The trip I met my wife for the first time would have been the end of my life.
Onyeka Franklin Ochonogor, PhD.
Researcher / Lecturer / Metallurgist / Author / Project Leader.
The trip I met my wife for the first time would have been the end of my life.
It was on the 14th, November 2015. I and my brother "Richie” took an airport taxi to our residence at Auckland Park, Johannesburg. It was the day I almost lost my life in an armed robbery incident, I lost experimental data, draft chapter 1 to 3 of my PhD thesis, unpublished articles, laptop and computer hard drives that contained valuable materials including passports and my brother lost valuable items in the process as well.
I heard a gunshot and did not know instantly that the bullet passed through me until I saw my blood dripping out of me after the horrible experience. It was my brother who called my attention to the dripping blood, that was when I realized that the gun shot I heard earlier was directed to me. The bullet ripped through my muscle at the back of my left shoulder. I am still surprise to date how the bullet did not touch my bone, it would have been a sad story but I survived.
My brain was too busy to notice that the gun shot was directed to me during the robbery. I thought of the sleepless nights of hard work trying to get my experiments done in the laboratory and all of a sudden to lose them all. I thought losing all might be the end of my PhD programme. I was confused at that moment and did not know the best way to act, I never thought of the danger in thinking so much during that dangerous moment. I did not even think of the risk of losing my life as a result of thinking too much.
In a moment, I thought of losing it all, I thought of negotiating my way to get my hard drives while they take all they wanted and this made me delay handing over my hand bag to the armed robbers. My hand bag that contained all my effort was forced out of my hands and I fell suddenly to my knee that was when I unknowingly received the gun shot gift.
I learned the hard way, Cloud computing, in particular cloud storage. Most people are still guilty of this to date. Do you make effort to cloud compute? I mean to store information in the cloud where you can retrieve them should anything happen to your hard drives? Just like what happened to me on that day. It can happen to anyone but I pray you never experience such. After that day, I lived in fear for a while.
I relied on my personal hard drives and I lost it all but I am thankful to God, I am alive. Thanks to all who have been praying for me, particularly to my mother who happened to be praying for me, us during the time of the robbery incident. Thanks mama Africa for your prayers. Thanks Richie for driving me to Helen Joseph Hospital where I was admitted for a night and thanks to my friend Kenny who visited that night.
It is two days to the end of 2019 and a privilege to be alive to tell my story.