Hey, everyone.
As promised, here is this bi-week’s post. I didn’t get any suggestions as to what this post should be about on my Facebook post, so I’ll just give y’all an update.
Well, if you didn’t already know, homecoming was busy for me. Oddly enough, it started off rough and slowly got easier.
It started off with a lot of assignments being due at the beginning of the week that caused me to pull two near-all-nighters in a row.
That was rough.
But it got better after my Wednesday midterm.
Keyword: “After”
The midterm went terribly.
I felt like I didn’t wake up until ten minutes before the midterm was due. To be clear, I was awake, i.e., my eyes were open and my brain was on but not all the way. You know?
I finally got a second wind and finish the midterm. I handed it to my professor and said, “I’m sorry.”
“For what?” he asked.
“You’ll see,” I replied.
I have yet to receive my score on the midterm. I don’t think it was very good at all but at least I answered every question and you don’t get points taken off for guessing on multiple choice.
But it’s okay. It’s over with.
I definitely needed this fall breather. I needed a break.
As part of it, I finally went to a movie. I hadn’t done that since Spider-Man: Far From Home back in July.
I went with one of my best friends to see Joker.
Yeah, yeah. I need to get to writing reviews again. However, I don’t feel adequate to write a review after I see a film for the first time, especially with this one.
Yes, there is a lot of controversy surrounding it, but I think that it is an overall good movie.
Before you judge me, let me explain.
Firstly, this is not a superhero movie.
Don’t expect there to be a hero who saves the day or comes to some astounding revelation that will save himself from his lack of self worth.
No, this is a movie about a misunderstood, mentally ill loner who is trying to find out who he is as well as his place in life. His search for himself is constantly brought to a halt when he is ridiculed for one of his mental illnesses: pseudobulbar affect, which causes him to laugh uncontrollably.
To his dismay, he has episodes that seem to occur at the worst of times.
One occurs after he is scolded by a parent for entertaining her daughter. Another occurs while he is performing a stand-up comedy routine for the first time. Another occurs while he observes a group of men hitting on a woman on the subway.
Each time, everyone in the scene either makes fun of him in their ignorance or writes him off for not behaving like a normal person despite his mental state.
And then the chaos begins.
I don’t blame him. Yes, he definitely takes things too far but it’s because his brain doesn’t have the capabilities of behaving the way a normal brain should.
That’s because he doesn’t have a normal brain.
There are several factors that go into this but I’ll save those for the movie.
My biggest takeaway from the film comes directly from the film itself: “The worst part of having a mental illness is people expect you to behave as if you don’t.”
That’s messed up.
Unfortunately, that’s reality. The world simply does not care. And that is what the entire movie is about.
As a movie, I really enjoyed it despite its very dark tone. While extreme, I think those moments were needed to support the message, similar to the violence that is so often excused in war movies for the sake of the film’s story and message.
The ending left me both satisfied and feeling like I could watch more.
I was really hesitant when I first saw the teaser trailers for Joker. It looked like a well-shot mess. It wasn’t until I started seeing what the movie was about that I decided to give it a good chance.
I was not disappointed.
I know DC wants to make more movies like this. If they decide to cover difficult and controversial topics such as these, then I’m all for it.
Alright, back to the real world.
Right, my hard drive.
So, Sterling College has been known to have at least one person a year have a hard drive fail on them.
I’ve been that person twice now.
During my first semester of college, my laptop hard drive decided to die. Three days before finals.
It sucked.
Thankfully, I had all my schoolwork on a flash drive. That saved my life.
This time, not so much.
Instead of an internal hard drive, I had my dump drive where I’ve stored every photo I’ve taken and collected in my entire life. Ever.
I had photo projects from years past on it. I had stop motion video projects from middle school. I had family photos. Concert photos. Random photos from life. Memes. I even had photos from my grandmother when I showed her how SD cards work and copied all the photos she’s taken over the years, the earliest one dating back to 2003.
I even used some of those photos to make a slideshow of my twin and me growing up for our graduation as well as a couple videos for my grandfather’s funeral.
That hard drive died.
To make matters worse, I was about to purchase a backup drive for it. Literally. I was waiting on my paycheck to finish processing so I could order one from Amazon and start backing it up properly.
So much for that idea.
I bought the hard drive. Now I’m just backing up everything else to it.
Until then, I am essentially starting over.
Thankfully, I am able to recover my photos I’ve taken for the college’s marketing department. Shoutout to my supervisor and boss for not deleting them yet and allowing me to copy them to my new hard drive.
Oh, his name is Hendricks by the way.
Yeah, I was texting some friends of mine while I was formatting my drive and I asked one of them what I should name it.
Assuming y’all don’t know how bad my naming skills are, here’s a shameless plug for a tweet of mine explaining the situation:
So, yeah. I brought in some help from one of my close friends. Without missing a beat, she replied with “Hendricks the Hard Drive.”
“Love it.” *formats hard drive*
So far, Hendricks the Hard Drive is doing a pretty dang good job at his job. He hasn’t gotten corrupted or died yet. That’s always a plus.
Through this, I have learned a lot.
I have learned that nothing lasts forever. I have learned to hold tightly onto what I hold dear.
I also learned to ask people for help, both with serious things as well as not-so-serious things. It’s okay to ask your supervisor if still have the photos you have taken for them and already lost once and have them copied to your hard drive. It’s also okay to ask your friends to name that hard drive something funny.
Also, random thing: I love finding people who will jam out with you to 2000s tobyMac for a car ride. It’s literally one of the best feelings and connections I’ve made in a really long time. Throwback!
So, before it’s Monday and I miss my deadline again:
k bye