I am an Idiot: the Story of My Cell Phone

Hello world! It's me, your everyday low-country nincompoop.

Technology and I got into a rumble today, and I did not win.

 Allow me to explain. A few weeks ago, I desperately wanted to go without a cell phone. Today, however, I needed one because I had told someone to call me on Sunday to set up a meeting, and it's terribly difficult to do that when one party cannot receive any phone calls.

The initial incident
Today, my wonderful two-and-a-half-year-old royal blue HTC Windows 8x Phone died. I really liked this phone.

#ProductPhoto #BeatsAudio #BestPhoneEver

This phone was a great fit for me. However, there wasn't enough memory for it to continue to function properly. Today it was so overloaded that every time I tried to use any function, the whole device would crash. Every restart just brought it back to the program that had made it crash in the first place, and then it crashed again. Then it wouldn't even charge or restart. I had told someone before I knew my phone was malfunctioning to call me on Sunday. With an important phone call impending and no time to fix this cell phone, I had to get a new one.


The resolution
After work this evening, I was feeling very determined, so I went to the Verizon store and upgraded myself an iPhone 6s.* I needed something reliable, easy to use, relatively lightweight...and mostly I wanted to learn how to use the so-called "SnapChat" app because Windows phones don't have it.

#StockPhoto #HowDoISnapChat

As soon as I got the new iPhone, I set up all the apps I'd probably use regularly, including SnapChat, and I also set up the Touch ID, which is the finger-scanning software that Apple has installed on new iPhones. Setting up the finger scanner also required me to set up a six-digit passcode.



The Second Incident
The passcode is what got me in trouble. I realized that I couldn't remember it, so my plan was to change it to something I could remember. Too bad you have to know the original passcode to change it. I couldn't use the Touch ID I had just set up to change the passcode either.

Thus I got locked out of my brand-spanking-new phone- a phone that I had literally only had in my possession for two hours- for one minute...
then five minutes...
then fifteen minutes...
then fifteen minutes again...
then fifteen minutes again...
then fifteen minutes again...
then fifteen minutes again...
I got pretty desperate and frustrated. After the first fifteen minute lockout, I could only revel at the ironic fact that not even the FBI could help me access my own stinking phone.

#ImScrewed

The Resolution
Three hours later I ended up having to restore the stupid phone. There was nothing on it to delete except for the apps I had downloaded and all the contacts on my phone (the most important info for me to save from my old phone). Luckily for me, the Apple Support webpage informed me that contacts would not get deleted by restoring my device. I'll still get my phone call on Sunday.


I guess the lesson here is to always write down new passwords until you memorize them. And always back up your devices. And install a password recovery system on your iPhone.





*If you were wondering, my phone contract had run up, and I decided to get the new phone with the renewal of my contract. It's wasn't a total impulse buy. (That would be an expensive impulse buy.)

Thoughts on Personal Writing

There are three main reasons for which I write about my experiences:
1) To vent about them (usually the frustrating/sad/upsetting ones)
2) To commemorate them (usually the new/positive/exciting ones)
3) To share my reflections with others on a unilateral basis (blog posts)

1) Venting
I currently don't keep a journal. I used to, when I was younger, and I attempted to when I was traveling last year. After re-reading some of my journal entries from a while back, I increasingly found that I only wrote about things when I was upset or lonely. I wrote about how I accidentally kind of killed my pet hamster. I wrote about the time when a boy in my fifth grade class won the public library's bookmark design contest instead of me. I wrote about how my host sister in France was actually teasing me about being impolite when I thought she was teasing me about saying something incorrectly. I wrote about the time this past February that I had a four-day-long mental breakdown due to exhaustion and failure.

I stopped wanting to write journal entries because I didn't want to relive those negative experiences when I reread them. Sometimes, though, it can be helpful to get it out on paper, because holding onto anger, frustration, sadness, etc. is exhausting.

2) Commemoration
While writing a journal entry about all the terrible stress I underwent those four days in February, I also made myself make a list of all the good things that had happened during that time, too: talking to one of my good friends at work, another friend's kind message, a really delicious salad, snowflakes, and more.

There were journal entries about the good things that have happened in my life, of course, and I enjoy looking over those. I wrote about winning the third grade class hamster (the same one that I accidentally kind of killed two years later). I wrote about how I won the public library's bookmark design contest in the seventh grade. I wrote about that time in France where my friend and I were getting hit on by two French "mecs" and we tried to get them to say "Can we have frog legs for dinner?" and "antidisestablishmentarianism" in English. I wrote about how much I like my boobs.

