Couldn't get on the internet last night because things have a tendency to just stop working for a bit here. Oh well. Anyway-
My friend Steve from class moved into a villa in the outskirts of District 1 so we went over there for a visit. He basically lives in a mansion and shares it with a couple other people. When we got to the place, the streets were completely flooded. In an effort to keep my sandals intact we walked through calf-deep water barefoot, let's just say I truly felt like a local at this point. The water was awfully disgusting, but Steve's villa has a pool so after taking a little swim I felt much less grimy. About 2 hours later when we were on our way out, the street was completely clear, no water to be seen. I was very confused and thought maybe I had had one too many beers, but apparently the flooding is quite regular, and I was happy not to have to wade through the streets again.
I got a cell phone today, which makes it a lot easier to keep in touch with everyone. Now I am able to talk with my best friend Anneliese who is currently living and teaching in Yang Shuo province in China. She has been very convincing in getting me to make my way over for a visit, so I will be looking into travel arrangements shortly.
The weekend is coming up and I am incredibly thankful. Class has been rather tiring, but very enjoyable nonetheless. We had our second Vietnamese lesson today, but I would definitely not qualify it as being successful. The teacher is brand new and seems to have forgotten to teach us anything about the alphabet or the 6 different tones. Since these two aspects are essential to the language, everyone in the class is having an extremely difficult time with pronunciation. Since I have some Vietnamese under my belt, I was helping some classmates with pronunciation in the back of the classroom. It was my first official teaching experience, however limited, and everyone was very appreciative that I took the time to help them out (since the teacher neglected to do so).
I have to have a resume done for tomorrow, and I have not updated it in at least a year. My neighbor Dylan was a social worker who helped write resumes for homeless people for 2 years, so he has been exceptionally helpful in getting it right. He told me my resume was looking very good, but when compared to the people he helped before, I didn't take it as much of a compliment.
Well, time for a cold shower