repentance

I have to admit that I screwed up, and I HU-ATE that.

I was in the middle of my last semester at the U.  I was really busy and really overwhelmed by my Statistics class.  At the same time I was taking this computer class at the Mac store.  I had owned a MacBook for a while, and I had an IPhone, but I may as well have owned a cuneiform tablet and a chisel because of how much I was utilizing their capabilities.

I could turn my laptop on.  I could find my files after searching in about four different folders.  I didn't even know where to start on making my technology work for me.  So I started these classes with this really nice guy who had about as much passion for organization as my three year old has for Transformers.

It was contagious.  All of a sudden I was envisioning myself as this tecky, organized person who saved myself a ton of time by being in-the-know.  No longer would I feel the way that my Grandmother did when she was confronted with the invention of voicemail.  I would be hip...possibly even a hipster, dare to dream!  People would be able to use words like cloud, and Pinterest, and google plus, and tweet and I wouldn't go in to a cardiac arrest where my eyes glazed over.

My lessons had been going well.  And then I made the mistake of deciding the buy a new laptop.  It was right before my school finals, but I was lured by the lightweight MacBook Air, with it's bells and whistles.  The idea of starting fresh and new, without all of my junk files and pictures seemed like a dream come true.  

Mr. Thrilled-to-organize-and-teach-the-tech-challenged asked me what I wanted to do with my old laptop.  I thought that I would let it become the kids' family computer.  He asked me what I wanted to do with all the old files on it.  Without thinking, I replied with certainty, "Get rid of all of them."  I hardly knew what half of them were.  He was going to transfer the pictures and the documents over to my new laptop, organize them, and I already had visions of the organized me dancing in my head.

When I got my new laptop I was thrilled.  It was all so logical.  There was a place for everything and everything was in it's place.  But a few days later, when I needed to do my final online for my Statistics class I was a little nervous, or should we say wetting-my-pants-hysterical, that my Statistics software was nowhere to be found.  

Turns out that one of the files I had casually told Mr. Awesome-smarty-pants to delete and not transfer to the new laptop was my $100 Stats software.  And Murphy's Law, it had a one-computer limit so that you could only download it once.  I had 24 hours to do a final online, and no way to turn it in.  

I told my Professor about my dilemma and he just looked at me with a blank stare, like I'd dug my own grave.  I emailed my Mac teacher and basically gave him a heart attack by telling him that I was going to drop dead by drowning myself, if he didn't save me from this situation ASAP.

Another Murphy's Law was that this Mac teacher was having his own stressful situation at the same time that involved his furniture being moved in to his new place.  I was about as sympathetic to that as I would have been if he'd told me he had a hang nail, because after all, this is my break down we are talking about.  And plus, I hadn't connected the dots, that this really was my fault because I'd told him to delete everything on the old laptop.

Long story long, he found the software because he'd backed up the old laptop.  He reinstalled it.  He and his team at his store worked overtime to get it to me.  And all I could do was come in to the store and practically cry because I had had to endure this self-inflicted trauma.  

I did my final.  The class turned out fine.  I went in for a follow up Mac class, and it was pretty ugly.  Both the teacher and I felt that we were owed an apology by the other.  I ended up walking out of the class, indignant about my mistreatment.  Gavin felt bad for me and afterwards went in to express to the store manager that I didn't know what I was asking the Mac guy to do when I told him to "get rid of everything" on the old laptop.  As if my Mac teacher should have known when someone is so ignorant about technology that they don't even understand what they are instructing you to do.  

It took a week or so, and I finally realized that it had been my fault.  I had given the Mac guy an instruction that he followed perfectly.  At the time, I had not known that my instructions meant that I would be losing the software that I needed in order to take my Statistics final online.  I meant to apologize.  To schedule another class with my Mac teacher, and make it all right.

But I never did.  And months have passed.  Now it feels weird.  I guess it's better that this is happening with me and the Mac guy, than me and my husband.  But still...I want my classes, and I want the knowledge.  I want to get my laptop and my phone working for me.  I see those Mac commercials and I about wet myself, it all just looks so sleek and simple and streamlined.  

So...I have to just bite the bullet and email him to apologize.  UGH.  Hate this.  But I can do it.