Tuesday, July 20, 2010

It Is Hot Over Here, or Am I Just At My Wits End?

By Christopher Robbins

I think I know why Beirutis drink – it isn’t the broiling sun or the lack of rain. It isn’t the threats of violence or the ephemeral stability of their political system. It isn’t the long nights and the world-class clubs.

It is the ridiculous bureaucracy that drives them into the bars each evening for intoxicating refreshment.

I have spent the last two weeks trying to get the campus wireless internet working so I can research and write in the relative peace and quiet of my dorm rooms. Let me correct myself, I have wasted the last two weeks on a snipe hunt.

Today was the last straw for me – I have marched up and down the steeply hilled American University campus trying to get an ID, trying to get a log-on, trying to by minutes for my web quota, and then trying to get my lap top configured. For all the walking this has cost me I could have gone from Lexington to Louisville and back and not sweat out the entire moisture content of my body several times over.

I feel like a zit that is about to burst.

I look like a Christmas ham, skin red and glistening with the juices that have been cooked out of me.

I have falafel breath.

I have been to the office of the dean of student affairs, the comptroller’s office, the computing and network services office, the student computing lab in Van Dyck Hall, back to the office of the dean of student affairs, back to the computing and network services office, back to Van Dyck Hall, to the library computing lab, all the way down the hill to the engineering building, back to the comptroller’s office, back to the computing and network services office, and... and...

...and despite my clearly growing frustration I tell no one off, as everyone is very polite and tries to be helpful, but they also don't know how many times I have been sent one place only to be told by someone with a calm voice and smiling face that I'm not where I need to be, that my wild goose chase will end in a different office, in another building, at least half a mile away and 200 feet up or down in elevation. How do the students here find time to study?

But I swallow my anger and follow my instructions with aplomb, hoping that today will be the day. If it isn't, my laptop may take a swan dive off the 6th-story balcony of my dorm room.

Now, finally, they have told me that my internet should work. Let me try to fire the old MacBook up.

Drum roll please. 

Ladies and gentlemen, strike up the band.

We has internets.

No comments:

Post a Comment