It's been awhile since i posted, i know. Please forgive me for my delinquency. I have been very busy these past several weeks.
My birthday was three weekends ago! And i turned 23, i think. See, in Vietnam a newborn is already 1, thus their first birthday they turn two. So according to the Vietnamese i am 24, but i would like to think I'm 23, so you can decide. We had a really great birthday/Halloween party for expats and locals alike. The weekend started with the arrival of my lovely girlfriend Isabel. She is living in HCMC, and took the bus to spend the weekend with me. We spent friday running around town, attempting to find Halloween and birthday decorations, costumes, and the necessary ingredients to make Halloween treats! We ended up with some birhtday balloons, banners, and tablecloths, a few large squash we carved into jack-o-lanterns, and lots of fruit and candy for the
"trick-or-treaters" (ie inebriated expats and sober locals). We had some really enthusiastic vietnamese students and teachers show up for our party. Most Vietnamese love candy and believe in ghosts, so naturally they are enchanted with the idea of trick-or-treating!
I dressed up as a lottery ticket seller. I wore one of those conical hats you have seen in pictures of Vietnam, and bothered people all night with a stack of lottery tickets i had picked up. Lottery ticket sellers in this country, mostly old women, children, and disabled folk, will come up to you at restaurants, on the street, or in stores and tap you on the arm until you shoe them away. There was also a zombie in attendance, a few cowboys and Indians, a pumpkin, lots of domesticated animals, and a picachu. Isabel and my roomate Danielle got an awesome birthday cake, which was a great addition to the copious amounts of fruit and candy. Needless to say, i woke up on sunday feeling like i had way too much candy and beer.
I have also been very busy finishing up the semester teaching at the university. I am giving finals this week and next, so i will be done by Nov. 23rd, giving me a 6 week "winter" break before second semester. I say "winter" because it is still 75-80 degrees here. However, i will be traveling with my parents and Isabel, and we will be up north around Christmas, so it might get down to 40! My kids this semester have taught me a whole lot about teaching English, managing a huge, unresponsive classroom, and life in general.I know what to plan for next semester, and i think it will be a lot easier than this one was. I am looking forward to the next group of students!
I have also started teaching at a new private language school, called Clever Learn. They pay well, $14 an hour, and seem much more organized than my previous center, and have much nicer facilities. Most the other teachers seem to be older expats from NZ, Australia, and Great Britain. The students also seem to be great so far, and i love the 13 person class size!
I moved into house two about two weeks ago, after our house ( house six) was burglarized for a second time in three weeks. This time the robbers came in between 9:30am-11:30am, a small window in broad daylight! They had obviously been watching the place to see when both Danielle and I were going to be gone. House two seems safer than house six, it also has a safe for valuable, although at this point i don't really have anything left! The robbers managed to steal everything the second time they did not get the first. The exceptions were my ipod and headphones, which I lazily stashed under my pillow that morning. Had i put them in their usual "safe" spot, they would have been taken. Thank god for pillows! My passport, credit cards, and cash were not taken either time. Luckily Vietnamese are short, and i stashed everything on top of my closet! After a third robbery next door last weekend, the university has finally agreed to take some measures to improve security at our housing. We are moving into safer accommodations at a guest house, while they instal new locks, build fences, etc. It's obvious the bad guys in this town know where we live, so hopefully we can make the places safer! We thought about moving to a new location, but we will be targeted as foreigners anywhere in this town i think. Oh well. I am pretty sad and annoyed, and a little bit troubled by all these break-ins, but i am still having a good time here!
It is the height of green mango season right now, so i have been eating at least two a day!!! I also enjoy making mango, papaya, or custard apple Sinh To(smoothies). I use some ice, fruit, and coconut milk, they are awesome! Speaking of food, i accidentally ate frog the other day. It was amazing! I went to grab some lunch one morning after my usual swim at the public pool. I pointed at what i thought was curry chicken. As i was eating my chicken, i grew suspicious. The legs of the thing i was eating didn't look like chicken parts, and there were also small ribcages in the shape of a frog. It did taste pretty much like chicken though!
The next few weeks i will only be teaching Tuesday-Thursday! I am planning on spending the long weekends traveling around the delta and visiting Isabel. There are many beaches and cool towns in this region, so i am looking forward to it!
I will post some pictures as soon as i get them, not having a camera is not very convenient. Luckily some friends still have cameras, so i just need to get their pictures. I will also finally be receiving my new net book this Thursday, so you can expect more posts from me after that!
Much love,
T
