Settling In

October 11, 2007 by Stephen Day.

10/11/2007 8:07:59 AM

            So I have been here a few days now and I am getting better acquainted to my new home.  This morning I went to chapel for the first time (Wednesday there is small group worship and Monday and Tuesday I was having jet-lag issues).  It was a wonderful experience.  The students were so filled with spirit and energy.  A bit of a change from typical worship experiences in the US.  I found it rejuvenating.  The principal of Msalato introduced me to the community and I was welcomed very warmly.  One of the neatest elements of the service came at the conclusion when the presiders went outside and stood to shake hands, as people came out of the church and shook their hands, they would in turn join the “reception line” and shake the hands of those who came out afterward.  I love this twist on the peace.  It was a wonderful experience.

            WARNING – Techno-babble — Yesterday I spent several hours trying to figure out what the problem was with the network here at Msalato.  Almost all of the student, faculty, and staff user accounts are invalid and so no one can log onto the network and retrieve their work.  It would appear that all of the user information is saved, it’s just that the network does not recognize the accounts for login purposes.  Yesterday I chatted with my predecessor via Google Talk to figure out how to fix the problem.  At his suggestion, I will be rebuilding the proxy server today, because it has backups of all of the user account information.  Yesterday I found that there was no Ubuntu 7.04 installation disc, which is the operating system that the servers and clients rely use, at Msalato and so I started a download of the image.  This morning after chapel I was informed that the internet went down last night so that download did not finish…. It is a 700MB file and the internet connection is not exactly fast. 

            I figured it might be helpful to share my daily schedule… as least as far as I can tell after about four days:

            6:00 am                       Wake up

            6:30am                        Start heating water for shower

            7:00am                        Shower with shower bag

            7:20am                        Chapel starts (approximate time)

            8:15am                         Chapel over… breakfast

            9:00am                        Work in server room/computer lab/ library

            11:00am                      Chai’ (tea) with the staff

            11:30am                      Work in server room/computer lab/ library

            1:30pm                        Lunch

            3:30pm                        Work on other things

            7:30pm                        Dinner

            9:00pm                        “Missionary Midnight” – prepare for bed

            10:00pm                      Sleep

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