Phan Thiet Feb'12

I had expected to receive my work permit before Tet so when I got back to school after the holiday I asked Ms. My about it. I hadn't got it, the school had been told the wrong information and so I had to go and get another health check done, which I'd been told I didn't need.. I didn't mind this but the issue I did have was, when were the school going to tell me that there was a problem with my permit application? It's one of things that frustrates me about Vietnam, people don't seem to follow up on things. I had to go into school on my morning off as Ms. My was going to take me to the hospital. She called the hospital and they said that they were busy so it would be better if I went in the next day, so I stayed at school and wrote a lesson plan for my teaching assistant to teach the next day as I would go the hospital during class time. I had coffee at a new cafe on Thu Khoa Huan St and followed that with lunch at Win Cafe. It was a nice morning, unfortunately followed by my afternoon kindergarten class. My students are great but the class is a lot of work and I don't enjoy as much as I do my primary class. I had dinner at Kate and Winston's along with Daniel. Kate is applying to grad school and needed to submit a videoed discussion, so she roped us in and fed us to make it less painful. The first weekend in February I went to Nha Trang to see Denise, I took the Friday afternoon off from school and caught the bus at 12.30. On the bus I got talking to a Vietnamese guy, Anh, he works in Mui Ne but his family lives in Nha Trang so he goes back and forth. Cool guy. Denise had one of her friends, Kimberley, over from Canada and from the sounds of it they had been on an absolute tear the whole time she was in town. I'm glad that I only caught the end of it, I don't think I could have kept up with them. Friday night followed the usual pattern of my visits to Nha Trang, dinner, drinks at Guava followed by dancing at the Sailing Club. It was a late night. We did go to the mud baths the next day, which I love. Saturday night was a repeat of the previous evening, although we had dinner at a Tex Mex place, the food was awesome. I was happy to get back to my house on Sunday, visiting Denise tires me out. Tuesday 7th February saw me teach my first evening class at Vietcom bank. I'd gone into the bank at the end of January to transfer some money, Ms. Nguyen,the head of the customer services department stopped me and asked if I would teach them English and they would pay me. I agreed in part because the extra cash will be nice but also because I wanted to have one of my evenings taken up with something. I am lazy and it would be very easy for me to become a bit of a hermit now that Anna is gone. Anna was always on her phone texting people and arranging stuff for us to do. And of course we would often hang out together so sometimes I would have to make a conscious effort to stay home. Now I have to arrange things for myself, I'm not sure I like it! Also it will be nice to teach adults and so open up another social avenue for myself. It was one of the nice things about Japan,teaching in a conversation school, a lot of my students were adults and invited me out. It was how I met most of my good friends there. As it was the first class I just did a simple introduction to assess their level and to ascertain what they want from the classes. It went well and I got an invitation to go out with them for for of the lady's birthdays, awesome. The next morning I started the day having coffee with Tan near to his office and then I had coffee with two couch surfers and Anh, the guy I had met on the bus. After work I had dinner with my couch surfers and Tan joined us for a few beers. Thursday evening I went out with the VCB ladies, it was a good night. Three of them came to my house to pick me up as they said that the restaurant was too far for me to cycle. In fact it was only just across the river, I think that because most adults here have a motorbike, people are unused to transporting themselves under their own steam and so view it as hard work. Whereas I view it as an opportunity to exercise as well as getting myself around for free. Recently I've been cycling a lot more to and from home and I think I may be losing weight. I certainly hope so, I'll never be small but I'd like to be smaller than I am now. I'm tired of being a big woman. I don't know if it's my hair but I really don't feel attractive at the moment and when people tell me that I am, I don't believe them. I think "who are you looking at? Because it's not me!". It's not a good place to be in. The restaurant we went to was a hot pot restaurant and inside, so I sat quietly sweating and was mortified when Ms. Nguyen asked me how to say sweat in English. Anna would have died there. Fortunately the was food was really great. Afterwards we went to a new karaoke place, which is owned by the parents of one of my former students. I know this because I saw him and he said hello. I enjoyed the karaoke even though I had to sing "Hello" by myself, my singing hasn't improved over time. I had a quiet Friday evening, I needed it. Although I did get propositioned on the way home after dinner. I was cycling home and I was happy, so I was smiling. I smiled at this random guy as he was walking to his motorbike and before I knew it he'd caught up to me and asked me to go to a hotel with him. I politely declined and continued on my way. He caught up to me again, cut across me forcing me to stop, repeated his invitation adding "Boom boom", obviously in case I'd misunderstood why he wanted me to go to a hotel with him. I hadn't and declined again. Well, maybe I should be grateful that I can get sex if I want it. That makes me feel awesome. Not! I spent my weekend in Saigon, I got an early bus and arrived around 10am and went straight to the Canon service centre and dropped off my camera to be repaired. When I handed it over they didn't bat an eyelid, I guess broken screens aren't that uncommon. The only issue was that they didn't have any screens in at the moment and are waiting on a delivery from Japan. I don't care, just as long as they can fix it. They'll charge me about $80 for the repair. I can't wait to have my camera back, I hate having to use my Fuji camera. I had lunch with Andy Vu, we went to a good Italian place, he let me choose as I was the visitor. We met again for dinner and John Nguyen, another person who taught in Hokkaido, joined us at El Gaucho. I love that place, the steaks are amazing. Anna was supposed to join us but cancelled at the last minute because she had been drinking most of the day and was tired. That is two things I won't miss about her,the lateness and the cancellations. Andy isn't terribly impressed with her either, when she arrived in Saigon she contacted him and they arranged to meet.She was an hour late and although she texted him to tell him, she kept saying that she was five minutes away when quite clearly she wasn't. She arranged to meet Andy a further two times and cancelled both at the last minute. The second time Andy had turned down another invite to keep his arrangement with her. He was not a happy bunny.We had a lovely evening, relaxed and entertaining. It was like we were still in Japan instead of not having seen each other for almost three years. It really is true that it's the people that make the place. I started my Sunday with a coffee by the river with a guy I'd met while walking into the cafe. Jeff is an American on business in Vietnam, it was a nice chat and good to have company. Sunday evening I was in Mui Ne and met up with Jenny, the girl I'd met in Yekaterinburg last summer. I had dinner with her and six other travellers that she met in Mui Ne. I did the same Monday night, and bumped into Sasha while I was there. We had a drink together and I promised that I would get back to Mui Ne to have dinner with her and catch up. She seems really happy in Mui Ne, I think it suits her better than Phan Thiet. Valentine's evening was spent at home alone with the cat, drinking wine and eating chocolate. My descent into full blown spinsterhood is well under way. I did get to talk to Darren during the day, which made me happy and he emailed me some flowers. He's lovely, I can't wait to see him this summer. I don't think he's going to make it out to Vietnam because of his leg, he's still got the brace on and doesn't know when they're going to take it off. On the plus side he's been offered another contract by his current company, so he has work for the rest of the year.