here comes the fear

follow what's written on the cover of the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: DONT PANIC!

im not panicking about the bar exams. quite the opposite actually. im one of the few who isnt suffering from sleepless nights worrying that its only more or less 2 months away. 

i panicked a while ago because one, the laptop gave me a scare and two, one of my cellphones gave me a scare. 

here's what happened:

i decided to synchronize and back-up my cellphones (which i named cloak and dagger. i initially thought of naming it beavis and butthead or bill and ted but i think cloak and dagger is a more appropriate name for a pair of cellphones). so i downloaded the nokia ovi suite. after installing it, i restarted the computer and to my surprise it said that its installing updates. WTF! its not supposed to download and install updates without asking for my permission. im using Windows Vista and ive heard that there was this update before that made the Vista OS reboot...perpetually. ok, keep on rebooting without loading the desktop so it just keeps on rebooting over and over again. so i prepared for the worst as i watched the computer reboot. after showing the Lenovo splash screen, it switched to the Vista OS loading screen, and then there was darkness. well, a blank black screen. crap! holy crap! thats when i stared at the blank screen with my rarely pressed panic button activated. it stayed blank for a few minutes and the power button of the computer was flickering faintly. crap. that cant be good. i just kept staring at it and i started thinking of what im going to do in case it is a system crash. i started thinking of scheduling the repair, where to have it repaired, where i can get the money for the repair, etc. then i started thinking of when was my last back-up, on whether i could still fix it on my own, etc. thats me in panic mode. i bombard myself with thoughts and plans. after maybe more or less 5 minutes of black screen, it then changed to its normal Vista screen saying that its installing update 3 of 3. whew! after a few minutes, it continued normally. i then grabbed a DVD-R and made a back-up of the bar review lectures. thats the fear number one.

fear number two kicked in half an hour later when i started synchronizing "Dagger." while it was synchronizing the messages, i suddenly received a text message from Globe. Crap!!! ever since i owned a nokia 3660, i knew that a text message interrupting the synchronization or back-up cant be good. because of the interruption, the cellphone's screen went blank. but it continued to synchronize. when i disconnected it, it seemed ok. but when i started to open any text message, it stopped with a message saying "opening" and then the screen goes blank. crap!! again! panic button activated once again. started thinking of when to go to the nokia care center, how long it will take for them to return my phone, thats its a good thing i have "Cloak" so i can divert calls and messages to it temporarily, etc. once the panic is gone. did some troubleshooting, trying to figure out how to fix it. it still works if its connected to the computer, so i made a back-up. then i used the "restore" factory settings option. completely erased personal data but good thing i was able to make a back-up (i now have 2 back-ups, one inside the PC the other inside the laptop). problem solved! 

i hate it when i go into panic mode. the only good thing about being in panic mode is that my planning mode goes on overdrive, trying to adjust my schedule and whatever needs to be adjusted to accommodate the unforeseen event. but during panic mode, i just...well, panic.