Thailand vs Impatience

You make me sweat. You make me wait. It’s what I like.  – Mickey Oliver, Anticipation

A few weeks ago, my internet went down. I kept getting redirected when I tried to open a webpage and it was driving me mad in the mind. So I called my geek friend in Bangkok who helped me do some troubleshooting. We decided that it was my operating system or OS and to make a long story short (too late), I ended up trying to erase my old OS and reload a new one to fix the problem.

As it turned out it was TOT’s fault, not my OS. So the time I invested  going back and forth from friend’s computers and work trying to download a new OS on to my thumb drive and getting lost in technicalities and calling friends to help was an utter complete waste of effort. Had I exercised a little patience, I would have not lost some data and bothered everyone under the strong Thailand sun.

My first thought was the right one. Of course it took days for the technician to arrive to fix the problem  but that’s a little of Thailand for you. My friend told me that he sometimes takes an internet holiday. He gets loads of work done, reads more, ends up going out for more bicycle rides and you know stuff like that, as oppose to sitting in front of a computer all day.

I understood but at the same time I didn’t because I wanted the damn holiday on my terms, not just any  ‘ol surprised time. When the problem with TOT arose again like the smell of sewage I knew that it wasn’t my OS and I recognized that this was my opportunity to learn from my past mistake. I had to be patient. (Thailand likes to test my patience.)

As I write this I am without internet. And I just finished writing another post. I’ve been bouncing between journaling on the computer and in my notebook. Normally I hand write but I guess I have so much to say I’m using both mediums. I’m also being more social. I’m thinking about (which coffee shop has wifi 😉 what I want to do with my time, as oppose to just opening up Facebook.

In fact the words of my friend are ringing so clear and blue I’m beginning to wonder if I should even have internet at home. The funny thing is that after I got online the last time, I went crazy playing around and throwing away hours. I knew it too. I knew I was not doing what I should be doing so I started to put on the breaks.

And then it happened again. This happened in Ecuador too and the internet is crappier but I never had to wait for 4 or 5 days. And in the US? Well, they keep that shit flowin’, the IV never stops, except for a long minute or two. (Sure occassionally things go down but c’mon, it’s another bag of weed over there.)

I could, of course, offer other pedestrian samplets of how Thailand tests the godly patience of expats but this is the one that smells the strongest right now. And while I hope a technician arrives tomorrow to give me my Google juice (isn’t there just a f’n button they can push?), I know I will continue to live on without it.

I used to think that mobiles and cell phones were evil because they prevented folks from having spontaenous or otherwise simply, conversations! or looking at the world around them but now I am waking up to the internet disconnection. It’s just not computer games. Okay, yes, there are people behind the boxes of texts but I think I need to visit the people too, every once in awhile. You know, give peace a chance.