If only I knew more electricity vocabulary...

In my room there is a lot of light. That was actually something my house mom, Ines, emphasized when she first showed me my bedroom. She told me look at all of the light, there is an overhead light to light the whole room, there is a lamp on the desk, there is a lamp on the night stand, and there is a lamp on the headboard. She is right and there is a lot of light in my bedroom. One day I had on the overhead light and one of the light bulbs was on the fritz. It kept on turning off and then turning on and then off again. It was annoying, but there were 2 other bulbs in the light, so when that one bulb burned out I figured it wasn't that big of a loss.

Two nights later I was on my computer at about 2 in the morning and all of a sudden the power goes off. My overhead light was on and when the power cut off I saw a little spark fall from the light. I immediately grabbed a blanket and jumped up to make sure that the spark didnt catch fire on the rug on the floor. When I was positive that no damage had been done, I quickly jumped back into bed and went to bed hoping that I hadn't done anything to make the electricity go out and maybe it was someone else in the apartment building.

I woke up the next day and Ines told me that the electricity didnt work this morning and she had to have someone come fix it for her. It was really expensive because that day was a holiday and I felt bad for her, but decided it would be in my best interest to not mention the fact that I already knew the power had gone out last night.

I went back into my room and switched on the overhead light with zap, the power went out again and another spark dropped from the light. I immediately froze and Eva (the maid) came running to my bedroom asking me what happened. I then had to explain in spanish that when I turned on the light the electricity went out and there is a spark that fell from my light when it all happened. Now that may be easy enough to say in english, but I have never learned words like turn on and spark. Add to that the fact that I was scared straight that I had screwed up the electricity and I ended up bumbling through the entire explanation. I ended up saying something like, "when I did this (presses the light switch) the electricity didnt work. But I am worried because when the electricity didnt work a tiny piece of fire fell from the lamp." We tried to play with the circuit breaker but that just made more sparks fall from my light. I was the only one to see it though so every time they played with the circuit breaker I ran out to the living and said, "there are little pieces of fire falling from my lamp!" They looked at me like I was nuts. Ines didnt understand and thought that I was scared and kept comforting me by telling me that I didnt have to be afraid of the dark and there wont be any fire. I told her I wasnt scared, but she didn't believe me.

An hour later the electricity guy returned and found out that there was too much wattage in my overhead light. The light bulb that had burned out a few days ago was actually melting the lamp and causing all of the problems. That is also why it was sparking, because it was too hot. It was a quick fix and now is a funny story about my inadequate spanish and my newfound interest in learning about electricity vocabulary.