So my story probably won’t make the most direct connection with the audience, but it’s roots should touch everyone. This is a story of trial and triumph. Of facing difficulty and overcoming it, that sense of accomplishment that comes after a long battle. But as I said before, this won’t be your most common story. Most stories of trial and triumph come from sports, or overcoming adversity, mine on the other hand is a story of building a computer.
I have built 3 PC’s over my years, and have helped friends build or repair their own on several occasions. With each of these builds come a new adventure. First you start off by selecting the parts you want. Everyone enjoys being able to design their own things whether it be a bedroom, a new car, or in my case a computer. So I sit there with the excitement building inside me as I get to pick and choose exactly what will be in my new PC. Then even more excitement comes as the packages begin to arrive. For anyone that is as impatient as I am you will understand this. Not every part comes from the same place so every day you come home you may find a new piece that builds the anticipation more and more.
Finally the day will come when all of your parts are there, the moment you have been waiting for has finally come. You lay all the parts out, you get to work, maybe you get a piece or two in , but always you run into some kind of trouble. For me I’ve had troubles from, an improper power supply, a bad motherboard, to software not working. And for some people this would be annoying, but for me it just makes it better. Because at the end of the day I’m going to finish building it, and it seems that the more obstacles thrown in my way the more satisfying the outcome, damage control is half the fun for me. So I try to keep it local and quick, hopefully it’s a problem I can solve by visiting computer stores in town. Unfortunately I’ve lived in a fairly decent sized town but that doesn’t mean I can find everything, in extreme cases I have to order more things online and the waiting and anticipation builds once more.
Once particular problem I had with my last build was the aforementioned power supply. It had been a few years since I had built a computer and the 450W power supply I had procured since that had once been “more than any computer would need” was now obsolete when faced with the minimum required 650W supply for my video card, a slight detail I had overlooked in my purchasing. So I went out on the town and hit up every computer store we had, but as I mentioned though it was a fair sized town it was not the best. Most of the stores dealt in slower, older models and didn’t have what I needed for my powerhouse of a PC. So inevitably I fell back upon newegg.com, my source for basically everything already in my possession for the machine. This meant waiting, again. Much as in life I found that even when I had thought I had reached the apex of anticipation I was once more waiting for a day when things would be complete.
But a few days and a few dollars later I had my final piece. I once again returned to my friends basement where I had all the pieces sprawled out across the concrete floor and furniture. Though I would like to awe and wow everyone by saying that it takes some grand skill or deft hand to built a PC it is really quite simple. The most difficult part is finding the pieces online that work together, but given where technology is today and the people using it they have made it quite a simple process to do this. Really when it comes down to the actually building its nothing more than reading a manual, putting a few wires in the hole, and connecting knob A into slot B. But when you are done you have a product of your own imagination. From the blue LED lights on the fans to the sleek black design of the case it was all mine, a thing I had pictured and made real and with that comes a great feeling of accomplishment.
October 1, 2009 at 12:29 am |
I think this is a fascinating story, and one, as you mentioned, we do not hear very often (well, at least if you’ve worked collecting literacy narratives). It has a very Frankenstein feel to it–scouring the town for parts to build your monster. I would like to hear more specificity though. Could you isolate one of your builds and elaborate more on some of the skills you employed? Right now, you give the audience a nice overview of your relationship with technology. What you should now do is zero in before widening your perspective again in your conclusion. This will make the victory of your story more visceral.