A letter home from study abroad
Tuesday, october 10, 1996
Once again, there was no hot water...this is getting to be less
than amusing...maybe tomorrow. Breakfast today was tea, as I really
didn't feel like meat and potatos and didn't want to bother the cafeteria
ladies about making eggs. Our first prof was about 15 minutes late. She
explained that she's coming in from the country in the mornings right now
and that we didn't have to come to class until 9:45 (instead of 9:35) This
would mean that our lunch break after this class would only be 15 minutes.
This was a less than thrilling idea...but i wasn't about to say anything,
you see, I hadn't quite done my homework. Luckily, Leslie spoke up and
got the teacher to agree to let us start late but to still let us out on
time.
After classes, we had a group meeting. Nothing special...we did,
however get our monthly stipends today. I'm no longer ruble-broke. George
and I were hanging out in my room after the meeting when a middle-aged man
knocked and came in. "Do you need lightbulbs?" he asked. I explained
that our hall light didn't work and that two of my five light fixtures
were broken. He spent about 20 minutes pulling apart the light fixture in
the hall occasionally checking to see whether various connections were
live by touching them. It was just a bit scary. But, in the end he got
it working. As he was cleaning up, he dropped one lightbulb...commenting
afterward, "It was bad, anyway." Then I asked him about the lights in my
room. He was able to get one of the two working by scavenging parts from
the other.
As I may have mentioned yesterday, I visited my professor Suzanne
and her friends last night. It was suggested that I bring a bottle of
vodka. Circumstances led to me buying both a big expensive bottle and a
smaller cheap bottle. I didn't end up giving the smaller bottle away
yesterday. As you may also know, I'm not a big drinker. So, I had a
$2.50 bottle of vodka sitting in my cupboard. "What a perfect
opportunity!" i thought. After explaining the circumstances that led to
me having an extra bottle of vodka, I was able to convince the handyman to
take it. He cleared out and I basked in the glory of a fourth lightbulb.
About five minutes later, I saw the handyman coming back down the
hall. "I just happened to find an extra lightbulb and this other
part you need to get it working," he said to me. I thanked him and ran
back to my room to see if it was really true that I might have *every*
light in my room working. And Jesse flipped the switch and there was
light. And the light in the room did illuminate certain fragments of
glass on the floor and jesse did track down a broom and mop and cause the
floor to attain a state of cleanliness. And jesse did realize that he
must be getting rather tired because he saw that he had absolutely no
business attempting to write in a pseudo-biblical style.
Ok...i'm better now, really. So, after that amusing incident, I
took a walk down the block to get myself some bread and soda. $.50 can
buy you a very nice loaf of bread in this town. Then, I sat by the phone
for about 45 minutes waiting for my friend nadia to call me....we were
supposed to go out this evening....but alas, she didn't call. I tried her
at work and was told that she left early. I'll call her tomorrow to see
what happened.
Tonight they aired the pilot episode of Babylon-5 on TV-6.
(Sorry, dave, I got the name wrong before.) The translation wasn't so
bad....and it sounds like there will be at least one epsiode on every day
this week.
I think that's really about it for today.