A begrudging thanks...

...to my old West Chester friends (who probably aren't reading this) for their LAN parties. I didn't think that computer games were life skills, but people are definitely impressed when a girl can show up and start shooting things.

Meg and I are in Hambantota now (again) for the weekend. We have some things we want to finish up and we miss our old friends (and the internet) and so yesterday we hopped on a bus and showed up here. We had given everyone a heads up that we were coming, and so B. decided that this would be the perfect opportunity to reformat and reinstall all the computers. They had viruses, and since Friday there are no classes at the centre, we had a lot of time to get things done and get them done right.

We arrived around lunch yesterday to find B. and D. standing in the door waiting for us. We grabbed a quick lunch of fruit salad and ramen (and yes, I ate some fruit salad. It had banana, mango, pineapple, and some other stuff. Mom and Dad, you should be *really* proud right now.) and then B. and I settled in to the task of fixing the computers.

This was a somewhat time consuming process because we only had 2 windows CDs, and the installation takes a good bit of time. Additionally, there were a few issues that needed to be resolved. So we were just settling down for a long night of computer stuff when Meg ran into the room to say that we had to leave right then for G.'s house, to visit her. So much for formatting. We visited G., and had a nice chat. Then Meg and D. went off to town to grab food, and B. and I started walking back towards the centre to finish up the work on the machines. We had plans to visit Thushari later that night, but we ran into her early. I had a lot of tea yesterday.

We finally made it back and did some computer work. This is the kind of work day that I really like. Two friends (Meg and D. were elsewhere, doing other things), no boss, just relaxed and fixing computers. It's great. The only thing that would have made it better was pizza.

Meg and D. returned from parts unknown with food. They persuaded us to take a break and watch a movie. We threw in "Constantine", which may have been a mistake. D. didn't like it, so she and Meg left, but B. and I were suitably amused for a few hours. After that, back to formatting.

Meg and D. were really tired at this point, and they went to bed. We all stayed at the centre that night, racked out on the floor. B. and I weren't done with our work, so we stayed up.

The problem with formatting computers is that it can't really be done in parallel without many CDs. So it takes a lot longer than it should because each machine has to be fixed one at a time. And for most of that time, the user isn't doing anything. Add flaky power to this equation (yes, we have UPS's, and a generator, and sometimes it's still not enough) and we had a long night of waiting ahead of us. Finally we were left with one troublesome machine, which I was working on. B. didn't have a whole lot to do, so he started trying to get a working install of Mobile Force. This is a first person shooter (FPS. you run around with a gun and kill people), and it's amusing if nothing else.

I fixed the last machine, and then I fixed the cracked version of Mobile Force (I'm pretty sure you can't actually buy legal software in Sri Lanka), and then we started to play. I hate FPS games because I'm terrible at them, but this went pretty well. There was a series of 8 single player missions, and B. decided that we should beat all of them before going to bed. At this point it was about 11:30, and we get up at 6. Why not?

We succeeded, but it took us a few hours. We went to bed at 2:30. And there is no coffee here. This morning was grim.

Internet is much less convenient in Mirissa than it was in Hambantota, so my posts and emails will be less frequent. I'll try not to get too far behind though.

On a completely unrelated note, I found out on Thursday that all forms of pornography are illegal in Sri Lanka. Now there's a concept. Dinesh said that it's definitely still around, and still a problem, which doesn't surprise me. This doesn't affect me in any measurable way, but it does strengthen my belief that although it would be fairly difficult for a Sri Lankan to offend an American, I could get myself shunned within about 3 sentences. Hrm. I continue to be careful. People don't even make dirty jokes here, as far as I can tell. Or maybe they do and I just can't understand the Sinhala.

I decided not to learn Sinhala before I came here, because I was pretty sure I wouldn't need it, and most people want to practice their english anyway. As it turns out, this was the right decision. I've come to the conclusion that it is pretty much impossible to learn spoken Sinhala from a book. The pronunciation is just too different. There are many consonant sounds that I miss entirely when I'm listening to Sinhala. But I am picking up the odd word here and there. I can really appreciate the effectiveness of language immersion courses.

At this point, my biggest obstacle in learning Sinhala is my French. I'll try to compose a sentence in Sinhala, and I'll end up with something French instead. A friend of mine described the same problem when he went to Scandanavia, so I know it's not just me. But it's weird. It also doesn't help that I found a French novel in the hotel and so I'm reading that to clear out some of the mental cobwebs. It's going better than I expected. But very, very slowly.