Observations | Girls' Dorm worship, Repairren das Internet, Freshman class sponsor

MY APARTMENT – Here’s the downside of my year of mission work in Africa: There’s no one to play poker with!

The other SMs haven’t seemed to interested in playing, and Elvin doesn’t want to play (for reasons undisclosed to me). It’s pretty much impossible to deal to and bluff myself, so that leaves playing with my students as the only option. And although I’ve taught and played Texas Hold’Em with high schoolers in Peru and at Broken Arrow, I feel like playing here with kids that stay in my dorm is taking it to a whole new level.

So for now, I’ll be good. I can last a few more days. I won’t teach anyone. Not yet. However, if you hear a story on the news of a teacher from a Christian school just outside Nairobi, fired for changing his students’ Kenyan Shillings into poker chips, please send help!

Three observations:

1. I don’t want Valerie’s job. Last night, as previously noted, I switched dorm worships with my SM counterpart’s dorm. It was definitely different from what goes on at 7pm in our house. Most notably, there were all girls there!

As soon as I walked in the door of their building, it was like a rock star showed up: some screams, young women running towards me, and some running away to become more “decent.” After talking to a few before the service began, we all headed into the dorm chapel for song service. Although my guys do sing in harmony, unlike any guys’ worship I’ve ever heard before, it was still light-years behind the ladies’ worship. Every song was loud, 2-or-3 part, and included a variety of claps, feet shuffles, and arm flagellations. That’s right, dancing! I’d read about this phenomenon in the books!

Finally, my talk. I was very nervous; I’ve gotten used to looking out over my guys. They understand my jokes, they get where I’m coming from. These ladies, I didn’t hardly know at all, with a few individual exceptions. I began by introducing myself: my name, my job here, where I was from. I mentioned Ariel being in her third year of academy, and all hell broke lose. All the Juniors in the chapel stood up and paraded about for 3 minutes, yelling “’07!” like a bunch of retarded hens, not realizing that they were just making themselves stand out to the farmer, looking overhead to pick out the morning’s kill. After the scene finally calmed down, I quickly went into my worship thought (the Chiefs/faith) before anyone else could stand up and do more “shout-outs.”

All in all, they weren’t too bad. They talked a heck of a lot more while I was talking, and they were “a bit” disgusted when I mentioned that Ariel and I had skipped the Nelly concert last year to watch the preseason Chiefs game... on TV. But they seemed to enjoy it all right, and I know they understood my message, so hey, that’s the whole point, right?

2. Foot in the door. This morning, Elvin dropped the tip on me that he was planning on heading to the Richlis this afternoon to work on some computers, and he thought it’d be a good time to fraternize with the future employers. He didn’t have to say anymore; I was in.

After I worked a few hours at the elementary school (verdict: not quite as successful as last week, to say the least), we swung by the house, where an assortment of computer issues were waiting for us. Elvin fixed one laptop’s internet while I casually mentioned my pure dominance over the Union College Communication department. I was shown a few sample copies of the East-Central Division Herald -- not too impressive, but not bad. I was about to nose my way into a job when she sent Elvin to fix her Apple laptop, leaving me with a smaller Samsung one.

Now, despite what my family thinks, I’m not that knowledgeable in fixing PCs. I can tinker with network settings, and possibly fix issues involving improper installation. So when I found out the issue was with the internet not running on her daughter Lara’s laptop, I knew I could be all over it. Now she’ll have to offer me a job, I thought. I get her Yahoo! and she gets me an internship!

Little did I know I faced an obstacle so difficult as I did. I hit the power button, waited for Windows to load, and was surprised to see that the login screen, usually easy to understand, was now completely in German! I would have to fix this PC without really knowing what the screen was saying. I quickly snatch Lara up, set her on the chair next to me, and informed her that if she wanted the laptop fixed, she was obligated to read me every icon, every title bar, every pop-up that appeared on the screen. With that front cleared, we began the adventure.

With Lara’s help, I made my way to the Internet-Wahlen screen, changed the proxy to Maxwell’s settings, and plugged in the Cat-9 cord. I clicked the Internet Explorer icon. No net. I moved over to Netzeinstellungen. I/P settings are fine, looks as good as any German computer I’ve ever seen. Internet Explorer again... nothing. Reset the I/P to auto-detect, then recheck proxies... *buzzer*. Nothing. I was ready to scream when I heard myself say, “Ok, let’s just restart it and see what it does.”

5 minute later, Lara was checking her email, instant-messaging her friends, and explaining to me why she didn’t let me know when a pop-up informed her to restart her computer! I wanted to strangle the kid, but since her mom, Mrs. Richli, had seen the whole scene and now saw I was persistent, it worked out for the best. On our way out of the house, she asked me if I’d ever be interested in copy-editing a few of her articles. Score!

3. Say hello to the freshman class sponsor! Now this is weird. 7 years ago (which sounds a lot longer ago than it feels), I was sitting in classrooms like these with my classmates, deciding upon class sponsors. Now, I am one. Weiiiiiirrrrrrddddddd...

My stomach hurts, and I’m pretty tired. It’s only 9pm here, and I’m ready to hit the sack. My dumb kids aren’t even going to bed for another hour. Am I getting old? I dunno, I’ll think about it tomorrow. Now, I’m hitting the sack.

-cw