Friday morning came with some excitement. After working for an hour or so, my computer decided to freeze up. Now understand, I am a staunch Mac fan and have frequently boasted of the perks of owning one. My computer very rarely gives me problems and does not freeze up often, but every few months it will. Usually I just take the battery out and put it back in. Then I power the computer back up, and I’m good to go. So this time I did the same thing, but my computer wouldn’t turn on! Keeping cool I thought, ok well maybe it just needs to cool down for a bit or charge for a while or something. I decided to pass the time by writing a letter. I’m an avid letter-writer, and even though it’s not too common for people to write letters by hand, receiving a hand written letter is so much nicer than an email! Knowing that someone took the time to sit down and write to you makes it so much more personal. I know that makes me sound like a grandma, but come on, who doesn’t love getting a letter in the mail! Anyways, after writing my letter, I tried to turn on my computer. No luck!
What was I supposed to do? Everything I had been working on for the past month was on my computer! This also came with the sobering realization of exactly how dependent I am on technology. Flustered, I went to see if Rachel had any ideas. She came with me to find the IT department, and as we walked in, it seemed like they had never seen girls before! Everyone just stopped and stared at us. After an extended awkward pause, we were directed to one of the guys we met at the wedding. I can’t pronounce his name, much less guess how to spell it, so I will unfortunately be referring to him as “IT guy.” I handed IT guy my computer along with a desperate plea for help. He played around with it, called someone else for advice, pressed a bunch of buttons, and finally declared that we would have to go find some Apple people to figure this out. Great. Add in that I felt horrible because I such a hard time understanding him. The poor guy had to repeat everything nearly five times for me to understand what was going on.
I went back to my desk to pack up my things and grab my purse. The IT guy came over and handed me his cell phone; apparently I was supposed to talk with someone on the other end. I said hello, and a man whom I assumed to be the Apple guy proceeded to tell me where his shop was. Do you know where this girls’ hostel is? No, sorry. What about this hospital? Nope. How about this bank? Negative. When he finally realized that I have no idea where anything is, he told me to give the phone back to my new IT friend and he would explain it to him. All I could do was laugh at my apparent incompetence. After speaking quickly in what I assume to be Kanada, IT guy motioned for us to head out.
He picked me up on his motorbike, and we were off in search of the Apple shop. The roads were strangely crowded, and I nearly slammed into him several times as we played the stop and go game. We finally made it to the general vicinity but IT guy clearly didn’t know where we were going either. A few phone calls later, we walked into a little room in the Nursing College. The front half of the room was a kind of haphazard waiting room with a few chairs. As we continued past the room divider into the messy back room, two men worked on different pieces and parts of computers. They looked up and one took my computer and proceeded to poke around. Eventually he told us to just sit down and wait a while. As IT guy and I sat down, I attempted to make some small talk. I found out that he is from Bangalore and has an older brother there who just got married last month. He went to school in Bangalore but moved here for his job and has been working in the IT department at Manipal Press for the last five years. He was so nice but we both had moments of “just smile and nod” and pretend you know what the other person is saying. As we talked about going to the beach, I explained that my family is currently on vacation at the beach. I told him how my sister and I have a competition every year to see who can get darker, but I don’t think he had a clue what I was talking about. The idea of wanting to be tan and playing in the water and lying out at the beach are fairly foreign here. Coupled with the language/ accent barrier, he didn’t stand a chance.
Finally the Apple person emerged, telling me that the top panel of my computer, the keyboard part, had some electrical/ wiring problems and needed to be entirely replaced. So I reluctantly asked some more questions to make sure I understood what the problem was and what exactly needed to happen to fix it. After thorough explanation, a few signed papers, three different contact numbers, and a temporary replacement part, IT guy and I walked out of the office. I was not thrilled with a significant dent in my wallet, but I was very impressed with how quickly this problem had been addressed by the IT department. It certainly made the morning go by faster anyways. And I was so thankful for IT guy’s help. I don’t know what I would have done otherwise. I expressed my gratitude and hurried inside to tell Rachel all about my computer woes over lunch.
The afternoon was significantly less exciting, but included another visit to the IT department. I met with the head of IT to see if we could work out my Internet problems at the apartment. It may seem trivial, but I was ready for my Skype to work so I could see my family and friends! Skype plays impressive mind games and somehow makes you feel less far away!
That night after dinner we tried to Skype our Director of Career Services again. The Internet still wasn’t working on my computer so we resorted to using Rachel’s. It’s always nice to see a familiar face, even if it’s over the Internet. After a quick update on our trip and seeing how we were doing, we said goodbye. Only minutes later, our engineering friends came over. We played a card game and listened to music. It was such a fun time hanging out and talking; we could hardly believe when we looked up at the clock at realized it was eleven o’clock! We finished up our game in a hurry. Some of us had work in the morning!
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