folder in the middle of the screen with a question mark that changed into the "Finder" face every couple seconds. I raced downstairs, found an open library computer and read online that I would need my installation disk to get the thing to start up.

Did I even bring that thing with me???

I left the library and 30 minutes of public transit later realized that I had indeed not brought the disk along. I remembered that someone on line had suggested getting a new disk if one had lost the original, so I went back to the Centre for Medieval Studies and used one of their computers to find the nearest Apple store. When I got to the store (in the Eaton Centre, I grabbed a copy of Snow Leopard, thinking I might just as well upgrade to the new OS while I was at it. I was then wracked with unsurity as to whether this was a good idea, and luckily one of the Apple employees saw the look of despair on my face and came over. I explained my problem and he said that Snow Leopard wouldn't run on my system. He opened my computer and it miraculously started for him. He did the exact same thing that I had done (holding down "option" while it booted) and for some reason it decided to actually find the hard drive or disk or whatever.

I was sooooo happy.

I tried to give him a tip but he just laughed at me. I went outside and started walking back to the subway, noticing that it was starting to rain really lightly. Due to the stressful day I decided that I had earned a cup of coffee. I went to Starbucks, used one of my giftcards, and stood outside watching the rain fall in the downtown streets while sipping my Pike's Place. It was really pretty and relaxing. I'm now back at the library, in one of my favorite seats, on the 13th floor with a really nice view of the city behind me. Now to translation.