My life, in a few updates:

First of all, my computer is completely fried. Dead dead dead dead dead. New power source did nothing for it (the old one had carbon in it and everything… very nice), and so the whole thing is toast. Here is where I respectfully request that people don’t start diagnosing it for me – while I’m feeling much better about the situation now, I believe in my dad’s computer geek abilities (he has been working with them for over 30 years), and I trust that when he says things like, ‘the drives don’t even start spinning,’ he knows what he’s talking about, he’s telling the truth, and the drives won’t even start spinning. They’re dead. It’s not just a motherboard issue, it’s not just a power source issue, and so on.

If I sound somewhat mean about this, it’s because I had a few well-meaning souls who were diagnosing my computer problems for me, and perhaps not believing me when I was telling them what was wrong. I don’t like being doubted, so I get a little cranky. I’m better now.

Anyhow, less than an hour after the official diagnosis came down, I had ordered a new system off of Dell. Stop groaning and so on; my dad’s office has had very good experiences with them, and Dad told me he wouldn’t be able to build me an equivalent system for cheaper. I was overdue for an upgrade, and while this new system won’t be of the highest quality, it will still be an awesome system. I’ll just have to spend some serious time rebuilding everything from my bookmarks to my file system. Basically, I won’t realize what I’ve lost (aside from some of the obvious, like my mp3 collection, or the three seasons of Scrubs I had on my system – build whoop) until I go looking for it.

I had been very afraid that I’d lost my digital photo collection. Back at my previous job, I had spent some time uploading my pictures to my picture site, and I had burned most of my collection to a CD in order to transport them to work. I had thought I might’ve thrown out that CD, since I had everything stored on my computer already. I’ll confess; it was the thought of having possibly lost pictures of Thena and Venus as kittens that brought me to tears at one or two points during the day.

The next day, the Sunday, my dad brought me out a loaner system, and I started to hunt around my apartment properly. There had been no point in doing it on Saturday, since I don’t label most of my CDs and I didn’t have a computer to test things in anyhow. In my hunting, I turned up a jewel case that looked very familiar, with two blank CDs in it – one with MP3s, and the other with my pictures, up until May of this year. This means I may have lost out on a few pictures of my kitchen, or possibly even a few of the kitties, but the bulk of my collection was safe. Needless to say, I was very relieved.

See, procrastinating about cleaning and so on pays off sometimes.

Though I think when I get my new system, I might go through and organize all of those blank disks I have. I can even use a number of them to restore a portion of my mp3 collection, if I’m so inclined. The Scrubs episodes I can borrow or re-download if I want. Season 2 is due out on DVD soon, so that’s one less season to concern myself over. :)

I’m also very lucky in that my final school project isn’t due until the last week of November. Well, that’s my presentation date. This gives me a bit of extra time to settle in with the new system when it arrives before I have to go full-tilt generating materials for the final presentation. I did lose one of my papers, but I have the hardcopy of it for referral purposes… it just means re-typing anything I want to use, which is good and bad.

I’m hoping that I’ll get to use the book club members as a bit of a focus group, because it doesn’t seem as though the people who said they could do it are going to do it – at least, I have yet to get back any kind of reliable confirmations. I’m looking into that now.

There’s also been a bit of drama in that the Smooshy’s roommate has discovered that he has bedbugs. The roommate and I work at the same place, so we’re both in a good position to know what to do in this situation, but that doesn’t make it any less icky. This means that the Smooshy has practically moved in with me even more than he already has, and so there’s been occasional friction as a result of that. Well, there’s been friction as a result of one thing, mainly his schedule vs. mine, and what that means for time spent together and such. Needless to say, it’s straining sometimes, but we’re getting from one day to the next.

Work is… work. I’m continuing my practice of trying not to talk too much about work, partly because I’m very fortunate in that I have a colleague that I can complain to whenever necessary, and he shares my issues and experiences them, too. We’re in this together, and while our situation is somewhat crappy, it’s nice to have someone who understands the circumstances.

The Smooshy is also great for that; I complain for twenty minutes, and he summarizes the big issue in one or two sentences. It’s great to have someone who sees my side, and sometimes sees the other person’s side, too (which I can also be good for), and supports me, even if he might privately think I’m wrong. :)

But I will say, April is a long time away.

I was going to do NaNoWriMo this month again, but now I’m not sure, given that it’s already November 2nd, and I would be starting out with catching up to do. We’ll see how the desire comes and goes. Likely goes.

I’ve been having a very hard time being motivated to do much of anything lately – or to get any kinds of desires going. I basically don’t want to do much of anything aside from knit, cross-stitch, and/or play video games. Most days work leaves me so dispirited that I just want to come home and veg on the sofa, doing one of those activities. The kitties seem to like it, since Thena can go out and Venus can relax or occupy my lap, but it’s not exactly great for getting things done. I have managed to get some laundry and some baking in, here and there, and even some household puttering, but overall, I feel fairly unproductive.

And don’t get me started on my libido, urgh. I keep putting it down to a messed-up sleep schedule, but I don’t know if that’s fair. Tomorrow the Smooshy gets to find out if his lobbying and polite grumbling to get his schedule changed will bear fruit; we’re both very hopeful that this will in fact be the case. It’s very difficult to maintain a relationship when you only ‘see’ one another for a few minutes at night and in the mornings (maybe), and on weekends… especially when those weekends often fill up with other activities or errands that need doing… and especially when his ‘weekends’ are usually only a day long.

At least I’m starting back at the gym again. A bit. I’ve been this week, that counts. I’ve also been out on the bike a decent amount, and I’m fairly comfortable on it, though I do still have moments of fear/concern in turns and the like. I’m definitely not zipping through hairpin turns at 100 km/h, so you can stop worrying about that. :)

Ah well, time to wrap up for now. Anyone have any suggestions on libido-boosting? Thanks.