Three days before I left on spring break, I woke up from a nap to find that my laptop’s hard drive kamikazed itself without any forewarning. Given my background in psychology and my training in peer listening/counseling, I’m certain I would have been able to talk my suicidal hard drive down from the ledge on which it stood, but as I mentioned before, I was sleeping at the time. I know what you’re thinking; I shouldn’t be responsible for answering any red phones at 3 a.m., but — but! — I assure you that had my laptop (named Little Napoleon, but affectionately known as Li’l Nappy) been considerate enough to call me first prior to offing himself I would have answered that phone and been out of bed before you could blink. Of course, if that phone call occurred at 3 a.m. on Daylight Savings then I wouldn’t have answered it at 3, because that time does not exist on that day. But you know what? Hillary wouldn’t be able to answer it at 3 a.m. either, and neither would you, so you can’t be too critical.

Anyway, it was a rough three days. I didn’t sleep at all, not even a nap or 15 minutes to rest my eyes. In losing my computer, I also lost my study guides, and I had 3 midterms over the course of 24 hours. So, I spent a lot of time in the computer lab looking stuff up and trying to compensate for the fact that I had to start from scratch. Not that anytime is a good time for a computer die, but Li’l Nappy chose a particularly bad time for it to happen. Thankfully, I had a week over spring break to get my laptop functional again, and by me I mean Steven. The day I went out to New York for my spring break, Steven was moving to Connecticut, because he just started a new job with a new company making much more than he was before and with hours far more human-friendly than the 14+ hour days he had been working the past year. (Feel free to congratulate him!) Right before he moved, he ordered a new hard drive for Nappy and then this past weekend he drove 5 hours back to New York to see me and to fix Nappy for me. He deserves a lot of cookies for that. Instead, he got a check for $250 and an Office Space Kit. The money was to pay him back for the hard drive and for money he loaned me last semester, and the present was his belated Valentine’s Day gift, but I like to think it would rival cookies. He installed my new hard drive and reinstalled all my software. He took my old hard drive back with him to see if he can retrieve the data on it (like my documents and my pictures — I would be sad to lose them, especially since I had some pictures of my grandma on there), and in May when he comes out for my graduation, he is going to add more RAM to my laptop so it will last me through grad school. Clearly, Steven is a saint. The next time I get angry with him, you have my permission to direct me to this post and tell me to kindly shut up.

Over break I went over graduation plans & summer plans, and during the course of that I realised that I needed to change the way I want my name to appear on my diploma. I hopped online to do that, and on the same page was my diploma & graduation summary. It included the college I am graduating from, which degree I am receiving, my expected graduation date and right in the middle of all of that, “Cum Laude.” I had a double take, looked, stared dubiously at the screen, checked again and then wondered when the heck someone was planning on informing me. Although it is a very pleasant surprise, I’m thinking that finding out at graduation might not have been the best time. Unless of course it’s all a joke and I’m really not receiving Latin honours, which is improbable, but that doesn’t stop me from checking it every day anyway, just in case it is.

Oh, yeah, and then there’s this: