My Late Night 'Horror Story'

As an 18-year-old, we are at this age where we start to have late nights out, hanging out with friends or loved ones. We all love to have fun and wish that we do not have to end it by going home. Despite having no extensive financial means of supporting ourselves, we always put our bets on the last bus or train to take us home- even if missing it would imply having to let go our two days worth of pocket money for food.

Well, I've had no short of these experiences. Its always the last bus or last train I'm taking home. Whenever I check my bus timings close to 12, I am always filled with anxiety. It is only when I am able to secure my route home that I can breathe a sigh of relief.

Today was like every other day, again I put my bets on the 'lasts'. I found out I missed my last train and now it was to the bus. I managed to secure the last bus 851 to town and wait for it to arrive. Exactly as the bus arrival timings predicted, 851 arrived at 11 54 on the dot and I comfortably boarded the bus, taking my favorite seat on the bus- the spacious two-seater to the left back of the bus driver.

I was on my journey home, replying some of the messages on my phone. This was going to be a long ride. The bus inched slowly towards the direction of town area. As per usual, the bus reached the next stop and stopped to open its doors. Although focused on my phone, it took me a while to notice that there were no passengers alighting or boarding, yet the bus doors we both open for a considerable amount of time. What was the bus driver waiting for? Is there any passenger running for the bus?

Suddenly, it struck me, a story my primary school teacher once told me. It was meant to be a 'true horror story'. So it went like this, my teacher was taking a bus home late at night. The bus route passed through a heavily forested area which looked like there wasn't much human traffic there in the daytime, much less at night. There was a bus stop in the middle of that route. The bus didn't just drive past the deserted bus stop but instead chose to stop there. For a very long time. Both its front doors and back doors opened but to welcome nor bid farewell to no person. My teacher who similarly notice this long break for which the bus stopped got curious and started looking around as I did. The bus driver seemed to be idling, sitting there motionless. Was the bus driver waiting for someone? Or something? It was a good few minutes of wondering and waiting before the doors of the bus closed and the bus driver moved on and she breathed a sigh of relief.

Just as I shuddered out of my thoughts I looked up to observe the bus driver before me. Before I could jump to any conclusions, the bus driver turned around and apologized. He mentioned that he had to wait at the bus stop as he was driving the last bus and they had to follow the lat bus timings. I was both amused and relieved as I heard that explanation. So nothing paranormal here phew. I fact I was in respect of the fact that this wrinkled, white-haired, Chinese bus uncle stuck to the last bus timings to ensure that all of us (especially the late-nights-loving youths) manage to get home. Though he did stop at every few stops for a going 1-2 minutes regardless of people boarding and alighting...

So what did I learn from this experience? My main takeaway was that we should not easily jump to conclusions, observe your surroundings and most importantly, communicate. If it was not for the bus driver's simple explanation, I would not have learned more about the bus systems and even worse, have many suspiciously scary thoughts would have running through my head. I would not have thought of asking him about this odd behavior.

Thank you for reading, I hope you enjoyed it!

How to clear files to Create Space on your Old Notebook/Laptop (For Windows 8)

**Disclaimer: Below is my grandmother story of my relationship with my current notebook, if you just want to get straight find out How To Start Making Space On Your Old Notebook/Laptop, skip to below :)

Here goes nothing... Okay so I spent today meddling my notebook as I had only one thing on my list- Ready my notebook for school.


As you do not know, I am a graduated O'level student and am waiting to enter my already accepted course at Ngee Ann Polytechnic. After completing all the course acceptance procedures which took quite a bit of fuss... I now have to set-up my notebook in preparation for poly... yay?



So I plan on using my current notebook. It was previously purchased in Secondary 1 as my secondary school (Crescent Girls' School) was known to be a 'future school' in which we utilized quite a bit of digital technology in our lessons. Thus, this notebook I have has already been with me for 4 years. 4 YEARS. That is a bit over the usual lifespan of a notebook but to me, that is like FOREVER. 


Frankly, I've had mixed feelings for this notebook. In sec one when we first got it, it was that coolest thing ever. Why? Well, firstly it has a TOUCHSCREEN, which is something quite new in the work of notebooks. Not even the MacBooks have touchscreen :) Then it had a thing called a SPen to it. A SPen is basically like a stylus... with a less cool name. I was really useful when it comes to having to draw stuff digitally on the computer. Last but not the least, THE KEYBOARD IS DETACHABLE FROM THE SCREEN OMG~~~ Cool right? At least I thought it was. It can be like both a tablet and a notebook.

Anyways, after four years I realised that I have been treating my notebook quite badly lol. It all started from the first tiny scratch along the back of my notebook, which was created when I brilliantly decided it was alright to slide my notebook on its back across the concrete ground. SMH. Thereafter, I'd just laugh it off as if it was nothing, whenever my notebook drops on the ground and get minor damages etc. I was partially secretly hoping to get a warranty from the damages haha

Well, after all this my notebook still stayed with me and is in a reasonable condition so I'm hoping it will survive longer. This time I will take better care of it. Eherm no warranty eherm :')

Now I need space to install the software needed for class. Wait, one problem... My C Drive is 1GB free out of 104GB... 


How To Create Space On Your Old Notebook/Laptop:

Step 1: Backup the current data you have in your notebook
- You can do this by copying your data in the C Drive to an external storage.
- The external drive I am using is a Seagate Slim Portable Drive (pic below).
- You can get it online or at Challenger. It may be a bit pricey ($100++) but is definitely worth it as you can use it for many rounds of back up space for both your phone and notebook.

Step 2: Delete unwanted data (aka data that I put in)
Did you know: The PC (the one with desktop, documents, and downloads etc. folders), is actually in the C Drive itself? By clearing the PC, you clear a bit of the C Drive.
- Go through your PC to delete any unwanted documents, pictures etc. (don't worry if you delete wrongly, you already have a backup)


Step 3: Check your Recycle Bin for any 'deleted' stuff
Did you know: When you select delete on any data in your notebook, it is not actually deleted off from your notebook. It goes into the recycle bin which you will have to clear after. Sigh totally forgot about this and kept 4 years worth of junk in the bin, about 4,000+ items!
- The recycle bin can normally be accessed on the desktop page (pic below) itself. 

Step 4: Clearing process generated data (aka data generated by itself)
In my opinion, this is the hardest out of everything and I struggle so much with this as I am not an expert on digital stuff so I try to do what is safe. I read up on this website which explained on 7 ways to free up hard disk space on windows. I tried the first three suggestions and they work pretty well. 
- Especially running the disk cleanup, it was simple yet efficient :)
- The uninstall space hungry application option, I felt was not as useful inefficient for me as most of the applications I have, I would still have to keep it. However, I did find one or two that I could let go off. 
- Lastly, I also tried using the WinDirStat to analyse my disk space. It was certainly cool to see the software in work but I really didn't know which files were important and which files were not thus I could not decide to delete any.

Alternative
Despite all of this, an alternative is to do a factory reset if you are lazy and would like to go for that 'all new notebook' feel. But the downside is that you will have to re-setup your software in your notebook.

All the best in making space in your notebook! I hope these tips will help you get some free space in your hard drive X)

This is actually the first post I have ever written and really tried my best, do leave feedback as I would love to hear from you. <3 Also, if you know of any better methods of doing step 4 please tell me as well. Franky, I only managed to clear about 6GB out of 104GB. Hehe. Will update if I manage to get more professional advice x)