Having a slow laptop in 2014 is an affront to my human rights

My laptop in happier times

I have a slow laptop. This laptop was purchased in the grand summer of 2011. I know, I know, it was many moons ago. The iphone 5 was just a glimmer in the iphone 4's eye, nobody knew what a selfie was and Facebook hadn't even introduced the cover photo yet. Simpler times, yes. It was a well-behaved laptop at first. It zipped from programme to programme with the finesse of a figure skater and its new Windows 7 features were a sight to behold for someone like me who was more accustomed to the banality of Windows XP.

Alas, it seems our honeymoon period is over. It has been for some time, I think I've just been afraid to admit it. Now it seems more like a geriatric chain-smoker; choking its way interminably through the last few breaths of life. It's not just slow, it's glacial slow. 

Turning on my laptop is like trying to start one of those old-style planes you see with the propeller at the front. It's a whole ordeal. It takes no less than 5 minutes. As soon as I press the On button, the fan makes this terrible wheezing noise as if to say, "Kill me you poor bastard and put me and you out of our misery." I actually feel guilty using it as I know whatever nuts, bolts and chips that comprise its insides must feel like sweatshop workers at this stage. 

Then, when I eventually get to the homescreen and key in my details, it takes another few minutes to load the desktop. It vomits out the various features. First comes the taskbar. Then the desktop image decides to amble along. Then the various programmes begin to dot the screen very languidly, in keeping with custom of course. I then have to wait a couple more minutes as I know if I leap right into Google Chrome or my documents folder, my laptop will shit itself into a comatose state. 

And then when I actually get the chance to use it it performs about as well as Wayne Rooney in an England jersey. The programmes begin to not respond at will. If I have the audacity to click a feature too quickly or the cheek to try and multi-task by opening more than one tab, whaddya know, Google Chrome is not responding. And how do you know things are really fucked? The box informing you that the programme is not responding begins not responding. It's a nightmare. There are certain websites that just really get my laptop's goat as well. My laptop dislikes Youtube especially. It dislikes it so much that it panics and freezes as soon as I key the letter Y into the search bar. It knows. It has a similar distaste for Twitter. 

It hinders me. As a human. As a student. I want to be industrious and dilligent. I want to work on my projects and my college work, honest I do. But when I begin working on such work and the pages take their time to load or the programmes begin to not respond, I naturally cast my eye onto other websites. While that article I need for my essay is taking its time loading I might just pop over to Facebook on another tab for a gander and then, whack, I've wasted half an hour trying to work out if that girl with strict privacy settings who liked my profile picture is in a relationship or not. 

Allied to its inherent slowness, my laptop has another major problem. The shift key is busted. Broken. Caput. It does not work. This means I have to use the on-screen keyboard whenever I need to type a question mark or a dollar symbol or an at symbol or an exclamation mark. This is torrid. The on-screen keyboard is constantly on stand-by. The problem with it is that it is a sadistic bastard and likes nothing more than not responding. I can see it chortle as my screen turns pale and my faces turns red. It's a vicious circle.

They say that our generation has the greatest capacity for learning as we have the internet, an infinite encyclopedia of knowledge, while past generations only had libraries and books. That is true but they didn't have 180 petabytes of porn at their finger tips or notebooks that jammed when they began writing their essay. 

My human rights are in violation, I believe. No really. According to the UN, usually a good authority on the whole human rights malark, broadband access is a basic human right up there with "the right to healthcare, shelter and food". My broadband connection is ok but the medium through which I am to receive this broadband, i.e. my laptop, is a crock of shit. It's like receiving top class medical attention in a garden shed. 

The solution? I'm not sure. I'm broke. Student-broke, not proper broke. I cannot afford a new laptop though. Is there an answer? Will I forever be deprived of quality computing? How long more will I have to endure clunky interface and unresponsive programmes? I am Mandela and this laptop is my Robben Island. It's a long walk to freedom from slow computers.