I Proposed Universe Disposed

Yesterday, I was all settled and ready to finish up a post – a review of a hair oil and hair pack (imagine! bet you’re finding it really hard not to smile) when I realized it was dinner time.

Intending to continue after dinner, I toddled off to make poha and salad. I enjoyed a bit of “Awkward”, alternating between that and “Rizzoli & Isles” until I finished eating.

Then opened my laptop, when I remembered I had to email a tentative schedule to the author of the manuscript I am currently editing. Since that would only take a short while, I thought I’d get that done first before continuing with the review post. I can be so smart like that.

So imagine my utter shock at discovering that the folder with the one MS Word file now a/ showed no sign of that file, and, b/had 96 files with gibberish names.

To say I was alarmed would be the understatement of the year, even if the year is only 21 days old!

I breathed to calm myself. Oh, breathing is a regular habit with me, as you know, but this “breathed” was conscious to induce extra calmness. I stopped to think of the silver linings. I don’t mind saying I had to really force myself, you know.  I mean, memories of two previous occasions cascaded into my mind, reminding me of what a crybaby I had been at the time, and I scolded myself, saying, no tears.

Good thing I had only edited a few pages in the ms and didn’t feel so bad about that. I could easily catch up with it. I was afraid, though, about the rest of the files in the 64 GB USB drive and realized there was no choice but to start backing up.

So, I did what I do best, Mi. I considered how I could save the situation rather than mope over what had happened, and what could happen. Then, making up my mind, I just shut everything down and went to bed. You know I’ve always believed in sleeping over it. I invariably wake up and find that the problem is not as intimidating as it seemed the day before.

Armed with coffee and a quick chat with my techGuru and friend Ravi, cooking tackled for the day, I settled down at 10 am to deal with the task at hand.

I spent a good five hours backing up. The thing about this is, once can’t just initiate and walk off. One has to babysit it, because there’ll be a series of popups asking stupid questions, which, unless answered, won’t allow the process to continue.

“Annieways” as they say these days (ugh!), I looked at my day’s to-do list already shifting over to accommodate this emergency, and decided to make the most of it. I pulled out my playlist of songs–because better to sing loudly than sulk, no?– my diary and note book, and my set of pens and got started. Sitting at the desk, I made plans with deadlines. I allocated them to appropriate dates. Oh yes, there were plenty of interruptions: answering the phones, responding to doorbells, and so on.

By 4, I was done with backing up and formatting the crazy drive, and had managed to sneak in lunch, too. And two coffees, of course.

Actually, I must say it felt therapeutic to delete a whole lot of stuff you know. And also to discover stuff I had forgotten I had stored. So I think, Universe, I am cool with what you did.

Lessons learned (thank you, again, Ravi)

1. High capacity USB drives are a bad idea, a pain to back up and riskier in terms of data loss.
2. Better to use 8 GB or max, 16 GB USB pen drives.
3. Cloud backups make sense.
4. I may propose, but there’s no guarantee that Universe won’t dispose and I am actually okay with that.

That’s all, Mi! Heading off for that much-needed coffee now, as I trudge forward to catch up on pending stuff.

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