Yesterday around mid-day (when it is usually the hottest),we had a two-hour blackout. I was not aware of any early notification of the blackout. At the time, I was working on my laptop; since I have been putting off purchasing battery for my laptop, just to make sure my pension pay is enough until the next pay, the work thus went unsaved. Blackouts are pretty rare here and the last time we had one was due to installation of electrical lines at the site of a soon-to-be constructed private hospital nearby (see the crane in the picture below taken from our balcony).
Speaking about blackouts, I was reminded about the almost weekly blackouts when I was in Bintulu yarns ago, since the electrical supply was unstable back then and it was also a newly developed campus. I was given a fellow apartment/room at the top floor in an empty hostel block for which I was supposed to be the residential fellow. So for a full semester, I had spent many nights there alone in the dark. Most of the time I preferred not to move around the block and stayed in the apartment with a single candlelight. The eerie feelings were there but no unwanted incidents happened (alhamdulillah). Some people were even mentioning then that I must be that brave to stay there alone. In another semester, my block had students in them and another block was empty. During that time, I had another fellow from the empty block came to temporarily stay with me as he got uncomfortable all alone in his block (what more if there is a blackout). Unfortunately the person gets bossy over in my place and I had very little privacy. After a while, he got on my nerves and I had to tell him off, thus asked him to move out. It was unpleasant for me to do so and I tend to 'justify' my action, thinking over it now, that even in Prophetic tradition our obligations to put up guests is for three days (see here). May Allah forgive if I was really unkind.
Another thing that happened yesterday was a crane parked along our road since the city council had decided to do some tree pruning. Again, there was no notification as far as I am aware. So the road was blocked and we had to delay our going out (for an outside appointment).
Perhaps some lessons of all the above trivialities (that I wish I can convey to my sons), there are always unexpected things that can happen in our lives. Our lives have always turned out not to be in the way we wanted. One just need to be patient in putting up with all of these. Find workarounds and tawakal ala Allah.
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