12 hours ago I was an idiot and accidently cleared all files off my laptop, and only a few could be rescued from recycling. Very, very few were backed up elsewhere. See above note re: I'm an idiot.
$130 later, after much anxiety and many hours of babysitting software, I have (most of) my files back. A few things were sacrificed to the gods of corruption, but thankfully the most important files all look intact.
My boss is currently out of the country so I didn't have to have the 'I might have deleted my entire first year of grad school today' conversation. I'm so lucky I didn't lose anything crucial to my own stupidity, and I am backing EVERYTHING up from now and for forever.
I'm going to sleep now.