Okaaay. So much for hoping that my laptop would hold out for the next 2 weeks. The (terribly) vital cooling fan has unquestionably kaputed, resulting in incessant system warnings for me to "shut down immediately and send the laptop in for repair" barely 10 minutes after I start it up. I wouldn't want to push it by seeing how long it takes for me to melt the microchips into goo now, would I. Besides, the entire system starts slowing down so much that it's near impossible to get anything done on it. Let's all hope and pray that Toshiba's service centre ppl will be able to put things right again WITHOUT doing anything to the hard disk drive. Otherwise... bye bye lecture notes, music, and photos. Especially the photos. I've only ONE cd's worth backed up, and the last I'd checked, photos took up a massive 3.5GB on my C drive. *grimaces*

However, there is still something to be thankful for. The family PC for one. Regardless of how outdated it is... The fact that it runs on Win98 at least means I can (and have) successfully installed office XP on it. Yay for me. Did I mention I've a powerpoint presentation and 2 essays due in the coming fortnight? So yes. A LOT to be thankful for here. I don't want to imagine how else I'd be coping now if not for my possessing the installation discs and the Win98 platform...

Toshiba service centre ppl estimated that it'd take a week to replace the fan, IF they have the parts. If NOT, they'll have to order it from Japan and that could be anytime between 2 to 6 weeks. Normally I think I would have freaked out, but at this point in time I can't even be bothered to get my hackles raised over inefficiency. Though I'll admit that I sort of sputtered when on the phone with the service centre person... Heh. Oh well.

Went to the zoo today btw. Finally saw the white tigers, which are actually not that white, and the infamous green (aka algae-infested) polar bear. I think I liked the oriental otters best, the noisy little things. :)