Jul 31, 2011

out with the old

Finally, after six and a half long and productive years, I've acquired a new computer. It's been a surprisingly emotional process though, since for some reason, I've grown emotionally attached to the old one (I quite originally named it "Compy"). Now that I sit back and think about it, we have been through a good deal together.
Compy was all glisten and shine when I first opened its package back in 2005. I'd just graduated high school and been the recipient of a good deal of money via graduation checks. All of these I poured into the purchase of my 12" Powerbook G4.
Compy went with me to college. Survived the engraving of my name that I so eagerly carved onto its battery pack. It also managed to survive a three foot fall from my desk onto the tile floor of my dorm room. This put a pretty little dent in its left side. Although my parents bought me a nice computer carrying bag, I decided it was easier to just slip Compy into my book bag between ten lb textbooks and a coffee traveler.
It's keyboard shows obvious wear from the amount of typing I subjected it too. I was an English/Creative Writing major, so writing papers and stories was my life for four years. In addition to all of these classes, I wrote (and rewrote) four manuscripts on it. You can't really see the E key or the L key anymore.
After college, Compy made the great migration with me over to South Korea (where it felt quite incredibly outdated by all of the crazy Asian technology surrounding it). After our year there, I toted Compy on our travels to New Zealand, Ethiopia and Kenya. It was only when we reached Africa that Compy finally started its protest. Every time I opened it up to work on early edits of LUMINANCE HOUR the hard drive decided to crash. This was when I realized that it might be time to start saving money/searching for a different computer. Yet when we left Africa, Compy's hard-drive mysteriously recovered. Perhaps he didn't like the proximity of lions.
Needless to say, 6.5 years is a large chunk of your life when you're in your early twenty's. Compy has been more than a machine, but a companion. I know it's time for it to go on to greener pastures (Which is what? A recycling center? Where do computers go when they die?)
So this is my farewell to Compy, a reliable laptop that helped me churn out some great work.

Goodbye, Compy!

No comments:

Post a Comment