Sun. Oct 10 - 7 am I just refilled the rooftop water tank - only the second time in 2 weeks, and it probably wasn't necessary; it's a big tank and I haven't used much water.It's mild out with white, thin clouds covering the sky and just a faint breeze. With no warning whatever, yesterday just before 5 the sky turned black and then the power went out even before the rain began.It was more of a typical tropical shower, except that there was, briefly, a vivi...

Fri. Oct 8 evening - just got electricity back after 45 minutes off I just witnessed the most phenomenal rain/lightning storm not only of my time here but possibly in my entire life.You could guess at once that it was to be something special - in an instant, with no prelude, sheets of rain were pounding against the house walls, and the lightning and thunder were pretty much non-stop. I sat out on my front porch again to enjoy the show - but had to hide in ...

Wed. evening Oct. 6 It's been unusually steamy outside, enough that the AC isn't able to get the house cool now.This despite the fact that the sky is 'ominous' and thunder is rolling every few seconds. I guess the rain actually has to fall before the air cools down.( later: and it never did ) I came home a bit early, partly from boredom ( though I had lots of ideas and got lots of prep work done earlier ), partly because my nose was dripping nonstop and the...

This morning I went in a bit early to 'get my head in gear' before my 7:10 Curriculum Dev't class and found a student named Ronnie waiting, wanting to re-confirm for about the sixth time that I would follow through on my promise last week to surprise Tia, a girl in the class that he has a crush on, and whose 20th birthday is today, by having the class sing 'Happy Birthday' to her right off the bat.He quietly pointed her out to me as we walked from the Language ...

Sunday evening Oct. 3 Herizal's family just brought me home from PIM ( Palembang Indah Mall ) where I treated them to dinner at Pizza Hut, which was super-crowded and much 'classier' than US ones, with a very varied menu and stylish presentation all around.The pizzas were good too - we ordered 3,and almost all got eaten up in the end even though Herizal only had a salad ( his wife says he doesn't eat any Western foods ).It was about $35 for seven people, n...