Brownian motion generators

Since coming back to Mongolia I have learned that the hot water system here in Ulaanbaatar is quite complex. This is unfortunate, because hot water isn't something you want to think of as "complex". Hot water is the kind of thing you want to be very, very simple.
It is best when a pipe is involved in the system, preferably one you can't see. You want to have complete faith that there is hot water in the pipe, and you want it to immediately issue forth whenever you wish it to do so.
Unfortunately, I am faced with two problems here at the language school. The first problem is that the school is technically classified as a business, and not a residence, which means that it loses hot water regularly. The second is that I am (after all) in Outer Mongolia, which means that everyone loses hot water regularly, whether they happen to live in a "business" or not.
If that were all I might be OK with it, but unfortunately it isn't. Getting back to the issue of simplicity, I have found that hot water is more of a philosophical issue here than anything else. The question "do we have hot water?" cannot be easily answered, especially at 6:30 in the morning as I groggily attempt to shower.

There are several possible states that the hot water can be in on any given day, and none of them can really be called "on" or "off".
I shall call the most common state "two minute shower". When the hot water operates like this it is freezing cold for the first 30 seconds, then warms up over the next minute until it is too hot to touch. It is then imperative to shower quickly, because after another another minute the hot water will go away again, never to return. I should note that this makes NO SENSE AT ALL because Ulaanbaatar has central heating and hot water, meaning that all the hot water has to come several miles from the power plant in order to pull this little trick on me.
The second state is "sit there and shiver for 20 minutes while the neighbors wonder why you take such long showers". In this state the hot water is technically on, but it has to travel all the way from the power plant to get to you. Sitting in a freezing cold shower for 20 minutes requires a great deal of faith, especially when you know that you could be experiencing the third most common state of hot water, which is no hot water at all.
In this (third most common) state the hot water is off, meaning that leaving it on for half an hour won't change anything. Technically, there is still hot water. To obtain it, you must put pots on the stove, turn the little knob, and foolishly hope that the electricity is on. I should mention that due to some confusion on the part of the utilities the electricity here at the school goes off several times a week, even when it is on everywhere else.
The fourth and least common state of hot water is "hot water". In this state hot water actually comes out of the pipes when you turn it on. You may then shower in peace, until the hot water goes off of course. I have experienced this kind of hot water about a dozen times since I got here.

I have chosen to write about this now because for the last two weeks the hot water has been in the third state; no hot water at all. The water was off for a week, then it came back on for the two days that Noel was here (lucky Noel), but it turned off on Sunday (she left on Saturday night). It has been off since then. I have come to the reasonable conclusion that Noel is a hot water goddess.
Since then I have been forced to wake up early and put hot water on the stove to boil, then take a bath in two inches of tepid water. However, this is still vastly superior to the other option, which is "no hot water, not even the hot water you forgot to put on the stove in the predawn hours you PATHETICALLY STUPID IDIOT". This option involves me turning on the lethal jets of hypothermia inducing ice, getting most of me wet, lathering up, grimacing as I attempt to turn the water on again, chickening out, sitting there covered in soap for a few minutes, forgetting that I'm sitting there covered in soap, remembering, making another attempt to turn on the water, succeeding, briefly changing gender due to the extreme cold, then getting out of the shower to go hide in the warmth of the bed for a while.

This is one thing I'm not going to miss.