Aaahh...Technology Gripes!

So I love being in India so far - it's crazy as heck at times, and many a time I have wondered what I'm doing here. I feel very misunderstood in most of my interactions with peeps here. And at other times I love it here - especially when I feel like might have some sort of impact on some individual somewhere.

This past month and half have been full of ups and downs - perhaps more downs than ups. But I always look for learning opportunities and try to make the most of every situation and 'not complain too much' but life here is VERY different. Simple things take forever to figure out. Take, for example, this wonderful invention called the Internet.

So, I am currently renting a room from a family. Living in another person's house - under someone else's rules - is definitely interesting. For example, I have a 10.30pm curfew. For the record, I've never had a curfew since I was a teenager. It's definitely interesting - especially when I'm (now) starting to make friends here and want to go out and such. The other thing is internet. This family have their own high-speed (wireless!) internet connection but refuse to 'share' it with me and want me to get my own connection. Given that I'm only here for less than six months, I'm finding it a tad difficult to get my own broadband internet connection!

But no worries - I'm the queen of 'research' so, after a month of being here, here's some options I found - I could get a data-card and connect remotely without a land-line. Oooo..but where do I get one? Endless hours of research online, and some help from peeps in my office resulted in a few names of companies that have data-card options. BUT, here's the catch - out of the five companies that serve the Bangalore market, only one has a data-card that fits my budget and has speeds above 256kbps (most of you who are reading this in the US have a standard T1 cable connection with speeds upto 8Mbps!) 256kbps is painstakingly SLOW! On top of that, most companies have a limited use data-cards. Meaning you have a limit as to 'how much' internet you use! Aiy yai yai!

But, no worries - I'm persistent and keep searching. Finally (by fluke), found a company with a datacard with UNLIMITED (woo hoo!) usage and a data-card that'll give you UP TO 2Mbps! (the 'UP TO' is very much bolded/underlined in their promotional material - which gives me reason to believe that I'll probably be accessing much slower speeds. :(

But no, worries - I'm all about finding out how to get my hands on this card. So, I had found out about this via a tele-marketer! And I was like 'yes! hook me up!'. He even came to my home for to check out the data-card but then we realized ONE more glitch! I have a Mac!! (I'm ready to cry at this point!!) And he doesn't know anything about the driver for the software compatible with my computer. He went away saying he'd find contact me again. That was Tuesday. A whole week has come and gone, and I haven't heard back from him. :(

But, no worries - again, online research is my forte, it seems! A few hours (again) on the internet today YIELDED results. I figured out which model of the data card, which company manufacturers said-card, and WHERE on the world-wide-web to find the driver for Mac OS X Tiger!! I have to say, I AM the bomb! I found it! BUT..(there's always a 'but'), I lost the phone number of Umesh-the-telemarketer! So I now I don't know where to buy the card and sign up for service! :(

Next step of research process is to figure out WHERE to buy/rent this dang data-card. I think I'll figure that out next weekend. I love how people here all tell you what to do, but don't seem to know WHERE/HOW to do said-thing.

Okay, I'm done complaining for the night! ha! I suppose this is really good test to my brain-cells. And you, my dear reader, the next time you complain about a dropped call, 'slow' internet, government beaureacracy, or ANYTHING in general, think about 1.1 billion people in desiland. Most of whom have WAY bigger problems than my internetlessness state. Hopefully, I'll have grow some patience-cells in this microcosm of a land, and learn to appreciate life. Life in all its gory and glory. Adios for now. ;-)