Sometimes in life, you experience a series of very unfortunate events. I’ve been having one of those experiences this week when everything goes wrong. I don’t think I’m exceptionally skilled at dealing with stressful situations. Whenever something terrible happens, my internal organs go into meltdown and I feel physically sick. My mind goes into an emotional overdrive and I find myself sighing heavily and most often on the verge of tears. But I think after (almost) 23 years of being alive, I’ve learned how to persevere through the unfortunate moments of life and it really just comes down to having the right mentality.
Anyway, here’s a little bit of context as to my current series of unfortunate events. So my mid-semester break for university begins this week, though I wouldn’t necessarily call it a break because I have four assignments to get done.
On Friday, I received my first ever pass on a university assignment. It wasn’t even just a pass, it was a pass minus, which basically means I was close to failing. The horrible thing about this pass minus is that it was for my elective, Intro to Film Studies. INTRO to film studies. I basically almost failed on a bloody first-year subject. Whatever, I have many regrets for choosing Intro to Film Studies because frankly it’s a huge waste of my time and I really wish I chose a more relevant subject to my degree. So the lesson to be learnt here is: don’t choose a subject because you think it’s going to be easy. Instead, choose a subject that you are interested in and relates to your skills and your field.
So yeah, my ego was very much damaged on the day I received feedback on my assignment. As if it’s not enough of a constant struggle to assure myself that I’m an above decent writer, but a pass minus? At that point I became really worried and I had all these terrible thoughts in my mind like:Â ‘What if I fail this subject?’ and ‘What if I have to repeat another semester?’Â
Here’s the thing right, I’m a pretty top-notch student. I’m sitting on a distinction average (or, at least I was until this horrible thing happened). I’ve never failed anything in my life (except my high school math exams, but that doesn’t really count). So for me, a pass minus was just contributing to my low self-esteem. Anyway, whatever. I complained for a day and then I got over it because I realised that moaning about how much I suck wasn’t going to fix anything. I got a pass minus, I’ll just have to put in more time and effort into my next assignment to avoid failing.
Ok, moving on. So I’m on my mid-semester break which is great because it means I have time to work on my assignments and film/edit videos! Today I was so excited to film a video that I’ve been wanting to make for a while now. I sat down, turned my camera on, placed my MacBook on my desk next to an innocent glass of water and… spilled it. I spilled the glass of water. On my eight month old MacBook. You see what I mean by unfortunate series of events???
I panicked, as I’m sure most people would do in that situation. My MacBook shut down by itself within seconds of the water spillage. My entire body got warm and I had beads of sweat trickling down my face. After swearing and panicking for a minute or so, I quickly got a towel and mopped up the water and left my MacBook to dry upside down. I went out to K-Mart (thank God for K-Mart and their late opening hours) and bought a crate and a fan so I could dry it out better.
Sure, it’s just a MacBook. It’s completely replaceable. But I had a half-finished assignment on there, along with important work files. And no, I didn’t back anything up because I’m an idiot, of course. I contacted Apple Support via their live chat who were absolutely no help at all. There I am, panicking over my damaged MacBook and this Apple support guy is taking forever to answer my questions. First he was all, “no amount of drying will help in this case” and then he was all, “would you like me to set up an appointment for you at the Apple Store or would you like to wait for it to dry out?” … Sure, I’ll just wait for it to dry out because you just told me that drying it out isn’t going to help. What.
It took an hour for him to actually answer my question. Thanks, Apple. Anyway, so now I have an appointment with the Apple Store in the next couple of days so hopefully they can assess the damage and salvage my files. Considering my MacBook shut down when the water spilled, I have very low hopes and I’m pretty sure I did some extensive damage to something important. *sigh*.
I spent the rest of my day moping and restoring my old Alienware. I guess I’m lucky in that aspect- what with having an extra laptop to work on. At least I can still get my assignments done, even though I have to start over from scratch which means that my mid-semester break won’t be as productive as I initially hoped.
Anyway, the point of this blog post (aside from venting) is to say that even when everything goes wrong, you have to persevere through it all because no amount of moping is going to fix the issue, nor will it progress the solution. Yes, your heart will hurt and your internal organs will betray you and make you feel physically sick, but that’s okay. I think feeling those kind of things just makes you realise what’s important and we all learn from experiences- whether they’re fantastic or unfortunate.
Though I still feel like curling up into a ball and wailing in utter despair, I’ve learned to control my mind to focus on getting things done. It’s a lot more productive than allowing myself to succumb to depressing thoughts.
Also, I’ve learned to keep my electronics FAR FAR AWAY from liquid substances.
Until next time,
Leonie
