[macvoiceover] "Searching this Mac", endlessly

Hi people.
My Mac just finished scaring me half to death.
I was trying to figure out how to type special symbols beyond what you can do 
with the option key. I had a Greek keyboard installed and had just switched to 
it. I realized too late I didn't have a command to switch back to Latin 
letters. The command is supposed to be command space, but that's also 
spotlight. My theory is that I was in spotlight and pressed a Greek letter, 
probably the mu symbol [was trying VO m] , and had the Mac searching for that. 
The Finder acted very busy and I was lucky to get VMWare closed and Windows 
powered off. A sighted person couldn't get the mouse to click on the Apple menu 
so I couldn't force quit anything. The person said that this Apple thing was 
spinning around to mean it was busy searching. Is there any way I can disable 
spotlight and any other search functions so I don't activate them by mistake 
and have a non-responsive Mac? I eventually just hard powered off. The Mac was 
lucky and came back on with no loss of data and Latin as my alphabet and no 
uselessly spinning wheels but I am afraid of this happening again. VO isn't 
much help as it can't read much while a computer is busy.
Hope this made sense,
Sara

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