The Light Situation

I was lying in bed this morning, half awake, thinking about the work I needed to do today, half wondering why it was so dark until 8:00AM and when I was finally going to push myself out of the comfort of warm flannel sheets and use the bathroom. Somewhere in my indecision, having held it for probably thirty minutes or so, I heard someone knocking at my front door. Still groggy, I threw back the covers and called out, "Who is it?" but heard nothing in reply. Knocking came again, and as I was putting on a sweater, I again called out, "Who is it?" and, again, heard nothing in reply. Had I opened the door right at that moment, I may have seen a raven swoop in, light on my dimly lit chandelier and crack open his beak to say "nevermore," but I was awake enough by the second knock to realize that the person on the other side did not speak English. And while in Poe's world there would have been a raven, in mine there was a repairman, more specifically the light bulb repairman, with his makeshift ladder and an iPad sized box in hand. He said something to me, but it was in Chinese and I didn't recognize any words so I reached for the box he held up. It was the light for my bathroom which had been out since sometime early in November. 

He had actually come to fix my light situation two days ago, the afternoon when I first arrived back at Sias, but he didn't know about all my issues. While I had told my friend at the front desk that I specifically needed my bathroom light fixed, she only heard the word "light." So the repairman came with the same makeshift ladder and bulbs in hand not long after the water repairman, who had come to turn on my water which had been shut off while I was gone for the long holiday. They worked together to find the valves (at one point the water repairman was pointing to the vinyl tile covering the hole cut out specifically for the kitchen vent, which will never be installed) and had quite a lengthy discussion about it until discovering it in small corner of the bathroom which has been aesthetically covered with tile. As I heard the sound of water pushing its way out of the faucets, I kept happily repeating, "hao" or "good" and smiled in appreciation. The light bulb repairman, meanwhile, started replacing my canned lighting with energy efficient, annoyingly bright bulbs. At least these bulbs should shine longer than the 2-month and 6-month version bulbs...which is another matter of electricity and wiring and circuitry all together - or so I have been told. 

After replacing the bulbs in the front room, I showed him the light in my bathroom, which is what I thought I had told the front desk girl needed fixing, as well as the now four burnt out bulbs in my chandelier, three of which have been burnt out since spring semester last year and another one which recently gave up its last lumen. I can't remember how many times over the last semester I had taken broken light bulbs to the front desk and asked for replacements - for some reason they won't give you new light bulbs without the old ones in exchange - and been told, "mei-you" (may-yo) or "don't have." Occasionally they did have the canned light bulbs; but until this morning, never ones for the chandelier. 

This is probably the best time for repairs - not everyone has returned, so they come pretty quickly to fix your problems. But the key to having repairs done, even something seemingly as simple as light bulb replacement, is persistence. One of our leaders always says, "the squeaky wheel gets the oil." If you don't ask, and keep asking, you will never receive, and you may live in shadows and darkness longer than needed.