I'm not sure how this week could get worse, but I guess I have 2 days to find out

Good lord, where to start....

I'm still trying to figure out a way to put last weekend's safari into words. I just sent off an angry email to the company, so I don't think now's a good time to even try. I'll just say this for now: we saw a lot of elephants; there were also a lot of problems. Maybe I'll post that email later. Or maybe I'll get an attitude adjustment and write a glowing review tomorrow. We'll see.

I have had no free time--I guess it started Monday night when I thought I would get back from the Safari at around 2pm and didn't end up entering my apartment until almost 8pm. That killed any internet/grocery shopping time for Monday night because going out after dark = certain death, as I believe I've mentioned before. At least I got back in time for an Arrested Development rerun, I guess.

So, Tuesday morning at 6:30am I wake up, get ready, and scamper off on my 20 minute walk to work to get there by 8am. Our director got back Friday (while we were gone) and she immediately starts asking us about the Protocol campaign updates we've been compiling. I asked her when we should have the entire thing finished. Her reply--"yesterday." Oh. Fantastic. So I spent most of yesterday emailing people in places like Mozambique, The Gambia, Namibia, etc. While I'm typing these emails, the power goes out briefly. A normal event, only this time the back-up battery attached to mine and Mary Beth's computers has died, meaning the emails that we were in the process of sending (a 20min process in itself) were deleted and the computers restarted. Great. Then 30min later it happened again. Only no one in charge took it seriously because it didn't happen to their computers.

So the technician comes out anyway because for some reason none of the computers in the office are connected to the printer anymore. While he's there I ask him why our internet is slower than usual and keeps disconnecting, and he offers me two explanations:

1. "The longer your ethernet cord is, the slower your connection will be--you need a shorter cord." I glance at my 3 foot cord and want to kill him. If someone can provide me some evidence that this might be even slightly true I will be grateful.

2. "It's not a problem with your internet, the website's servers must be down." He gave me this explanation for Google, Yahoo, Symantec, the United Nations, and the African Union. I don't think so.

So after the useless technician leaves we go back to trying to do our work. Mary Beth and I had made plans to go into town and watch Ghana v. Brazil at 6pm, and go to the internet cafe before that. At 5:01 our director tells Mary Beth she needs to call Djibouti and get Protocol updates from them. She calls, the woman isn't there, so Mary Beth has to send an email. Forty minutes later, after the webpage has loaded, the email is written, and Mary Beth is typing in the address, the stupid power goes out AGAIN and everything is lost AGAIN. At that point, 5:45, we packed up our crap and left to watch the game. Then Ghana lost.

Today I wake up at 6:30am, scamper off on my 2omin walk to work, get there and realize we are having a total computer breakdown. No one's internet works, no one can print, the back up power is still broken, and we have to call idiot technician again. So he comes back out, finally, and replaces our "switch," and tapes it to the wall with masking tape because he doesn't have the proper tools to install it. That took one sentence to write, but took six hours to actually do. So basically we couldn't use any computers today and thus couldn't do any work. Don't forget that the campaign updates were due "yesterday." So I spent all day on the phone with places like Mozambique, The Gambia, and Namibia trying to get them to send all the crap they were supposed to send last week.

I can't wait till tomorrow.