que la lumière soit!

There was light, and it was good.

Fuck!

I hadn't exactly been in the dark since I'd lost my ceiling lights before leaving for the States, mainly thanks to my vertical lamp, a holdover from a previous residence. But even with the vertical lamp and the kitchenette light, my humble studio had its dark spaces, so it's with great relief that I can finally say that I have my lights all back now. I had Coupang'ed two converters (I think the repairman said to call the converter an 안정기/anjeong-gi—stabilizer?—but I might have misheard "안전기/anjeon-gi" or "safety device"—either way, the device itself had a label describing the part as a 컨버터, a converter, and the repairman said that that wasn't wrong; I'll likely stick with "converter"), so I called the repair team at around 8:20 p.m. They said they'd be up in ten minutes. An hour passed, as is typical in this country, so I called again, and the guy said something about having misheard my apartment number, so he'd gone to the wrong floor and waited a long time for me. I told him I was on the 14th floor and gave him my room number again; he and his partner showed up in minutes this time. Comedy of errors, especially when people think they're listening well. I've been guilty of this and other mistakes myself—like having an idée fixe about the wrong information (meeting time, directions, whatever)—so I wasn't too exercised. And from God's point of view, what's an hour-long wait?

When the guys arrived, I explained the situation, showed them the now-dead light fixtures and the new converters I'd bought, and they got to work on the first fixture. Because they had to switch off most of my studio's electricity via the circuit breaker (회로차단기/hoerochadan-gi, a word I'd had to learn when I lived alone in Ilsan/Goyang back in 2015), one guy did the repairs while the other held a strong flashlight up to the work area. The guy holding the flashlight was plump-faced and talkative; he said he'd seen me around the building a lot, probably because I'd lived here a long time. I confirmed I'd been in the building since 2015, and in this apartment since 2018, so I'd seen a lot of my facilities wear out or break down—lights, toilet, gas range, you name it.

The guy said, though, that next time, I should buy the entire kit for each light fixture, not just the converter. I made a frustrated noise and told him that, last year, when a different repair team had fixed my kitchenette light, that team had said they'd needed only the converter, not the whole kit, which I'd bought. So—whose advice should I trust? Last year, in watching the repairs, I learned that the problem wasn't the LEDs, which had no moving parts, as much as it was the converter, a long and slender rectangular box through which electricity was converted from a higher voltage of 220 volts to a lower voltage of only 90 volts (it says so right on the same sticker that says "converter" in hangeul). The converter doesn't seem to have moving parts, either, but it constantly deals with a blistering flow of electricity, so it stands to reason that it would wear out faster than the LEDs.

Anyway, the repairs are now done. The two new converters have been installed, and as I'd thought would happen, the LEDs are now shining brightly again. The only problem is that the guy who'd done the repairs hadn't been very elegant about the converters' long wires; I'll need to go in with rubber bands and neaten up his work. But not tonight. Tonight, I just want to bask in my newfound light. God knows what this will do to my utilities bill.

Blow this up and see the Korean word for converter in blue font on the left.

Those little, tiny yellow dots are the LEDs themselves. They were fine.

a shot of a ceiling light with the old converter still in it

A new converter sits seductively on my bed.

repair: done, but those damn wires

dining-area light: also done

but again, those damn wires