My terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day
I'm in a crummy mood. I'm in one of those moods where my eyeballs burn, my head aches, and everything is making me testy, snarky, and prone to kvetchiness. It's not pretty. These moods generally strike when I feel like I'm working and working and working and not accomplishing a blessed thing. I've tried every conceivable (to me) creative solution to complete my day's objectives, but all I've succeeded in doing is getting frustrated and pissy.
In the end, I didn't go sightseeing with my husband, my children, or my mom. Dell computers accidentally sent us two computers and a wireless router we didn't order. UPS was scheduled to pick up the extra boxes today, so someone had to stay home. I volunteered, after all, I needed to get my resume out, and I figured I'd get a lot done with the quiet of having the apartment all to myself. Anyway, I wouldn't have known where to begin playing tour guide. This city is still a mystery to me.
I spent the morning tracking down university physical education programs. There are fewer than you'd imagine here. Once I tracked them down, I started on my resume. That's where I ran into my first obstacle. We weren't able to install my Microsoft Office 2003 suite on the new computer. My license lapsed, I think. So, all I had to work with was Word Perfect, and I am perfectly clueless when it comes to this software program. After 30 minutes of editing, the formatting on my resume went completely haywire. I tried valiantly for hours to line things up, fix the spacing of my bullet points, and put a fine polish on my document. I merely managed to smoosh all the text together in a way I can't begin to explain. I don't know what I did, or how to fix it, and the slight throbbing in my occipital lobes was starting to attract my attention. I finally reasoned that any success I had with the formatting could easily be undone once I sent the document as an attachment. The recipient of my life's work was not likely to be so unfortunate to be using Word Perfect.
Relief came in the form of the front door buzzer. Aaah, the UPS man arrived! He whisked my boxes away, and brought me a brand new wireless router. An idea blossomed, brilliant in it's simplicity. I could edit to my heart's content on my husband's laptop and email the document using the wirless router to connect me to the internet.
It only took me a couple of hours to get the router plugged in and ready to access the web. I hooked up the wires to their proper jacks, outlets, and plugs, got the row of green lights, and began to register my new connection. Obstacle number two: the registration software was not recognizing my password. Happily, I spent only 30 minutes on the phone with tech support to sort that small mess out.
The router was ready, I took out the laptop and went to plug it in when dilemma number three struck: no power cord, and the battery was low. I searched and searched and searched (while downloading security updates, anyway) until the screen went blank. I called my husband in near hysterics, but he didn't have a clue where to even look.
So, here I sit at my desk. Six hours have passed. I have not edited my resume. I have not sent it out to any universities. I have not managed to set up the laptop to connect wirelessly to the internet, nor have I found the power cord. I'm tired, I'm frustrated, my head hurts, and I am not in a very good mood.
But I did get a call from my husband. They had a marvelous time listening to the Chicago orchestra rehearsing, doing art projects in the park, seeing museums and sculpture gardens, and having a lovely picnic under the lights of a computerized, fiber optic fountain. I'm happy for them.
Really, I am.
In the end, I didn't go sightseeing with my husband, my children, or my mom. Dell computers accidentally sent us two computers and a wireless router we didn't order. UPS was scheduled to pick up the extra boxes today, so someone had to stay home. I volunteered, after all, I needed to get my resume out, and I figured I'd get a lot done with the quiet of having the apartment all to myself. Anyway, I wouldn't have known where to begin playing tour guide. This city is still a mystery to me.
I spent the morning tracking down university physical education programs. There are fewer than you'd imagine here. Once I tracked them down, I started on my resume. That's where I ran into my first obstacle. We weren't able to install my Microsoft Office 2003 suite on the new computer. My license lapsed, I think. So, all I had to work with was Word Perfect, and I am perfectly clueless when it comes to this software program. After 30 minutes of editing, the formatting on my resume went completely haywire. I tried valiantly for hours to line things up, fix the spacing of my bullet points, and put a fine polish on my document. I merely managed to smoosh all the text together in a way I can't begin to explain. I don't know what I did, or how to fix it, and the slight throbbing in my occipital lobes was starting to attract my attention. I finally reasoned that any success I had with the formatting could easily be undone once I sent the document as an attachment. The recipient of my life's work was not likely to be so unfortunate to be using Word Perfect.
Relief came in the form of the front door buzzer. Aaah, the UPS man arrived! He whisked my boxes away, and brought me a brand new wireless router. An idea blossomed, brilliant in it's simplicity. I could edit to my heart's content on my husband's laptop and email the document using the wirless router to connect me to the internet.
It only took me a couple of hours to get the router plugged in and ready to access the web. I hooked up the wires to their proper jacks, outlets, and plugs, got the row of green lights, and began to register my new connection. Obstacle number two: the registration software was not recognizing my password. Happily, I spent only 30 minutes on the phone with tech support to sort that small mess out.
The router was ready, I took out the laptop and went to plug it in when dilemma number three struck: no power cord, and the battery was low. I searched and searched and searched (while downloading security updates, anyway) until the screen went blank. I called my husband in near hysterics, but he didn't have a clue where to even look.
So, here I sit at my desk. Six hours have passed. I have not edited my resume. I have not sent it out to any universities. I have not managed to set up the laptop to connect wirelessly to the internet, nor have I found the power cord. I'm tired, I'm frustrated, my head hurts, and I am not in a very good mood.
But I did get a call from my husband. They had a marvelous time listening to the Chicago orchestra rehearsing, doing art projects in the park, seeing museums and sculpture gardens, and having a lovely picnic under the lights of a computerized, fiber optic fountain. I'm happy for them.
Really, I am.
posted by law school widow at 3:52 PM
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