Rain, tests, and the death and (possible) resurrection of my computer screen

This post is delayed, due to computer problems. It was written on Oct 21.

Things are going well here in Nicaragua. A lot of volunteers are on vacation, so things are kinda quiet around the house. Last weekend (and by that I mean the weekend before the one that just finished) was pretty slow. There was a special mass on Saturday with a visiting priest. He was a lot more energetic and interesting than the usual priest, so that was nice! And some people from neighboring communities came, so there was more music too. Other than that the weekend was lots of studying.

Then this week was lots of tests, which meant I didn't do much aula de recurso. I can't take kids out of class when they have a test. Go figure. Toward the end of the week was also a lot of rain. There was apparently some unnamed tropical depression sitting out in the Atlantic, and it caused LOTS of rain. I think the rain started Wednesday afternoon or evening, and then I don't think it stopped until midday Friday. Seriously. Unless it stopped sometime during the night, when I didn't notice. It varied between hard rain and soft rain, but it definitely never stopped. I was glad I hadn't planned to go anywhere for my descanso. 'Cause i don't like to travel in the rain when travel involves lots of walking.

Thursday night was also the death of my computer screen. I had been using it in the afternoon, and the shut it so it would "sleep". When I came back and opened it, the screen came on, and then went black after about 20 seconds. So I shut it again, and opened it and it did it again. So I restarted it and it did it again. I was not pleased. It's very difficult to do anything on a computer when the screen is black!!!! So I called my Dad, who suggested plugging it into an external monitor, which worked. MY screen still didn't work, but I could see what I was doing. Then Michelle's mom who was here visiting suggested I talk to Dell, so I borrowed Liselot's computer and chatted online with a Dell guy for a while. He told me it was probably the motherboard, which I think is something very expensive and important inside of my computer. :-) Whatever it is, it's not worth replacing on a 5 1/2 year old computer.

So Friday, the first day of my descanso, I had two missions- go to Moyogalpa to go to the bank and buy some food and see if NPH had an extra monitor lying around that I could borrow so I didn't have to use the house computer monitor ('cause then no one could use the house computer). So I called Herty the NPH IT guy, and he told me where an extra monitor was and so then I called Jader (the house director) and he said I could use it. Then I found a transport to Moyogalpa (it has stopped raining, but it looked like it wanted to start again, so I didn't really want to take the bus). And so I got my errands done and the driver picked up the monitor for me on the way back. I got it out of the box, and discovered it didn't have a power cord. So I called Herty again, and he said that any power cord should work with any monitor, so I stole the one from the house computer to make sure that the monitor worked. 'Cause senitive equipment that's just been sitting around NIcaragua has a very high chance of being broken. But it worked!! Hooray! Now I just needed a power cord, but that was enough for one day! So I relaxed and baked peanut butter banana bread, which was ok, but really heavy. Not my favorite.

Saturday I made bread with yeast, which was exciting, and went in search of a power cord. Herty told me he would send me one, but who knew how long that'll take. So I went to our team office in the school and poked around and found what I thought was a power cord, so I brought it back and it didn't work, either with my monitor or the house monitor. So i went back later and looked more thoroughly, and found FOUR different cords that looked like they might be power cords, so I brought them ALL back, and one worked! Maybe more, but I stopped trying them after I found one that worked. So now I have a huge monitor in my room, and I can hook my computer up to it and see what I'm doing. However, it's still a pain, because the internet cord on my side of the house decided to stop working, and a laptop hooked up to a huge monitor is much less portable if I want to transport it to where there is wireless. So I've been using the house computer a lot for internet, but it's even slower than my computer which is hard to believe...

So the rest of the weekend I relaxed and got stuff done, like my YouthWorks application for next summer, and my FAFSA so hopefully I can get some financial aid for grad school this spring. Did I ever tell you guys my future plans? I'm not sure, so I'll stick it at the end of the email just in case!

Then today, Tuesday, was back to work. I worked with all six of my students, which was pretty exciting. And then I came back to the house and turned my computer on (hooked up to the monitor) and the screen stayed on. And stayed on.... I wasn't sure what was up with it, but it was kinda funky having two screens with the same information, so I switched back to just the laptop screen and it's still working. I haven't actually disconnected the monitor cord, so we'll see what happens then. And what happens after I shut it off, if it'll work the next time I turn it on. So I'm still not entirely convinced that my screen is back from the dead, but I'm hopeful!

Anyway, enough computer story. That was kinda long. So for anyone who doesn't know, I'm coming back to the States on Jan 11. I'm going back to Sioux Falls, and I'm going to do the same jobs I was doing before I came here- substitute teaching and Spanish interpreter. I'm also going to start grad school via Hamline University online courses. I'm working toward a licensure as a K-12 ESL teacher and eventually a masters. The program gets you a licence, and then you need 3 or 4 more classes to get a masters. Then next summer I'm hopefully working for YouthWorks again (where I worked last summer). I'm hoping they'll send me somewhere where I can speak Spanish. I think it's fairly likely, but we'll see. And then next fall I'll move to the Twin Cities and start on campus at Hamline. So that's my plan.

PS (from Oct 22) So the screen doesn't work today. Ho hum. Back to the monitor... BUT the internet cable by my room is working, so that's quite exciting. Nicaragua is not a good country for electronics...