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Published: December 10th 2007
No traveling this weekend. My co and I both decided that we needed to just vegg out and get a lot of sleep. Funny thing is that, in an effort to save some money I had to drop over $1000 on a new laptop this weekend.
I have had my thinkpad for 4 and a half years and I love it. It got me through college and didn't have any major problems....until this week. Recently my thinkpad has started freezing up for no reason. Then, when I try to turn it back on, it wouldn't do anything. Then when it does come on, it will freeze up after 5 minutes. So my dad and I had some great Skype marathons and we have decided that the computer isn't savable and that I should just get a new one.
So yesterday I went down to Yodabashi Camera; which has now been dubbed, "best buy on crack". It's on the other side of the station and has everything electronic that you could be looking for. I found the laptops and guess what, there are no Dell laptops there. So I looked around for computers that would be good substitutes and found the Sony Vio. Please remember this important tip when you go computer shopping in another country, you will not be able to buy a computer in English. I could pay the extra $50 for an English keyboard but there was no way to get a computer with the processing in English. So as I'm walking around this store muttering to myself how screwed I was I decided to just head home and wait to think about what I was going to do. It's either I buy a Japanese computer or I transfer the money home and have my family buy a new thinkpad for me and then ship it to Japan. Logically, it makes more sense for me to just buy one here.
So I took out a ridiculously amount of money and went back to Yodabashi Camera. As I was standing and pocking through the computer I decided to call my friend who is up in Aomori with JET. He helped me out so much. Told me that he hasn't heard anything good about the Sony Laptops and that if I was really going to get one that I should look into getting a Macbook. It can run windows and can be put in English for me. So I decided to walk out to the Apple store and poke around at the Macs. While I was there a guy came up and made a comment about my hoodie. I was wearing my Kansai Gaidai hoodie and he asked if I knew a professor; which I didn't; and then I asked him about the Mac and he showed me that everything would be in English and let me use it for a bit. Now the Mac was more expensive than the Vio.
I went home afterwards. I had planned on calling home and talking to my dad about how much it would cost to send a thinkpad here and if it would just be smarted to buy the Macbook and deal with a new system. I was sitting here and my computer froze within 5 minutes and I ran downstairs and got out more money and went back to the Apple store. A new girl helped me out and asked if I was a teacher and when I said yes she brought me a form for a teachers discount. When I told her I was teaching with AEON she was like...oh, thats not part of the schools we offer it to. Then the guy who had been helping me before came over. Apparently he was off work and told her to just give it to me anyway. So I got a 10% off on my Macbook. They set everything up in English for me and told me to come back in 20 minutes. So I called my friend in Aomori again talked with him some more, picked it up and then headed back to my apartment to start up my new computer.
All in all its very different from my Thinkpad and I have a Japanese keyboard as well so it is even more different. I have to find where the apostrophe, @ and the under score are when I'm typing. very different. Now I start the long process of moving my music files from my Thinkpad to my external hard drive and then onto my Mac. Oh how to fun begins!!
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Aunt Vicki & Uncle Glen
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A Mac? Welcome to the Dark Side!
Kathryn: I'm having lots of fun traveling with you via your blog; sorry to hear about the demise of your Thinkpad, but glad to know you're all set up...even if it is a Mac, much to your Dad's dismay. Macs are all we use, so we're fans for sure. I bet you'll love it! We're getting ready for Christmas here, and we've even had some snow! All three of our kids will be home; can't wait! Work is crazy-busy, that's a good thing. Think of you every day, so far far away. You are (have always been) very brave!!! Hope all's well! xo