Note: this has been edited slightly from its original form, but nothing has been omitted.
It’s 9pm. The power has been out for almost two and a half hours. I’m hunched over on my bed, writing this on a 1B5 - labelled, SOCIOL 100 Issues and Themes in Sociology - under the light of a dynamo-powered torch that I was given five years ago.
This is possibly the longest power outage I’ve experienced while living in New Zealand. The record I’ve set was a full three days in 2006, in late September. Typhoon Milenyo, the weather agency PAGASA named it. The Laotian meteorologists submitted the name Xangsane, which meant elephant. At the time, it did feel like the typhoon of the millennium. Not only did we lose electricity, but also water. The city council sent water trucks and we had to queue up with our buckets for the day’s ration. The shopping malls were open, but only to those who can get there. We couldn’t. Billboards toppled by Milenyo blocked the roads.
Tonight’s power outage is not because of a typhoon, but because of an explosion in Glendene. I know that sub-station. It’s right next door to Kelston Boys’ High.
I think I spent most of those three days in 2006 playing my guitar. I was 12, and if I’m being honest, I was a precocious tortured artist wannabe. My favourite song to play during the power outage was a Filipino rock song called “Liwanag sa Dilim” (“Light in the Darkness”). I thought I was being funny. The song, of course, was more profound than the powercut anthem I reduced it to.
My dad told me that the whole street could hear me playing.
I can hear someone a couple of streets away. They’re letting off fireworks. It’s probably not the best night to do it, but maybe they’re just bored. Right now, they’re the brightest things in the sky. Or anywhere, really. Even the street lights are out.
There’s a lot of white noise in my house when the power is on. All I can hear now is the ticking of the clock in the lounge.
Sometimes I can hear bits of my parents’ conversation. The master bedroom is on the other end of the house. I wonder if they talk this much when electricity is available to distract them. Perhaps I just was too lost in the white noise to even notice it.
9.16PM. I haven’t checked Twitter in over two hours. That’s when my phone died. I’m a news junkie and Twitter is how I get my quick fix. When I’m out and about, I refresh my feed as soon as I get the chance to take a breather. Twitter and texting - that’s literally all I need my phone for.
But at 8.00, I was itching for news. I tried connecting to FM radio on my brother’s phone. RadioLive was the first news station I got. Luckily it started off with a report on the power outage. Equipment failure at the sub-station on Hepburn Road. 10,000 households without electricity. No rapid response available to repair it.
West Auckland is an area for families. I wonder how many of those families took tonight as an opportunity to bond over torches and blankets. My family tried, but we grew tired of it quickly. I played some Demi Lovato on the my guitar. Listened to some radio. Then my dad suggested that we all sleep in the lounge tonight. No one else thought it was a good idea.
The woman on the radio segued from the power outage to accusing the New Zealand Herald of smearing Willie’s and JT’s names and reputations for their own corporate interest. I’ve had enough. I try change the station. Accidentally turn the phone off. I turn it back on but it needs a password. My brother says he set it when he first got the phone, but he forgot what it is. I guess we’re screwed.
My phone is dead. iPod dead. Laptop has about 40% but that’s useless without the internet. I wanted to take photos of tonight, but it turns out my camera’s dead, too. Who wants to see photos of darkness anyway?
The time, according to my watch, is 9.40pm. There are no screens to satisfy my information withdrawal. The blue light that keeps me awake most nights is nowhere to be found. Maybe I’ll sleep early for a change.
10.10pm. I tried to go to bed, and was succeeding before my body realised that it wanted food. I hadn’t eaten a proper meal since that hurriedly scoffed double cheeseburger meal at McDonald’s just after midday. I should probably fix myself something, but the microwave isn’t working.
I shift my pillows around and discover a note my girlfriend left. We celebrated our 25th “monthsary” today. Call us corny, but we’re 19, after all. High school sweethearts. On a monthsary we usually reminisce what happened the evening we got together. I always tell her that I felt so happy that I forgot about hunger for a whole day. “Mum made my favourite beef stew, and I wouldn’t eat it!” was what I said month after month.
My bed smells like her and the new frangipani-scented lotion she got yesterday. She has an early morning exam tomorrow. I hope she’s getting on okay.
This power outage almost feels like a godsend. I found out Campbell Live was covering the Roast Busters tonight. I didn’t want to watch it; the news coverage over the past couple of days just disappointed me. But Campbell Live was my family’s go-to 7pm show. How was I supposed to get out of it?
The TV turned off just as the sports news started. I initially thought that I sat on the remote, until I saw that it wasn’t even there. Mum was baking her gluten-free oatmeal cookies but the oven light had gone out. Dad arrived from his commute and told us that the traffic lights had stopped working. I texted my girlfriend about the power cut. She replied that her house had no power too.
I joked about wanting it to last until most of Campbell Live. But now it’s been four hours without indication of a solution. I wonder if radio news is still talking about us. Probably not. Maybe they’re all screaming about how we’re not letting Willie and JT exercise their freedom of speech.
