I'm bored.

Things are a bit slow around the nursing school right now – it’s exam time.  This month each set of students takes their written and practical exams.  Last week was Set 9, this week is Set 8, and next week is Set 7.  Unfortunately, there is not enough classroom space for all the students.  So they set up desks in the computer room, which means I can’t work there.  For the entire month of October and half of November, I have nothing to do.  Some days I’ll ride my bike to town and have lunch with the other PCVs, other days I’ll watch movies for 8 hours straight. 

I sit around and think about my life way too much (hence the last post) – it’s not good to be this isolated and bored.  I think about what I was doing exactly one year ago. 

Around October 25^th last year, I was going to town on a semi-daily basis with Paul, the school driver at the time, to buy things for my house (pots & pans, curtains, broom & dustpan, etc.).  I was still getting settled, and I didn’t have my bike (or my fridge) yet.  I was eating scrambled eggs and tomatoes for lunch almost every day.  And since I had agreed to teach 'Social Psychology in Nursing,' all of my school time was spent researching and making lesson plans for the incoming set of students.

I also think about the one year I have remaining in Uganda and try to plan out my projects and vacations.  "If I go to Tanzania in November, then I’ll have to wait until February to go to Rwanda.  But the Gender and Development Committee elections are in February.  Hmm . . ."  Now I’m in a monthly countdown to the end and I look around my house to see what needs to be rationed over the course of a year.  "I have just enough moisturizer to last a year, but I’m going to need more toothpaste (fortunately Colgate is available in Uganda).  I bought some deodorant while I was home, but should have picked up one more bag of coffee."  Etc.

Seriously, this is how I spend my days.

I’m trying very hard not use my computer so much – my Macbook is on its third power cable (because the electricity here is so unstable, it gets fried easily), and now the battery is wearing down (a full charge lasts about 4 hours).  I decided to only use my computer 2 or 3 days a week.  After all, the school has a computer lab and a laptop in the library with an internet hook-up (that only works when it’s sunny outside), so I'll use those as much as possible.  To pass the time on the other 4-5 days of the week, I loaded up my new Kindle.  (Thanks Mom & Dad!)  So far I’ve read 3 books in one week.  Thank goodness for the PCV hard drive exchange – I’ve got over 2,000 books that I can put in my Kindle.  :)  Although I’m still sorting through the massive list of titles . . . I’m not really interested in “The Physics of Star Trek.”

The good news is I have some travel plans and project meetings coming up.  I’ll be going to Jinja to meet with the directors of Girl Tech and hopefully start planning the next camp!  (Expect a Jinja blog post about it.)  There’s also going to be a Gender and Development Committee meeting and my Mid-Service Conference.  The Mid-Service Conference is for my training group to come together and figure out what to do during our last year in Uganda.  (So I guess it’s a good thing that I have so much down-time to think about it.  Ha ha.)  And I always enjoy seeing my group again.  Sadly, we have lost a few more volunteers due to personal reasons and rule-breaking (i.e. riding a boda-boda), so the reunions are getting smaller and smaller.  We’ve lost a total of 10 people now.  It kind of feels like ‘Survivor’ – we’ll see how many are still remaining at the end.  I hope I win.  :)