unfortunately it seems like my old phone has died and it'd take a lot more money to revive it than i can afford. i didn't lose anything too important, but i'm a little sad about losing all my pictures. i had been meaning to upload them to my computer and then to an external drive, too. :(
i'm lucky i didn't lose anything critical, but it sucks to have lost anything at all. i guess that's how life is sometimes, though...