Kath McGuire

I bought a laptop.

It’s a small one with an 11 inch screen. It’s a Singer branded machine.

But it’s small, light, runs Windows. And it lets me get lots of work done. I was planning on getting one when I get back to the UK anyway. Getting it now allows me to be more productive while I’m here.

So I can now write blog posts and journal entries more easily. I can do work on the Teaching Activities booklet and the grammar booklet that I’m working on. It’s nice to be able to be so productive.

And, when I’m staying with friends, I can get it out while they’re watching the evening teledramas (more about Sinhalese teledramas in a future post), I can type stuff up and still talk to them. They’re translating some of the important bits from the important teledramas so I can keep track of exactly what horrible thing Sansala has said to Danuka this time to make him all mopey. And what really nasty thing her evil cousin has said to her to make her miserable. And all the while I’m ticking things off my to do list. Sociable and productive at the same time. I love it.

Plus, I have a dongle. (One of the strangest words in the English language.) Which is a mobile broadband modem thing. It’s a USB stick that has a SIM card in it and lets me connect to the net whenever I have sufficient signal. It’s a fixed price that I pay per month and I calculated that that amount plus the cost of the dongle itself work out cheaper over the next few months than me using internet cafes. And it’s far more convenient. So you should see more blog posts from me. More emails and I should be on Skype and Facebook more often as well.

I bought an umbrella.

I don’t like umbrellas.

I’ve never liked umbrellas.

I still don’t like umbrellas.

But I bought one.

It turns out they are actually useful. For times when you have a short dash to make and putting a raincoat on is too much of a hassle. For times when there isn’t much rain. For times when you really want to keep your head dry and don’t much care about the rest of you.

And for waving at stray dogs so that they will be less inclined to bite you.

But I still don’t like them. They keep only your head dry, the rest of you gets quite wet. They are something you have to hold in a hand meaning you don’t have both hands free. They have the bloody pole in the middle right where you really should have your head (why isn’t the pole at the side?). They are too wide to fit through doorways, gates etc. They are really annoying on crowded streets. They are dangerous to tall people when held by short people (like me). Generally, not nearly as practical as I would like.

Ah well, given the rain here, the umbrella plus the two raincoats and the waterproof trousers do give me a fairly decent protection against the wet stuff.

There is a contraption that one can buy called a shewee. It’s basically a funnel. It allows girls to pee standing up. Useful for festivals and camping and disgusting train toilets.

So I decided (having encountered some disgusting train toilets) to invest in one. So my UK support contingent (thank you Mark) dutifully obtained one for me and posted it to me (with a load of England-branded tat I picked up cheap just after the World Cup – small rubber balls with the England flag on them are great for teaching, keyrings are great presents).

So I tried it out (the shewee that is, not the teaching) a few times in the privacy, safety and cleanliness of the shower before trying it out in the privacy and safety of the bathroom and it works. It takes a bit of getting used to but it works. So I now have it safely stowed in my bag for those times when the toilet facilities really make me wish I was a boy.