Friday, 10 April 2015

Lament to the IPod Classic

Growing up in the UK with all the new advancements in technology and everything that’s available all the time, you forget that sometimes it can actually be quite hard when you’re away from home and normality for long time.  Not that India is behind in technology, not at all.  Everyone has really good phones, tablets and there are computer shops everywhere. However one thing they don’t do well is wifi, it’s a task to find some wifi.  It’s just that you forget technology can die and let you down when you really need it and being away from home can make it harder.  As much as I could say that I could do without this and that, when you don’t have it, you realise that you actually really liked having it.   And I’ve realised how spoiled we all are in Britain.  Well, how people are in most countries where they can just get new things or things fixed really quick.  This also includes India.  This year has already shown me how amazing technology can be in so many ways but there are still some things that aren’t perfect.

Good internet.  That’s something that back home everybody takes for granted.  I know I did before I came here.  But now I really appreciate a fast decent internet connection that doesn’t take half an hour to load a 2 minute sari tying tutorial.  Trying to skype with our dongal is really hard.  The connection is really bad so everybody’s usually really pixilated and there is a delay so you have to wait a while until it gets to you. 

A laptop.  I brought my laptop out with my so I could watch movies, have books, write blogs and go on the internet.  A great thing.  Everyone likes having a laptop.  But not when it stops working.  Just after Christmas, I went to turn my laptop on and it wouldn’t.  Well, it turns on but then there’s just a black screen and I can’t do anything.  So I was stuck without a laptop.  And with me in the middle of doing a TEFL course, I really needed my laptop.  I had no real way of connecting to the internet and it was just annoying when I had brought it out with me to do things and now I didn’t have it.  Thankfully, Amazon is a beautiful thing.  My dad ordered me a cheap laptop off Amazon that’s going to be the family laptop when I get back.  Or my actual laptop if I can’t get the other one fixed.  However, the laptop came without an operating system.  Which I didn’t think was a thing!  So, a trip to the computer shop up the road a few times and I got Windows 8 installed.  For 650 rupees.  So I can definitely say that it’s a slightly dodgy copy of Windows but it does the trick and I now have a working laptop so I can watch Frozen repeatedly again.

A smart phone.  I feel like such a spoiled white girl sometimes because of how much I miss my iphone.  But it’s just so handy and perfect.  I miss being able to be in contact with people all the time.   After everything that happened in the first few months here, I wanted to be able to get in touch with my family at home easily.  There were times when I’d missed calls and emails and it wasn’t nice when I all wanted to do was speak to someone back home.  So I had to get myself a decent phone.  So now I have a great nokia.  It’s really good and I can do everything I need to again.  And emergency google sari tying tutorials and what the difference is between a lizard and a gecko (all geckos are lizards but not all lizards are geckos)
  


Just before Christmas, the worst thing happened.  My ipod stopped working.  For absolutely no reason, I turned it on and it said that all the music was gone.  All 12,000 songs.  And there was nothing I could do.  It was a heartbreaking day.  I even think I cried.  I have no idea what I’d do without an ipod.  I live with it in my bag, in my pocket, in my hand. And then I just couldn’t… It was gone. I may have cried down the phone to my dad that evening.  I tried everything I could think of, but nothing.  That was it.  One of the few things I’ve ever loved almost more than my parents and it had died.  After many discussions about options, my mum and dad sent out my old Ipod.  A wee nano I’ve had for years before my music library got too big to fit on an 8GB Ipod.  So at least I have something to listen to to stop me from honestly going mad.   But I don’t have my massive Ipod classic with loads of songs and a big wheel instead of a touch screen.  It was a perfect size.  Nice and comforting.  Loads of playlists and hundreds of albums.  It’s not that I don’t have all the music anymore, it’s still all safely stored at home, I hope, it’s that I no longer have the Ipod.  And, to make it worse.  Apple have stopped making Ipod Classics.  So I can no longer buy a replacement when I get home.  I understand that everybody seems to want the touch screen and something that can connect to the internet, but sometimes all you want is something good and reliable that only plays music.  I want an Ipod Classic.  I thought it was amazing.  I had mine for about 4  years and I listened to it almost constantly.  I wore it to death.  But I still want it back.  The wee baby.  So it’s not just a tragedy that my Ipod stopped working, it’s a catastrophe.  If anyone has links to Apple, please let them know that there still is a market for Ipod classics.. Even if it’s just a desperate Scottish girl crying over a broken one in India… 

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