Connecting

 

Cute photo comes from this blog

Connecting can be an issue here. For the first couple months, we didn’t have internet access at home. Once Freya began attending school, I would schedule my days around her schedule, so I could fit in a couple hours weekly at a café, getting my wifi fix.   

This became expensive; I was either drinking copious amounts of coffee (alright, I would’ve been doing this anyway…) or buying lots of very expensive imported books (the bookstore has a café upstairs with free wifi….well, if you purchase something).  Sometimes, though, there would not be any connection at the cafes. On those days, I had mini tantrums.  I was aching to go to Bangkok so I could just frickin’ check my email and upload photos! (OK, I still feel that way.)

At least for the last month we've have internet “connection” at home…but…contain yourself. Don't get too excited. Connection here is all relative.  So, here you go. This is:

 "The Story of How Becky *Kinda* Got Internet at Home"

• The guys show up to connect us.  They’ve got the modem. They’ve got a power surge inverter protector thing. They’ve got a wifi whatchamacallit.  I was nearly shaking with glee. BUT! They couldn’t get us hooked up because of a simple admin mistake: a typo. A telephone number typo.  I nearly screamed, “are you kidding me?!”  “Another two weeks to fix this, madam,” I was told. “And you have dial-up.”   I about cried.  

• Two weeks later, the telephone number issue was rectified. Connection?  Yep!  Well, uh, sort of. Problem: I couldn’t actually get online. Couldn’t… actually…connect. After a few days of this, I desperately asked the maintenance guy - who was looking into fixing our about-to-fall-down ceiling - about our lack of connection. He did the most crazy thing: picked up our telephone receiver, waited for the tone and the beeping sounds, and suddenly, the internet light on the modem started blinking!  Hurrah!  (As you know, blinking means it’s not a strong connection, but at least there’s a signal. This is usually how it is: no strong connection.) 

• The next few weeks went like this: on average, every five minutes, I’d pick up the phone because I was getting disconnected. Pick up phone. Wait for the dead tone. Pick up phone. Wait for the dead tone. Pick up phone. Wait for the dead tone. You get the idea.  It’s – uh – challenging.

• Eventually, some guys came out to check our telephone line because they thought it must not be very good.  The lightbulb slowly registered in my brain and I thought, “Ohhh! That must be why no one can EVER hear me when I call them from our landline!”  I think they fixed the line. Or at least it was fixed for a few days.

 

• The next day, the phone went dead. The modem, for the first time ever, cheekily had solid internet and Ethernet lights. Not blinking. But I couldn’t connect. And our phone was totally dead.   It seemed beyond resuscitation.  A few days later, someone came to fix it. But I don’t know how they did that.

• A couple days later, in the same week, on a Friday (last Friday, in fact!), the phone went dead…again. No one came to fix it. Because it was Friday afternoon. No internet on Friday. No internet on most of Saturday. Then, our telephone rang once or twice. No one on the line. As if by magic, this appeared to have jolted the phone from the depths of its death, and once again, internet worked. The following day, it died again. The phone rang. It once again was reborn.

No more dead phone issues, but the phone line seems bad again. I’m back to picking up the phone. Waiting for tones.  Picking up the phone.  Waiting for tones.  Over and over and over again.

Summary of the story:

 To get internet connection at home we either have to constantly pick up the phone and let it beep for ages, multiple times in a row, to get a connection, or, we have to RING our telephone to resuscitate it. 

So, connecting isn't...always easy.