March 10th, 2008Computer scare
Right now, the most important thing to me is probably my thesis. The deadline for the submission of the first draft is on the 20th. I’ll be barely sleeping this week. Argh
I almost freaked out yesterday (or was it the day before? The lack of sleep is getting to me. ) when I tried to switch on my computer (I have a desktop.) only to see a black screen. I tried again to no avail. I put off the power supply, remove the cables, plug them back and tried to switch on my computer again. This time the screen was black with a couple of weird colorful circles and words. According to the message on the screen, my computer hard disk wasn’t being detected. I panicked. It’s been almost 4 years since I have this computer and I didn’t have any major problems with it.
I was like.. Please don’t die on me now. Come on. A couple more months. Let me finish my thesis. I don’t have a backup. Please.
In my panicked state, I phoned Desmond and told him to come over. Meanwhile, I opened the casing and the amount of dust inside made me sneeze. Atchoum. Let’s see. The last time I opened the casing was 2 years ago when I connected a friend’s hard disk to mine.
hmm . Maybe it’s the dust which is causing this problem, I told myself.
I started cleaning but it took me a long time because I couldn’t find my computer brush. By the time Desmond came over, I was only 1/3 done. He helped me with the rest by.. using my hairdryer ! (using the cold air option of course)
I didn’t think of doing that. ![]()
It seems that the problem was really because of all the dust because after cleaning, my computer was running normally once again. The first thing I did after that was to backup my works on my external hard disk. I told Desmond that I’ll probably kill myself if I lost the content of my hard disk. I exaggerated of course. I won’t kill myself over such a matter but I’ll get really depressed.
Among the material things important to me, my computer (or rather, the hard disk and its content) is in the top 5. hehe.
As soon as I have some free time, I’ll start doing a backup of my current hard disk. Hmm maybe I should do 2 backups.
——
Now, someone please enlighten me. Hard disk or Hardisk?
I’m asking because I’ve seen people write it both ways. Google. You’ll see.
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- Questionnaire about learning Mandarin in Mauritius-
Are you a Mauritian who has studied Mandarin in Mauritius before? If yes, please let me know. The duration doesn’t matter. If you know and have the contact details of other people who have studied Mandarin in Mauritius (anyone, whether in primary school,secondary school or adults.. ) or even better, if you know some of the Mandarin teachers in Mauritius please let me know. Like I said, I’m writing my thesis and I’m looking for people to fill in a questionnaire. You’d be of great help to me. I’ll let you know the details.
Contact me via the form there or leave a message here and I’ll contact you by email or MSN if you’ve used your hotmail address here. Thank you! ![]()




I’m French and studied Mandarin, sorry
Good luck with your thesis. Hard drive I think… two words I’d say.
Make sure you backup everything just in case (keeping fingers crossed)
Zhu’s last blog post..An Elephant In My Castle
Quote?’ssup Aline,
I’m Mauritian and studied mandarin once upon a primary school…
I don’t remember much but me more than happy to contribute to ur thesis unless I need to answer in Mandarin…coz I don’t remember anything!
get an external hard disk…or a pen-drive! Or upload everything online, e.g. google doc! Good luck on your thesis!
Quote?I always say hard disk.
Using a hairdryer to clean the inside of a CPU is pretty clever! Too bad my hairdryer doesn’t have a cold air option.
Good luck on your thesis.
Aurus’s last blog post..A Switchfoot Post
Quote?I’d follow with ‘Hard Disk’ also
Another hint for back’ing up your work - Online storage. If you can’t bother to sign up. Just use Gmail
I usually do that. Split up ur files for easy uploading. And with the search feature with gmail - easy job done to find em again
.
Btw, I am still alive
Can’t say the same thing for my blog though.
Good luck with the Thesis.
LaSh’s last blog post..beep beep
Quote?Whhoa… Hair dryer. Another function detected!
gLaDieZz’s last blog post..My 21st
Quote?Hey Aline,
Just saw this post (didn’t check any blogs for ages :o)
I did study Mandarin during primary school (although I hardly remember anything O_O). Anyway, if I can help despite this, I don’t mind answering your questionnaire. So, send it away
Allez, bon courage,
Pat
Quote?Ciao ciao
It is harddisk! ah,is it your own website? it is so unique, i am not good at english,so i did read your articled as if i was learning english. I am chinese boy now in Beijing.
nice to see your website.It is fate, i really do not know how to come here,haha
Quote?I studied Mandarin for three years in high-school. Sadly, at the end of the third year, only a handful of the students could manage an essay or a conversation. Why? Not enough hours of the class time-table were allocated to the subject, and there were not enough course materials — not even a cassette player to train our ears to conversations. Also, in hindsight, the teacher was not a true paedagogue.
Lately, my interest in Mandarin has rekindled, and I listen to the free lessons on ChinesePod occasionally until I enrol in a course proper.
Good luck with your thesis and the computer — time for an upgrade maybe?
— Eddy
Eddy Young’s last blog post..Just waiting
Quote?BTW, technically it’s “hard drive” consisting of a number of “disks”. But “hard disk” works just as well.
— Eddy
Eddy Young’s last blog post..Just waiting
Quote?I studied Mandarin both in primary and secondary school. Just like Eddy mentioned, only a handful could handle a chinese conversation. Guess that it all comes to practice and whether or not you speak mandarin at home or after lecture.
Quote?@ Eddy, remember the teacher well. Always saying hard working student. Hey she was always praising you
@ Clive: Still, all I can manage at the moment is, wo hue shuo zhong wen yi tian. No tones, I just sing-song my way through hoping to hit the right tones
Eddy Young’s last blog post..Why Mauritius needs better toilet paper
Quote?euhhh!! God bless
Quote?Patricia: Thanks girl! I’ve sent you an email.
Eddy & Clive : erm… Then..do you guys mind taking my survey?
Quote?ah…Eddy…so now it’s ‘wo hue shuo zhong wen yi tian’ ?
When you wrote a comment in my facebook Note page, you wrote ‘Wo yi tian hue shuo zhong wen’. Notice the difference?
I’m guessing that you were saying that you can speak some Chinese.
Quote?Clive, for me… it was :
Parents and some relatives only speak hakka which is different…
Quote?In Mauritius, Mandarin classes in primary school, plenty of Chinese movies when I was young, then tuition at Chinese middle school (also known as ‘Sinfa’) on Saturdays + Mandarin classes in secondary school……………but almost no opportunities to speak Chinese in MU .
not at all. I am glad if i can help. Pls send me a link in a mail.
Quote?I thought that I could put “some” either before or after the verb. Oh, well… Proves that 3 years of learning the language did little to improve my mandarin ;-(
Eddy Young’s last blog post..Why Mauritius needs better toilet paper
Quote?Oh, I see your point…
I can “a little bit” speak Chinese versus I can speak “a little bit” Chinese
Eddy Young’s last blog post..Why Mauritius needs better toilet paper
Quote?hehe yes. ah..and it’s ‘hui’ instead of ‘hue’… and ‘yi dian’ instead of ‘yi tian’.
‘hue’ doesn’t exist in pinyin and ‘yi tian’ means one day.
You might also want to check this.
Quote?