Aaaaaaaargh!

It's Friday so I'm not at the college today. The power was off from 8AM - 2PM and again from 8PM - 2AM so I thought I'd run some errands in the morning and spend the afternoon working on personal and business stuff. I made it to the post office and got my second box of clothes and shoes. It also had some surprise chocolate and well-intentioned but somewhat late Christmas decorations. It was great to get it all, and the process went much smoother this time than the last. It was also cheaper to pick up this box than the last - no idea why.

I went out again around lunchtime to drop off my laundry and have a salad for lunch. (I'm too lazy to treat my raw veggies here, so once a week or so I go out to a reputable restaurant for a salad that I know someone else has taken the time to treat.) On my way back I stopped in for a pedicure. I'll spare you the details, but suffice it to say that the Kathmandu roads and my lack of closed shoes have taken their toll; the pedicure was a necessity not a luxury. I got home at about 3:20 expecting to have almost 5 hours of computer time. I didn't even have time to boot my laptop when the power went out again and I have no idea when it might come back on. The bottom line is that I had a total of about 1.5 hours of electricity today, and I wasn't home for any of it. I am posting this from an internet cafe which is powered by a generator.

I'm not sure what is going on, but I have to assume that the load-shedding schedule has been changed again. We are likely up to 16 hours per day without power now but I have no way of knowing. The power company typically makes these changes late on a Friday so that they can go away and not deal with the fallout for a couple of days. They generally post the new schedule a few days after the change has been made. It's really very frustrating, and I have to tell you I was almost in tears when the power went off this afternoon. It's getting pretty disheartening. I also just got my "letter of appointment" at work (sort of like a SOW for those of you in the consulting industry)and it looks like I'm expected to be superman on campus. I just don't know how I can possibly achieve even 10% of what they're expecting with no access to my computer or the internet.

On top of that, I have a bunch of emails from friends and family sitting in my inbox. I was planning to spend this afternoon responding to them, as I have so little time to do personal business during the work week. Needless to say, they are all still sitting there unanswered. If any of you are reading this, please know that I value your mail so much and I'm not deliberately ignoring you. As soon as I have time I'll reply to your letters.

Okay, I have to run and get some other stuff done while I have internet access.