Well, it's late at night, but I'm awake because when you live in a third world country, it is common to have to rush to the bathroom at a moment's notice, and unfortunately today is one of those days. So I figured I would catch up on the last week and a half.
Last term my biggest issue with the grocery store was milk. This term it's not that big of an issue. I have almost always been able to get milk AND it almost always has an expiration date of at least five days. That right there is luxury. However this term the issue is eggs. The eggs are local, so it's not an issue getting them here on the boat. But the other day my friends and I were grocery shopping and they were out of eggs. When we asked them about it, they said they had them in the back, but they weren't going to put them out until the next day. Why? So we went back the next day and low and behold the egg shelf was still empty! They said they just still hadn't gotten around to it. It is not hard to stock that! Just do it! But of course they didn't care because TIG.
Speaking of getting things here by boat, we were supposed to have a shipment of lab coats come in for our class before the start of the term. The boat caught fire and had to pull into Trinidad for repair and it still has not made it to Grenada. We were also supposed to get pins for our white coat ceremony, but there was a mix up at customs and they never got to us. It is so typical around here that no one every expects anything by post. My laptop is having problems right now and I contacted HP, who told me I had to ship it to them for repair and they'd ship it back. Not only would it cost me an arm and a leg to ship from here, but I'm not sure I'd ever see it again! It also turns out that HP doesn't ship to Grenada, as with a huge number of companies. So I will ship it to them over Christmas and cross my fingers it comes back within a month.
Our electricity has been going out almost every day and when it does, it usually goes out about 5 or 6 times. I'm not really sure why and when I talk to the front desk, they're aware of it, but not remotely concerned about it. It is the worst when I am cooking dinner and the power goes out. Last night I ate dinner by candle light by myself. It was romantic. The odd part is all the other buildings around me have power, but mine is the one that keeps going out. It usually goes out between 1 and 15 minutes. It wouldn't be so obnoxious, except every single time it goes out it messes up our internet and we have to reset the router. Very disruptive when it comes to studying! I already put in for a different apartment in the same complex for next term. It will be in a different building and it will also be a one bedroom instead of a two.
Tropical storm Isaac narrowly missed us earlier in the week. Although it didn't hit us, we had a lot of rain accompanied with some thunder and lightening. The metal roof makes it deafening when I'm at home. But it was kind of cool. Now it's the same every single day; 85 as a high, 79 as a low, and it rains a majority of nights for a bit. I've gotten pretty used to the humidity and sweating, but our classroom is still so hot! There are six AC units in the lecture hall and only one works! We put in a request to get them fixed, but I will be shocked if they actually do. That's not at the top of the priority list obviously.
Our car suddenly was extremely hard to steer. It took so much strength to turn the wheel it was nearly impossible to drive. We called the guy who owned it and he came and took a look at it. He added power steering fluid, brake fluid, checked the oil, the coolant, and determined it was fine. There is also a light on the dash that keeps coming on and we asked him to look at it. He told us it was the light for the exhaust and that there was a switch in the exhaust pipe that alerted you when you were giving out exhaust. I said, "Oh, like a smog light?" He had no clue what I meant by smog. I said, "So it just means our car is not running on low emissions?" He still had no idea, but just said, "Yeah, yeah, exhaust. No big deal." Apparently Grenadians don't care if the ten cars on the island cause smog. We asked him if he had a CRV or something a little nicer to rent next term. He said, "Why? What is wrong with this car? It runs great!" We wanted to say, "Well, the radio and AC don't work, there is linoleum on the floor in place of floor mats, one back door doesn't open from the inside, the other back window doesn't roll down, it hardly makes it up the hill to our apartment, we haven't been able to turn the wheel and the other day we thought for sure our transmission gave out on us because we had to drive 10 miles an hour to school!" I mean, I guess after summing everything up, our car runs great for Grenada! But we would definitely like to be able to open all four of our doors. At the very least.
Next week I will be having four quizzes so I will be studying all weekend, but if anything interesting happens I'll make sure to document it. Until then, I am going to try to get some sleep!
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