Phan Thiet Dec'11

The past week at school was a serious struggle, I was definitely counting down the days until as I was off. And as with other breaks I seemed to have so much more to do. The week I get back we have exams, so I needed to make sure that those were OK and ready to be printed. I had to write lesson outlines for Daniel, he was substitute teaching for me and as all of his lessons would be review lessons, he needed to know what to review. I had refused to write full lesson plans for him, well not him per se but for APC. I don't get paid for writing lesson plans so I fail to see why I should provide APC with my free work product for lessons I'm not even teaching. It's not like anyone other than Ms. My would appreciate that. The evenings went better for. On Monday I had a group of for female couchsurfers come to stay, we all had dinner on Bo Ke, it went OK but was a bit of a hassle as one of them was vegetarian. I don't know how you don't that in this country. Anna had originally said that she would join us, but turned up late having changed her plans mid-stream. It is something that annoys me, Anna doesn't mean to do it but it is something it feels like she does regularly. She's just one of those people that wants to do everything so says yes and thinks she can squeeze it all in. It doesn't work like that, especially in a country like Vietnam that doesn't run on time anyway. I would rather someone told me they couldn't make it and then if they turned up it would be a nice surprise. The next night I went to Mui Ne with Anna, Jan, Daniel and Anh, we went to the kebab house. It was Anh's first time there, the rest of us are total kebab addicts. Dinner was great as usual, we spent the rest of the evening at Pogo playing pool before finishing off with another kebab and a beer back at the restaurant. Thursday saw my last visit ( I hope ) to the dentist. Back in November I had chipped my tooth and finally had had something done about it earlier this month. Unfortunately when the dentist had finished it hurt like hell and I couldn't eat with it, it was so bad that I didn't want to eat, so a serious problem! I had originally gone to an office of one of my student's mother's thinking that she spoke English, she didn't and my student ended up translating for me. This time I had Ms. Phuong with me, to get the problem fixed Ms. My had mooted sending me to the dentist alone, I was in so much pain that I told her I would get her if got worse. Next I had a pedicure and the lady was awesome, she even dealt with my two bashed up toes and tidied them up so well that they almost look normal now. I think that I've only lost one nail, the other one was just bashed below the normal nail line and is just really short. I hope they both grow back.I had Pho in the neighbourhood and was on the way back to the house when I saw Mr. Sang, our landlady's father, he's the one who comes and waters the garden. He was in our local Bia Hoi place at the end of our alley and invited me in for a beer, so I stopped. He's a nice guy,probably a bit bemused by Anna and I, I think. Then because the night wasn't finished I met up with Anna and Jan and we went down Thu Khoa Huan St to see the Christmas lights. There are a lot of Catholics in Phan Thiet and en masse they build Nativity scenes outside their house and decorate with lights, it's a sight to see. I hadn't had an opportunity last year to cruise in this part of town but it was something that I had been determined not to miss this year. It was awesome! Behind most main roads in this city and I'm guessing all Vietnamese cities are networks of alleyways, lined on both sides by houses. We went down these, us and half of the city. It's really cool what you can do with a tarp and some Christmas lights and you know that these people do it because of their faith.Friday evening was spent walking Le Loi and seeing the Christmas displays there. I have a soft spot for that street and sometimes I do miss living there but I know that I couldn't have spent another ten months in one room. It's highly likely that I'll be living by myself soon and so won't be saving any money on rent but that's OK, the private space is worth it. Anna and I had dinner alone, which is something of a rarity these days and not something that I had really noticed until Denise pointed it out to me. Nowadays if I'm eating dinner with anyone, it's the three of us. Three really is a socially unstable number, the group will always fracture into a two and one. One thing I really wanted for my holiday was a lie in, I didn't get it on the first Saturday, that's for sure. I woke up at 4am and gave up trying to sleep at 5am and went downstairs and decided to be productive by updating my blog. I don't know what was going on, but I wasn't happy about it. It was a fairly uneventful day and didn't feel like Christmas Eve. Anna and I had dinner at Novotel, they had a huge buffet which included turkey. I enjoyed sitting down for a proper evening length dinner, with lots of conversation, good company,food and wine. I ate way too much. Now there's a surprise. The hotel has a cow, a bull, called Margaret. Poor Margaret was dressed as a reindeer and was roped in, literally, for people to have their photos taken with him and Chef, dressed as Santa Claus. You've gotta love Christmas in a hot climate, it's something else. I slept a little later Christmas morning, had a lazy day and really didn't do anything.