| CRASHINGS AT FINALS I knew a girl. She used to be a freshman at PHC. 3 weeks ago she was down at Marketstreet on a Friday night with an open laptop, a comfy pillow, and a cappuccino. She was just finishing her last paper for Theology when the computer froze. Great…ok, time to back everything up… Problem is, sometimes once computers are turned off, they don’t like to turn on again, or rather, they turn on, but instead of the beautiful Windows screen you’re presented with a depressingly black screen and small blinking line in the upper left corner. You have got to be kidding me… To make matters even more delightful, she hadn’t backed up her documents for several weeks and lost 2 completed papers, several short assignments, and important pages and even an entire semester of class notes. Her roommate kindly offered to take the laptop in to Tech the next morning since she’d be biking, running, orienteering, and tire-dragging the next morning with her Forge team. There about 10 teams of 6 PHC students competing, and the Flying Dutchmen—composed of Ben Sayre, Rachel Reiley, Daniel Hebda, Will Gates, Glenn Landstrom, and her—wanted to shoot for the top. John Curry, Jordan Estrada, and others had designed an awesome race that included a 10 mile bike ride on the W&OD trail, a large tractor tire that would be thrown around and dragged, 2.5 miles of trail/grass running, and an orienteering course—lots of fun and an awesome challenge. Saturday morning the Dutchmen began with the 10 mile bike ride, and less than a mile into it as she was moving from the back of the line to the front, her shoelace got caught in the pedal. Pedal Forward? Nope. Backwards? Not budging...this isn’t going to feel so good. Just don’t take out whoever’s next to you… And no, it didn’t feel very good. :P Lying half-on and half-off the bike path with her feet still stuck in the pedals, she felt so stupid. SHOELACES?!? Dumb mistake, and it would probably cost her team a lot. Just 5 minutes into a predicted 2-hour race, and she had already wiped out on a road-bike at 20 mph. Right arm was skinned from wrist to shoulder with a chunk missing below the elbow, right leg was roadburned, left hand had tiny rocks embedded (the pinky looked like a Doberman had chewed on it), and before the run she discovered that she’d also de-skinned a nice chunk on her side as well. Lovely… But our entire team kept going, even when Reiley (our resident nurse ;)) needed an inhaler on the running section, and in the end the tied the 1st place team at 1:54, and took 2nd on a penalty in the orienteering section. Honestly, our team rocked! But when Jenna came back and told me that Tech couldn’t fix my laptop, that the operating system was damaged, and that I needed to take it into BestBuy for repairs… when I had no car, I wanted to cry. The next week was painful as my injuries stole precious hours to nurse and BestBuy kept pulling the supremely frustrating “it’ll be done tonight… tomorrow morning… this evening… the next day…” routine. 24 hours. Computer crash. Lost papers. Bike crash. Lost energy. Lost time. WHAT’S NEXT??? With all the work piling up, and the pain wearing me down in exhaustion, I wanted to quit so badly. But then miraculously, when you really want to give up, God gives you grace to laugh at your circumstances and see the important lessons that He’s teaching you. Those who know me well know how much I try to pour into the arenas of academics and sports, and in one 24-hour period, the Lord suddenly stripped me of both. Where I had been ahead in my paper-writing, I was now suddenly behind. Where I had previously been able to run a half-marathon, I now couldn’t sit down without wincing. I remember laying on the bottom bunk grasping a pillow in one hand as Tim used a needle to coax the rocks out of my finger and then doused everything in alcohol (because peroxide wasn’t good enough) before wrapping everything in gauze. With the frequent bandage changings, I got good at squeezing pillows, hands, and even the wooden slats of the upper bunk. :P Before the crashes, I think I thought I was in control of my life. And I wasn’t. At all. Being in a tough position and unable to do anything for myself was a learning experience. I had an established pattern: I’d work on school and then go running to take a break and clear my head. Work hard, play hard, and use the two to balance each other out. Now I’d be sitting at the library computer, preparing for Finals inefficiently without my data, frustrated, with no