If It Ain't Broke

I did not realize this when writing it, but my last post was a celebration of the first in a long line of things this semester that have failed to comprehend the old adage, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it." There was essentially nothing wrong with the old football seating system, yet we changed it - and look at us now. The entire back half of the senior section has been reduced to a faceless mass of high confusion and higher BACs. Despite this clear model in favor of not fixing things that are not broken, though, the world has just gone on doing that same thing in the weeks since my last post. The iPhone has gone and completely redone itself for no discernible reason. My lungs are staging a full-scale mutiny against the rest of my body. Chaos reigns. So naturally, I'm blogging about it.

Though this should come as a surprise to probably zero people, I have a lot of feelings about the iPhone's new "iOS 7." For those of you who don't have iPhones - or who, like my parents, do have iPhones but don't center your lives around reading things on the Internet about how disappointed people are with their $200 portable telephones - the news here is that the people behind iPhone have redesigned the phone's operating system. Some new features, like the easily accessible flashlight, are great. Others, like the inexplicable shift in the search bar from left-of-home-screen limbo to barely accessible ether above the home screen, are mostly confusing. I don't know. Google them.

The primary change in the iOS 6-7 shift, though, is in design. This is where my substantial lot of feelings comes in. iOS 7 has introduced a new, "sleeker" design for pretty much all facets of the phone, but the change that's easiest to see is in the various icons for the built-in apps of the home screen. Under the old operating system, the home screen of an iPhone looked more or less like this:

The good ol' days. 

With iOS 7 - which, yes, does sound remarkably like "Iowa Seven" when said out loud - the home screen looks roughly like this: 

Every icon takes on a different shade of neon, and the icons all take on the exact same shade of "minimalism." The only primary color on my entire home screen is the angry red sliver in the corner telling me that I need to plug my phone in to the charger. I can't tell you exactly how much battery life I have left, because that percentage - like every other word and number on iOS 7 - is displayed in an impossibly thin, white font that is right around 100% impossible to read. The shades of blue and green in my text messages grow increasingly, distractingly light as one reads back in time, showing us all that Apple clearly did not notice when ombre stopped being cool. Luckily, as long as you own a moderately high-powered magnifying glass, the numbers of the time on the lock screen are still totally legible. 

iPhone, you know, I think I'm probably going to like iOS 7. After all, the color scheme is vaguely reminiscent of the pencil bag of a seventh grade girl, and that's generally how I like to think of my life, too. But what was so wrong with iOS 6? Who complained about that? I think the new system will be just fine, eventually, I'm just lost as to why we needed a new system in the first place. 

At present, I am having an similar argument to this one with my lungs. You see, two weekends ago, there was nothing whatsoever wrong with my general health. I wasn't coughing. I didn't have a fever. I was feeling, in fact, quite dandy! Certainly, with the exception of my general lack of physical fitness, nothing here was broken, and nothing needed any fixing. My lungs, however, disagreed. "Sarah," they said, "something is wrong here. You're one of four cast members in a musical next weekend, and you can sing just fine!" This, thought my lungs, is simply not enough of a challenge. To ameliorate this lack of challenge in my life, my lungs decided to start a slow and steady march straight out of my chest. Suddenly, days before our opening night, I was coughing. I was wheezing. I was losing my voice. When I walked more than about 40 feet in a straight line, I was panting like I had recently completed a half-marathon. This was great! Somehow, through a fog of cough drops and mid-scene cough breaks, I finished the show, and the next day, finally dragged myself in to the health center. 

After about 10 minutes and one stethoscope-y attempt to listen to my labored, pathetic breathing with one of the St. Liam's doctors, the mystery of my mutinous lungs was solved: I have pneumonia! 

That's right, people: I did a full run of a four-person, no-intermission musical while I had pneumonia. Normally even I am not quite self-interested enough for a paragraph like this, but, like...let's just take a minute and think about that. I still wonder how exactly I am alive right now. Quite honestly, I'm still entertaining the possibility that this is all an illusion and that last weekend actually did kill me. To anyone who wants to come over and check my pulse: welcome. I have legally-obtained codeine!

This week, then, was a lovely prolonged attempt to still kind of do school while under the influence of right around 5000 milligrams of medicine per day. I have a sweet inhaler to carry around for cough emergencies, which, of course, I have forgotten to bring with me on most of the occasions of true cough emergencies that I've had this week. College: I am doing it right.

For a really fun game, I encourage you to follow me around tomorrow in my attempt to brave the student section of the football stadium without killing anyone in the wake of my inevitable Levaquin- and iOS 7-fueled rage. And hey, football team? Our record against Michigan State in the past couple of years is not broken. Let's not choose tomorrow to "fix" it.