New computer!

So my computer finally came in the mail today! 'Finally' would seem slightly dramatic if you didn't know how long this process has been. O.K., so I'll start from the beginning. I went to speak with my disability coordinator at my University this fall before classes start to set up the appropriate accommodations I would need for that semester -- not takers, extra time/ Laptop use for tests etc... -- she mentioned a grant I could apply for that would award me up to a maximum of $2,000.00 dollars for the purchase of a laptop computer of my choice. Obviously I was enthralled and started the application process as quickly as possible. When I was filling out the forms I noticed the ministry required a letter documenting the disability in question to be sent along with the file. I have ADD, and that's one of the many on the list of  'approved' disabilities -- although, with a fundamentally significant disability (EDS), I now consider ADD as benign as hunger. I asked my coordinator (for clarity's sake, we'll just refer to her by her name from now on: Nancy), Nancy, if she needed any additional documentation. She said she had all we needed, and sent my application away for processing.

December 2011, preceding exams -- actually, during the week before exam week -- my laptop of 4 years decided to stop working. This was an incredibly disconcerting turn of events, to put it mildly. I had taken meticulous notes that semester from all my courses and saved them on my laptop; I did not back them up on any form of external memory system. So here's the quandary I found myself in: a week before exams start, lap-top-less and subsequently note-less, unable to properly prepare for my coming exams.

To make a long story short, I sent all of this in October of 2011, I did not receive any sort of contact from the ministry until March of this year (2012). A long time coming, that's for sure. When Nancy emailed me telling me they had contacted me and I would receive a letter in the mail I was ecstatic! I thought for-sure the check had been mailed directly to me and I could go out and replace my now broken laptop with a functional machine! The letter that came in, though, wasn't a check, but rather a notice that my application had been put on hold pending further documentation. I knew it! I knew that I needed documentation from an approved ADD specialist! I had told Nancy but she did not believe me! I ended up going to my ADD doc to get the letter, which he happily wrote. So with some minor speed-bumps I sent the revised application and got the money and now the lap-top.

Ok, so the laptop I got is pretty darn amazing! Its the 2012 HP Envy 3D edition. It runs off a 64-bit windows software; 8gb of ram, 1GB dedicated Radon graphics, next gen core i7 processor,  17" full HD screen. Its a beast. It can handle pretty much anything you throw at it -- including 3D graphics. I wouldn't consider myself incredibly tech-savvy, but I have to say this system gives me goosebumps; I'll write a full blog on this later today.

Anyway, so the laptop came at around 830 this morning. I was still sleeping when I heard knocking at the door. I instantly knew puralator was here with my laptop. In a haze of frenzied chaos I threw on my robe, whilst yelling "one second, be right there" to the front door, signed for the package and placed it on the table.

The crappy thing about being disabled is that every choice, every movement, has consequences. We're conditioned to fear and to hesitate jumping right into a project, even something as benign as unpacking a new laptop. I knew if I jumped straight into it head-on I would be feeling it for the rest of the day -- I also know no matter what, I'll feel it for the rest of the day; the only thing I can really do is take it slow and hope for the best. While waiting for my coffee to finish I went to my room and grabbed 2 Perocet. Who knew opening a laptop could be so painful... I can barely move my arm right now. Even typing is a 'pain'. I really do hate this. But, I can't truly ruminate right now, I'm too excited. For the past six months I've been using my mothers laptop. Its a pretty decent system -- Sony Vaio -- but I've not been able to claim sovereignty over distribution of use. I have 5 brothers and one sister. I'm the second eldest -- the eldest doesn't live at home -- so I do have some ascribed authority, but not much. I've had to 'take-turn's' with everyone else. Its been... well, annoying -- to say the least. Its just good to have some freedom again.

So, here I am. Its now 10:00 in the morning. I'm in pain, but that's to be expected. I'm also excited, and oddly awake; I probably only got about 4 hours of sleep last night -- and that's quite a liberal estimate. I would like to write more, but I'm in too much pain. I intend to write a blog about my pain and pain-management later on today, as well as my hopes for blogging and the mechanisms I'll attempt to employ in organizing my thoughts on online-paper!

"We live in a society exquisitely dependent on science and technology, in which hardly anyone knows anything about science and technology. "

Carl Sagan