I don’t really like the whole holiday in the middle of the week thing. I feel like it just throws everything off for the rest of the week. Yesterday nobody really seemed in the work mindset, and I know it was certainly a struggle for me. It was a regular day full of analyzing some data and a few meetings. We had a team wide AI training which was interesting. It’s crazy how this new technology has slowly wriggled its way in to every day life. I remember in high school it was just getting started and there was no way teachers were going to let us use it. Then in college it was framed as a tool, but it was about half and half whether it was “allowed” or not. And now days I’m being taught how to best integrate it into daily work!
After work I went on a little adventure to try and get a local eSIM. I had to find a physical shop because they need to see my passport and visa to register me. They also took some pictures and fingerprints, so I’m pretty sure if I ever commit a crime in Tanzania, I’m screwed—I think this data provider has got more on me than the U.S. government even. I went to two shops that turned me away saying they don’t have eSIMs (one even said they didn’t have eSIMs that week, but if I came back next week they would have them, which I took to be a lie to turn me away because I thought the whole thing is that it doesn’t require anything physical… but whatever). I think they just knew it would be a struggle with me to figure it out. I finally found a third shop that took me in.
After about an hour of sitting with them, letting them take photos of my passport, visa, my face, fingerprinting me—all that jazz—the power went out. I told them that I would come back today, but I think I’m just gonna stick it out for the next month because I’m unsure if we would’ve got it figured out even with the power on.
I had some dinner before heading home for the night (surprise: it was mishkaki and chips!). I don’t know how it got so late, but by the time I returned to the hotel it was almost 8pm. I didn’t really mind it because I had an overseas meeting at 10pm, so I had to stay up anyways. This morning I’m feeling a bit tired, but I think the day should pan out okay—I’ve just gotta get over the first hump of sleepiness and then I should be fine!