yup. back on the laptop.

didn't even lose a tab...

might even be a bit snappier. and, the "your windows is fake" screen hasn't come up yet, when it should. score.

i need to go through and fix typos and rearrange all the posts made since sunday night, put an entry into the star log and get back to focusing on those liner notes, which i probably won't get much of a start on by the end of the night, but we'll see.

it's an interesting reflection of what it means to grow up in canada, though.

my dad is french on his father's side and italian on his mother's side, and i'm more interested in greek than latin.

i feel more greek than latin.

but, i'm not greek. at all.

i think this article is missing the point.

when you live in ottawa, you pretty much only have one economic opportunity, and that's working for the government. if you want a job in the government, you'd better be bilingual. so, what's happening is that the economic realities of the region are creating a pretty strong push factor to get kids into immersion - because people know that if their kids can't speak french, then they have no future in the city.

they don't need an education campaign to promote the benefits of the english system; so long as the only serious employment opportunities in the city are in government, you're going to see this continue. i don't want to "blame" it on the federal government's bilingual policy, but if the region can't diversify it's economy away from government then it's the truth of it - you'll never get a decent job if you're not fluent in french.

i didn't go to immersion, and in fact i thought learning french was a waste of time - something i actually don't regret. that doesn't have a lot to do with why i moved. my french is rusty, but it's workable. i could pass a test. i legitimately just didn't want a government job. i didn't want the 9-5, the responsibility, the social obligations...

and, i don't actually think the language issue was at the heart of the barriers i faced in employment. stated tersely, they didn't seem to want me there any more than i wanted to be there; i didn't understand the culture, i didn't have the experience, i didn't fit in and they knew it.

my parents got into a hugely nasty fight about this, though. my father is fluently bilingual, and expected his children would be. my mother was born in saskatchewan, and wanted me to grow up with an english identity (despite not having any actual english ancestry, to my knowledge - she's norse and finnish and irish and welsh and scottish, but not actually english). in the end, she got to make the choice, but he deeply resented her for it, and i never really developed enough of a french identity to take an independent interest. i was growing up in the onset of globalization. why can't we all speak one language? why do we need to have dozens of them?

my perspective hasn't meaningfully changed. i still don't want to work in the government. and, if i were to learn a new language today, french wouldn't be the one i'd be most interested in. i think i'd rather learn greek, or maybe russian. 

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/canada/article-french-immersion-causes-two-tier-school-system-data-show/

so, i'm still on the chromebook. but, the laptop booted...and everything seems to be where it was....

i have some loose ends to work out before i close this machine back down, but i should be able to spend most of the night on the other machine, catching up on things from the last few days, after i stop to get something quick to eat.

this was not as serious of an issue as the last time this happened, which was after i tried to pop my access to information disc in the machine. all i did to fix this was the following:

1) take the hard drive out of the laptop

2) install the hard drive into the pc in an open slot

3) put a windows 7 disc into the pc

4) boot to windows pe and run a chkdsk /b.

5) boot into windows xp on the pc. yeah. it's fast.

6) copy everything off of the laptop's hard drive onto the pc's hard drive

7) turn the pc off and unplug all of the hard drives in the pc except the laptop's drive.

8) reboot to dvd and install windows 7 to the laptop's hard drive. this rebuilds the boot sector from scratch.

9) once you're up in windows 7, turn the machine off.

10) plug the other hard drives back in, and boot back into windows xp.

11) delete all of the data off of the laptop's install partition, except the registry. save that, just in case. do not format the install partition. do not touch the boot partition.

12) copy the data back on to the hard drive, putting the fresh registry somewhere safe for troubleshooting.

13) it should now boot back to your previous install, on the pc. if there are registry issues, you can fix them via trial and error. this time, there actually weren't any - it just booted up clean.
14) put the hard drive back in the laptop.

i legit lost sunday night, but i was going to spend monday making calls anyways, and i had to do show research for the trip, and i had to get some sleep. so, didn't really lose monday or tuesday. i guess i also lost tonight. so, that's only like ten hours. i've wasted more time on a new york times article.

let's get things in order by early morning, so i can hit the show tomorrow night.

it's curious.

i'm searching through my registry files, and the logs all have to do with remote desktop. mstc.exe. dialer.exe. phone calls....

but, it booted cleanly. so, it seems to have been strictly a boot sector issue. let's hope it boots back up on the laptop without further problems.