sports outlet. I felt like I was going batty, I was so helpless. Then one night a good friend was helping me and offered that “Maybe God’s teaching you how to depend on other people.” I just laughed in response… But she was perceptively right. I don’t tend to like depending on other people or needing them, preferring to be self-sufficient and independent in my work and pursuits. I love my friends and am very thankful for them, but I prefer to do things myself, not out of pride or a lack of trust as much as a desire to not to use people as a crutch or become overly dependent on them. I’ve always seen unconditional co-dependence as a weakness, and I still think it is. But the illusion of complete self-sufficiency is also dangerous, probably because it’s a myth. Now, with no computer and no running I had nowhere to turn except to the Lord for comfort and my friends for help. I learned that it’s ok to need people. Our brothers and sisters in the Lord are family for a reason, because our ‘independence’ and personal strength only goes so far. Our strength comes from the Lord, and if ever we dupe ourselves into thinking it’s found in ourselves, we’ll quickly learn our mistake. We are nothing without Him. And our friends are there to help us, to carry us along when we struggle, and to bring us to our feet when we stumble to the ground. I owe so much to so many of you. Jenna and Renee constantly changing my bandages, Aidan driving me around, Tia encouraging and providing back massages, Jared and Josh with their computer expertise, and all the people who lent me notes and studyguides. It was an amazing 2 weeks, and in the midst of friends and lessons, I learned to laugh, even as things continued to go wrong. I called BestBuy again on Thursday to ask after my laptop and was told to call back later because “You need to talk to the tech working on your laptop. Something happened and he wants to talk to you before he does any more work.” OK… that’s comforting. When I called back the tech paused and asked if they’d told me what had happened. “Um, no, they didn’t.” Now what went wrong? “I’m sorry, miss. The good news is that we did recover all of your data, but one of my agents accidentally damaged the unit. I, uh, I just talked to our sales rep, and we’re going to provide you with a new unit from the sales’ floor.” So I was given a new laptop, a Toshiba with Windows Vista, which was beautiful! But… the PHC network isn’t compatible with Vista yet, and the laptop they provided wasn’t compatible with anything except Vista, so I found myself without internet to send in my papers and short assignments. As a result, I trekked daily down to Marketstreet in search of the web. Rather inconvenient, but hey, it worked. And then I didn’t have Microsoft Word, so 2 friends very kindly put the 2007 version included with the computer on for me. New problem: with no internet I couldn’t tap into the network to print my papers from the school printers and when I used a flashdrive to give it to someone else to print, I discovered that no one else had Microsoft 2007 and the different formats weren’t compatible. BTW, I really hate computers. Katie to the Rescue! After asking various people for advice, my fantastic RA helped me find an option that allowed me to change the formats into one compatible with Word 97-2003. Coming back to my room after my last exam Wednesday, I couldn’t help laughing again. Who would have thought? Laptop, Bike, Laptop Again, and all through Finals! And who would have thought that I’d actually make it through it? The Lord sustains us when the circumstances turn against us, and He never fails us when we need the strength. The lessons can hurt, but we inevitably emerge so much the better for the pain. I’m not going to forget those 2 weeks of Finals, not because they signified the end of my freshman career, though that’s true, but because they taught me so much. Though while I’m at it… I’m no longer a freshman!!! Wow, 1 down, 3 to go. Some things I need to remember for next year though… 1. Back-up your work on a weekly basis. 2. Tie your shoelaces short and tuck them in to your shoes. 3. Always remember that your strength comes from the Lord and Him alone. 4. Remember that some dependence isn’t evil, and never be afraid to let your friends help and support you. 5. LAUGH! This is our Father’s world and no matter what comes your way, it’s not anything that He can’t carry you through, even if it’s incompetent BestBuy nerds who specialize in breaking laptops. :P |
