When the Lights Go Out

12:50 PM Sunday:
I’m currently sitting in my living room typing this on my laptop. I’m not connected to the internet and I’m not sure how long it will be before I can be. My computer is not plugged in so I only have as long as my battery will last before I lose use of that as well. Thanks to Hurricane Ike slamming the coast, we had tornado warnings last night. We were just sitting down to watch the movie “Hitch” when we were told that we had had to hang out in the middle hallway area of our apartment for the duration of the storm warning. So we dragged our couch into the middle hallway and 4 of us crammed on the couch watching the movie from my laptop on the bathroom counter. The storm warning didn’t last very long but we continued to watch our movie there since we had gone to the trouble to set everything up. Then in the middle of the night we had a huge thunderstorm and the power went out. You wouldn’t think you would really realize the power going out in the middle of the night but we did. The fan we usually have going in our room stopped and the telephone made a bunch of beeping noises and then shut off. I tossed and turned the rest of the night because of the storm and when the alarm went off to go to church this morning I said no way. The power was still off so I would have to get ready in the dark and I wasn’t up to that challenge. I decided getting some more sleep was more important. Turns out I had crazy dreams for the rest of the morning and didn’t really feel too rested when I finally woke up anyways. I tell you all this to tell you that we still don’t have power. I didn’t think it would be that bad. I mean it’s during the day and sunshine is now coming through the windows so we have natural light. But then I began to realize how much we really do rely on electricity. I can’t get online to check my email or facebook. I can’t check to see if my IB prof posted Thursday’s exam grades yet. I can’t make toast or microwave anything. I can’t make coffee. I can’t have a shower in the dark. I have to do my homework on my laptop and hope that my battery doesn’t run out before I’m done. I’m saving things to my jump drive so I can go work on them in the library if I have to (I was told not all of campus power is knocked out). We’re worrying about all of the groceries we recently bought that are in our fridge and freezer… hopefully the power comes back on soon or we’re gonna be out a lot of money and food.

I guess I never realized just how blessed we are to have electricity on a regular basis. It’s boggling my mind right now to think that some people don’t even have electricity on a daily basis. But in my head I think, well at least they’ve never had it so they don’t know what it’s like any other way. However I was reading an article online yesterday about the coastal residents of Texas that were nailed by Ike… it suggested that it could be weeks before their power is up and running again. Weeks? WEEKS?? I’ve been dealing with this for hours and it’s driving me crazy! I guess the old saying holds ridiculously true… “you don’t know what you have until it’s gone!”

(you'll be happy to know that after I typed this up in the living room , I worked on some homework and then went out for lunch with Nikki... by the time we got back the power was up and running again which means I'm typing this part right now in my room connected to the internet... HOORAY!)