3) Reflections
Part of the reason why I titled this blog Profound Novelty was because of the nature of reflection. There's a certain wisdom to be found in everyday experiences that everyone can appreciate. This blog contains my reflections on the goings-on around me. (My other blog, Minor News Reports, serves a somewhat different purpose but it still contains ironic reflections on contemporary living.)

Another purpose of reflection is attempting to make sense of something that happened in the past. I have written about things that have happened to me and things that I have done in the past in the form of (unpublished and/or fictionalized) blog posts, poems, journal entries, scripts, podcasts...

As of recently, the posts I have drafted but not published for Profound Novelty all remain unpublished because of their contained negativity and too many personal details. I drafted three posts about anxiety in the last two weeks, and all of them were more or less titled "Good Things are Happening Except I have Anxiety." God must have been reading those drafts because things have miraculously worked themselves out. For example, as I was typing a fourth draft about the anxiety in my personal life taking over my academic life, someone who I had been avoiding/who had been avoiding me for the past three weeks after a fight messaged me out of the blue and we made up.  Frankly, that exchange took away most of my personal troubles and brought closure to the situation. It's amazing how being kind and reaching out to someone can do that.

 Much of my anxiety was also about the future. It was so hard to plan for when nothing was settled. That has been alleviated too: this summer I have an internship with a film distribution company in Los Angeles that I finally got my parents on board about, I have housing all figured out for next year, and I was awarded the privilege of being UNC Student Television's 2016-2017 Station Manager. It's really fulfilling to have all my hard work be recognized through leadership and development opportunities like these.

I'm not really anxious anymore. I am too tired, and there are so many more good things to focus on, like friends and exercise and adventure. Based on my own experience, I would advise writers of any personal medium to write from what they know -just get it out- but remember to focus on the things that have made them happy.

Novelties from the past two weeks

I never really thought this before this year, but more and more I find that I really do have friends at work that I'm excited to see at every shift. I love talking to my co-workers and hanging out with them. I've also discovered that I am not yet really prepared to deal with emergencies at work, but hopefully with more training I will be mentally prepared for that responsibility. I could deal with calling 911 for a real emergency if I had to, but less dire emergencies are the really tricky ones because you don't necessarily know what to do about them or how seriously to address them. I know now why one of my co-workers/bosses literally always runs around at the end of a closing shift- there's so much to get done and so many people to herd!

Today I finished a beer and it reminded me of Easter Sunday's family luncheon, where literally everyone at the table tried to pour themselves wine while the cork was still in the bottle. I almost did that this evening with my beer. It was one of those kinds of days.

I straightened my hair this week and people in every class I had were like, "Oh wow! Your hair looks so great! Did you get a haircut?" Even one of my TAs gave it a thumbs up.

Flat-ironed my hair, for funsies

 I found the attention amusing. I personally prefer to leave my hair curly or wavy most days, but I just felt like changing it up and straightened my hair for the first time in...over a year? Did I iron it at any point in the past year? I feel like I didn't... Straight or curly hair, I believe I am beautiful regardless and I strive to compliment people on their personality and character in addition to the surface-level parts of them.


Another thing funny thing happened today. I did some laundry. Haha.

Haha, just kidding. That wasn't the funny thing that happened. I did do laundry, though. Actually there are two funny things that happened while doing my laundry. The first funny thing is that I washed one of my new nice shirts in cold water and it shrunk in the silliest way possible. It's now a too-wide crop top. Oh well, at least I got one or two wears out of it.

First wear: looks nice!

Now it's an accidental crop top. That's the last time I buy a 100% rayon shirt.

The second funny thing is that I washed my shirt from Holi Moli today, which for those who are unfamiliar with the event was a massive celebration involving the aerial toss of colorful pigment by hundreds of people.

Me and my friend Tyler at Holi Moli

Washing the shirt turned it back to its original white color. Well, except for the armpits.

Pink pit stains after the wash. Some things will never come out.

Last night the Carolina Marathon Team had a nice team dinner together at Med Deli that was intended to be a pre-race dinner except none of the people at the dinner were actually planning to run a race this weekend.

 A fun team dinner!

You'll notice this blog post has a lot of selfies. In the past few weeks I have taken more selfies than normal. I tend not to take a lot of selfies but there were several times that I felt that I looked too good, and felt too confident in myself not to capture the moment.