I do not know what is going on with my internet, but suffice it to say that it has not been working properly since Wednesday or so. It'll work sometimes, but usually at short intervals – say, for fifteen minutes or up to two hours or so – before going offline again, sometimes for much longer (it's been inoperative for up to six hours straight at times). There seems to be no rhyme or reason to it, and despite how many times I reset the modem and router or unplug it/plug it back in, nothing has helped me “reclaim” my normal internet service. Because of that, I have lost at least two full blog posts here, and have spent many of the past 72 hours completely and utterly going out of my mind.
When you have no money (and therefore, nothing to do) during an extended break from school, having reliable internet that, y'know, works is incredibly important to my sanity and/or keeping me from becoming completely and utterly depressed. It is the one outlet I have into the real world, the only way I can keep in contact with my family and friends, the only way I read the news, etc. It an absolute necessity, one which is needed when I am home for an extended period of time more than ever. It's also the only way I'll ever know when I will get more money, as all of my banking stuff is online. So yeah, it's kind of important.
Here's what I do know, after a few calls to my ISP (who has always been wonderful when it comes to tech support and helping me when there's a problem):
There aren't any outages in my area that they can see; all systems are normal from what they can tell, with the exception that when I called, my modem was offline but connected (yeah, they can tell when it's plugged in).
A hard reset of my modem didn't work to solve the problem (then again, I knew that already).
If it's working intermittently (read: sometimes on, sometimes not), like it's been doing, then there are but a few solutions to the problem, none of them pleasant – either a cable or component has gone bad or is going bad between the pole and my house, or in the box on the side of my house, or the modem itself is dying.
The former, if that's the problem, should be relatively easy to fix by a service tech, and probably won't cost me any money. The latter? While that's more than likely the case, in case you didn't get the memo, I'm poor. Very poor, at least for the next two weeks or so. While I can get a replacement modem from the cable company, just like I got the one I'm using now, it's about $60. They bill it to you in three monthly installments, usually tacked on to your normal bill. That's not incredibly expensive, no, but it's still an expense that I was really not prepared for, nor is it one that I can pay right at this moment without the credit card if they don't do the installment billing anymore.
The ISP is sending a service tech out in the morning – yes, tomorrow morning, New Year's Day, between 8 and 10AM (possibly the worst time/day ever for said tech) to look at the problem and see what he can do. Regardless of what's wrong, by this time tomorrow afternoon I'm hoping everything will be fixed and fully operational again. Meanwhile, here I am hoping that every time I'm able to get online, it'll just keep working and won't screw up again. I've been able to get online four or five times since I got up this morning, each interval ranging from anywhere between a few minutes to fifteen or twenty before it goes offline again. Because this isn't that pleasant (obviously) I have taken to typing my blog posts, including this one, on my word processor for later cut-and-paste.
On the plus side, my mother did deposit the two checks I mailed her this week, and both have now cleared my bank account (which I was very quickly able to check the last time my internet was working), which gives me some grocery money. I'll have to go out and get some food today at some point, but I don't know when or what I'll get. The fridge is, regrettably, bare.
So, that's how things are now, where they stand. I will, of course, update all of you on what happens and how it happens, but for now just consider me offline, and off the grid (so to speak).
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