Some Call It Regression

Well, Happy New Year. Glad you finally caught up with me, I've been livin the 'ought-six' life hours longer than you. Im in the future. We got flyin cars.

Actually, we don't, and if anything you might say I'm living in the past. The past few days have been rough as my hot water heater conked out. This meant I could still shower, but it was only with water fresh from a pipe that runs outside through kilometers of -10F cold (yes, I just mixed metric and American, get used to it). Not exactly how I consider a good morning starting off... freeze burns. All the pain of being burnt by fire but with none of the fun!

Anyways, I got a repair dude over my apartment between classes today.
"So whats your problem?"
"My water heat is not heating water. The light is on, its plugged in, but it isn't doing anything."
"Mhm. This water heat here?"
"Yup, that is it. It isn't working."
"Not working, eh?"
"Yeah, its not heating water. I already told you."
"Uh-huh. Got it." *SLAM!!!* (Smacks the heater unit with an open palm) "It'll work now."

Have I been so coddled by Western technology that I couldn't slap a faulter heater properly? Am I so dependent on the guarantee that things will work properly that I would so easily oversee such a solution to such a problem? Is this worth complaining about, or should I truly be revelling in the greatness that is my homeland?

Six in one; I get by. This is far from the first bungled step I've taken with technology since I got here. Some have been easy as pie, some more annoying, while others I've just given up on. I know when I return I'll be agape at the ease of so many daily tasks.

Like laundry! I don't know why, but many readers have emailed me about my laundry situation. Well, I got an electric washer that I need to carry and dump water into (annoyingly tedious) combo'ed with a spin dryer. No heat in that dryer, just spinning. Spinning does little to nothing in getting your clothes dry, especially the heavy clothes we need up here on the tundra. So I hang my clothes. But, well, here is where I used to hang my clothes:

Thats my balcony about a month ago. You can't see much through the windows as they are covered in ice, now even more than when that picture was taken. Actually, the ice level really jumped around Christmas when I was making chili out there. Now the walls are lined with (what I can only imagine to be) delicious chili-ice. My coworkers are waiting for the day I call in sick because my tongue is frozen to my wall.

Chili-ice or not, that balcony is now damn cold. Too cold to dry my clothes before yielding a crop of stainsicles. So we improvise. And now my kitchen looks more like this:

I really should just pay the $.50 for dry cleaning.