Power outage break

Today became one of those typical days when we'd have frequent power outages on campus.

I rushed to work this morning in order to catch my 8am lecture only to find that there had been a power outage in campus since the wee hours of the morning with no explanation on what the cause had been. Naturally my first worry was for my classes scheduled during the day. A power outage during the week is never good news since missing just one class totally upsets my lecture schedule for the semester. (On the contrary, the students would be happy not to have any class.) So on the hope that the power would come back in time, I decided to wait until 20 minutes after eight. When nothing happened, I had no choice but to dismiss my class. Ten minutes after that, surprise! the power came back on. Ah well. Just when I also had posted an announcement for my 10am lecture class that we wouldn't have classes either. But that turned out to be the right decision after all, for we had another power outage that started around 10:30am and lasted for nearly an hour. Then I thought it would be smooth sailing after lunchtime but I was wrong once again. Just as I was beginning my 1pm lecture, there was another power outage! I groaned, my students cheered. Luckily this time, it lasted a mere five minutes (I grinned, my students groaned) and I was able to give my lecture without interruption after that. We had yet one more power interruption later in the afternoon, but as I no longer had classes scheduled then I didn't mind it that much. Except that I had to once again shut down my computer and my air-conditioner (too risky to leave that on with the low-voltage episodes that usually occur on days like these) and the unusually hot and humid weather without air-conditioning made even sitting still at my office desk uncomfortable.

As you can see, this frequent power outage business can be very annoying. It's a real headache and especially frustrating because there isn't anything we can do about it.

But there also turns out to be a plus side to these interruptions at work.

First, I got a bit of time to clean up my office. Having one class after another and endless piles of paperwork to accomplish, I rarely have the chance to organize my things, most especially important papers that should be filed away for future reference (man, I need a secretary to do these things for me!). So with nothing else to do, I finally got to sift through the small (since it's still early in the semester) but growing piles of paper on my desks (yes, desks!), sort them and file the important ones into the correct folders in my filing cabinet.

Second, it allowed me to finally take a break as well from the hectic schedule I have had since the start of classes. I have had barely an hour of rest from having to work on my lecture notes, presentation slides and things related to my administrative duties. Even my weekends have been full since the constant stream of students to my office for consultation or for my signature (paperwork) during weekdays prevent me from working continuously. At least without electricity, I couldn't use my computer and so that meant a break from working on all those lecture notes, etc. ( At the same time, it gave me additional time to grade unmarked quizzes I gave in the past week.) I must say, the power outage allowed me to put those things from my mind, take a deep breath and relax.

Needless to say, I'm in a way thankful for the power outages. I got spurts of mini-vacations in the middle of the week!