I am no longer on hiatus!

As mentioned in my previous journal, my tablet broke. Right now, I have a new tablet. But it was long, depressing journey to get to that point.

Let me explain!

As said before, my tablet's pen wasn't working. The tablet was working, even the eraser on the pen was working but the actual pen tip wasn't. I looked online and tried to find help. Someone who had a similar problem mentioned buying new pen tips and replacing them. Afterwords, it supposedly worked just fine. Hopeful, I went on the Wacom website and bought a few, standard pen nibs. They were only $5 with free shipping and I figured it was worth a shot.

I got the pen nibs in the mail 7 days later and replaced the tip of the pen. It still wasn't working. Desperate, I went online to find more help. Surprisingly, I came upon a website I never noticed before. It had step by step instructions on how to fix a pen that was having similar problems as mine.

I didn't know what was wrong with my pen but I figured, at this point, I was willing to take some risks. So I followed the instructions: disassemble the pen.

I should've known it was risky but I tried to disassemble it. This was quite the feat. It took me 3-4 hours to dissembled it. My hands were burning and raw and, even after I was done, they were still red by the end of it. I looked at the comments on the website and, apparently, it took the host 3 days to disassemble his/her's! With this comfort of knowing it would be difficult, I tried to be patient. However, it was done sooner than I expected (still, I said to myself: "Finally!"). I had disassembled the pen.

According to the website, the problem lied with the iron rings surrounding the tip of the pen. There are several iron rings that are supposed to be tightly knit. After dropping the pen too many times, the iron rings can be split apart. To fix this problem, all I had to do was super glue the rings back together. Sure enough, when I had taken apart my pen, the iron rings were separated.

Taking apart the pen was the hard part. Gluing the rings back together was easy as pie. All I had to do was drip a couple drops of super glue on the split and gently push the rings back together. Success! I tested out my pen. It was all better!

Now that I had done all of this, I figured that I had already passed the toughest part. I was eager to start drawing again. However, I first had to assemble it again. But how hard could that be after I had just taken it apart?

So I put it back, piece by piece. All I had to do was attach the eraser half and the pen half back together again (which was the hard part). Apparently, wacom pens are just as difficult to assemble at they are to disassemble it... I spent 15 minutes trying to put them back together. Then the unthinkable happened.

When I was trying to push the two pieces back together as hard as I could, my hand must've slipped because the pieces slid against each other and broke the chip clearly in half.

For those of you who don't know anything about computers, a chip controls everything. For this wacom pen, without the chip there was no hope.

I could barely believe what I had seen. After all this work, after pulling and twisting this pen until my hands were raw, it had broken. All I had to do was assemble it again! It was working, just fine! I could finally upload and finish all the picture I had worked on!

But my plans had been thwarted. And all because I couldn't put the pieces back together.

At first I was in denial. And then when I realized what had happened, I was in shock. And after that, I cried.

A lot.

Normally I don't cry about things, especially stupid things like this. But the whole day had been very frustrating for me and, just when my hopes were at the highest and I had never been happier in my life, all of it was taken away from me.

And all because of a stupid chip.

I hoped to fix everything. I even tried super gluing the chip back together but it just wouldn't stick. It doesn't matter--it wouldn't have worked anyways.

So after crying for about ten minutes, I composed myself enough to call my grandma and tell her what happened. I must've sounded distraught on the phone because after I explained what happened, her voice was sympathetic and she promised to buy me a new pen. Even with this reassurment, I was still upset. Wacom pens cost about $30 and, even so, I wasn't sure if this pen would be compatible with my tablet. My tablet was a very old model that belonged to my dad's friend. Not to mention the failure alone made me upset. I was so close! So I cried for another hour or two and I was still upset for the rest of the day. And the day after that. And even the days up until now.

But today my dad and my grandma bought me a new tablet. I'm not sure if I like it... it's just not as good as my old one. But I'm happy just to have one.

Moral of the story: don't drop or mistreat your valuables. And, if you do, for the love of God be CAREFUL when disassembling and reassembling it.

Overall, the website's advice was really helpful. I just wish I had been more patient when I put it back together. If you're having any similar problems that I did (where the pen tip wasn't working but the eraser was, or vice versa), consider consulting this website: [link]