As some of you may know, I served as News editor of this very newspaper last year. I spent many hours every week nagging writers to submit their articles before Sunday at 7 p.m. So I can only imagine the reaction of the current Life & Style editor, who wrote for me last year, when I was unable to submit my column last week. Allow me to explain why that happened.

It was a typical Tuesday night here in Málaga, Spain. I decided to do a little writing while watching TV in my host family’s apartment, so I brought my laptop into the TV room and tried to set it on a small table. Unfortunately, my clumsiness caused the laptop to fall from the table. It continued to work until I turned it off later that evening. When I turned it back on, Windows wouldn’t start. So the next day I brought it to a computer store, where I was told it would be ready within a few days. That turned into a week.

It was not an easy week for me. I couldn’t write the compositions required for my language tutorial. When the other Dickinsonians discussed weekend plans on Facebook, I couldn’t join in the conversation. I didn’t know that there was a problem with the university classes I had picked and that I needed to pick a replacement class. I had no way of telling my family back in the United States what was going on. But most of all, I was very bored.

Don’t get me wrong, I found some ways of killing time. My bedroom has a lot of books in both Spanish and English, so I did a lot of reading. I extended the length of my siestas and watched TV, finding two game shows I enjoyed greatly. But it wasn’t enough. I felt out of the loop and with too much time on my hands.

Fortunately, the laptop is back in my possession. It turns out that the hard disk was damaged in the fall, so I was given Windows in Spanish. The person in the computer store who first told me this assured me that my Spanish was good enough to use it, and so far he’s been right. However, I didn’t realize that Office in Spanish would be hard to use. Specifically, the majority of the keyboard shortcuts are different. Control-S is not “save,” but rather subrayado (underline). Control-U is not “underline,” but rather nuevo documento (new document). Control-N is not “new document,” but rather negrita (bold). I could go on, but it’s already driving me nuts that Control-I is not “italics,” but rather ir a (go to); “italics” is cursiva, which is Control-K (most of the Edit menu shortcuts are the same).

You may think, “Well, if you speak enough Spanish to be in Málaga for the semester, surely you can figure out the new shortcuts, right?” That’s mostly true. However, it’s one thing for my brain to think buscar instead of “find.” It’s quite another for my fingers to learn Control-B instead of Control-F.