Since coming to Vietnam there has been three planned power all day outages on campus - from 7:30am - 5pm. I have been here now for 5 weeks so this represents a significant amount of time that work is simply not able to be completed. On top of the planned power outages there are also frequent brief outages for 10-15 minutes. Since work is almost entirely done on the computer and relying heavily on the internet this makes continuing work essentially impossible. Further complicating the situation here is that much of the electricity is hydroelectric meaning dams already and continue to change water levels and flows which affects much of the population who rely on waterways for transportation, income and are a way of life. Not to mention the environmental effects on fish populations etc. This has led me to the paradox of needing to rely on technology to keep up with the world while lacking infrastructure to support technology there by preventing the ability to keep up.