What’s feminist Twitter talking about right now? The media’s been shit lately. Perhaps they envy my imposed media fast. Recalling the stuff that’s happened today, I’m kind of glad for the media blackout too.
Brownout. That’s what we call it in Manila. Sometimes a pedant would tell us that it’s actually a blackout.
In Auckland, neither of those terms are used widely. It’s powercut or power outage. And I haven’t experienced enough of them here to get accustomed to using either of those terms.
The three days during Milenyo were tolerable. I read books in the daylight on this rattan bench by the large French window of our house. By early evening I’d have moved onto the guitar. Then at night, I closed my eyes hoping that in the morning, I’d be able to turn my AC unit on. It was starting to get muggy.
It didn’t rain on the first night. My friends and I played hide and seek on the streets. We used our torches but mostly we tried to stake each other out in pitch black darkness. That game had never been as fun since then.
We all left our doors ajar tonight. From here, I can hear my dad snoring already. My brothers are quiet. They must have been fast asleep for ages.
I don’t usually go to bed until around midnight, but it’s looking like I may not have a choice. I don’t know if the power’s coming back on anytime soon.
This has filled up five pages of my 1B5. And I have small writing, too. The fireworks have stopped. All I can hear outside are cars. The moon is visible tonight. It’s a crescent shape. I wouldn’t have noticed if the power was on.
I’m writing this because I’m bored. It’s marginally less dangerous than setting off fireworks.
The woman on the radio segued from the power outage to accusing the New Zealand Herald of smearing Willie’s and JT’s names and reputations for their own corporate interest. I’ve had enough. I try change the station. Accidentally turn the phone off. I turn it back on but it needs a password. My brother says he set it when he first got the phone, but he forgot what it is. I guess we’re screwed.
My phone is dead. iPod dead. Laptop has about 40% but that’s useless without the internet. I wanted to take photos of tonight, but it turns out my camera’s dead, too. Who wants to see photos of darkness anyway?
The time, according to my watch, is 9.40pm. There are no screens to satisfy my information withdrawal. The blue light that keeps me awake most nights is nowhere to be found. Maybe I’ll sleep early for a change.
10.10pm. I tried to go to bed, and was succeeding before my body realised that it wanted food. I hadn’t eaten a proper meal since that hurriedly scoffed double cheeseburger meal at McDonald’s just after midday. I should probably fix myself something, but the microwave isn’t working.
I shift my pillows around and discover a note my girlfriend left. We celebrated our 25th “monthsary” today. Call us corny, but we’re 19, after all. High school sweethearts. On a monthsary we usually reminisce what happened the evening we got together. I always tell her that I felt so happy that I forgot about hunger for a whole day. “Mum made my favourite beef stew, and I wouldn’t eat it!” was what I said month after month.
My bed smells like her and the new frangipani-scented lotion she got yesterday. She has an early morning exam tomorrow. I hope she’s getting on okay.
This power outage almost feels like a godsend. I found out Campbell Live was covering the Roast Busters tonight. I didn’t want to watch it; the news coverage over the past couple of days just disappointed me. But Campbell Live was my family’s go-to 7pm show. How was I supposed to get out of it?
The TV turned off just as the sports news started. I initially thought that I sat on the remote, until I saw that it wasn’t even there. Mum was baking her gluten-free oatmeal cookies but the oven light had gone out. Dad arrived from his commute and told us that the traffic lights had stopped working. I texted my girlfriend about the power cut. She replied that her house had no power too.
I joked about wanting it to last until most of Campbell Live. But now it’s been four hours without indication of a solution. I wonder if radio news is still talking about us. Probably not. Maybe they’re all screaming about how we’re not letting Willie and JT exercise their freedom of speech.
What’s feminist Twitter talking about right now? The media’s been shit lately. Perhaps they envy my imposed media fast. Recalling the stuff that’s happened today, I’m kind of glad for the media blackout too.
Brownout. That’s what we call it in Manila. Sometimes a pedant would tell us that it’s actually a blackout.
In Auckland, neither of those terms are used widely. It’s powercut or power outage. And I haven’t experienced enough of them here to get accustomed to using either of those terms.
The three days during Milenyo were tolerable. I read books in the daylight on this rattan bench by the large French window of our house. By early evening I’d have moved onto the guitar. Then at night, I closed my eyes hoping that in the morning, I’d be able to turn my AC unit on. It was starting to get muggy.
It didn’t rain on the first night. My friends and I played hide and seek on the streets. We used our torches but mostly we tried to stake each other out in pitch black darkness. That game had never been as fun since then.
We all left our doors ajar tonight. From here, I can hear my dad snoring already. My brothers are quiet. They must have been fast asleep for ages.
I don’t usually go to bed until around midnight, but it’s looking like I may not have a choice. I don’t know if the power’s coming back on anytime soon.
This has filled up five pages of my 1B5. And I have small writing, too. The fireworks have stopped. All I can hear outside are cars. The moon is visible tonight. It’s a crescent shape. I wouldn’t have noticed if the power was on.
I’m writing this because I’m bored. It’s marginally less dangerous than setting off fireworks.
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