Lucy

My favorite honorary human being doing her favorite activity.

Tape this to your bathroom mirror...(that stuff I didn't write)

I'm sticking to this blog thing. I composed some thoughts of mine, but then I made the mistake of reading them, whereupon I came to the conclusion that no one should ever, ever do that again. I'll get there, but, for now, a few bits from another that I find particularly motivating (and comforting). I really like Ayn Rand and since this blog has TWELVE followers now, I figure there's no one better than me to shine some light on her excellent work. I expect she'll be catapulting into the minds of the masses in a matter of days. Ok, maybe she's already there, but if you haven't read her, I recommend you do.



Do not let your fire go out, spark by irreplaceable spark, in the hopeless swamps of the approximate, the not-quite, the not-yet, the not-at-all. Do not let the hero in your soul perish, in lonely frustration for the life you deserved, but have never been able to reach. Check your road and the nature of your battle. The world you desired can be won. It exists, it is real, it is possible, it is yours. ---Atlas Shrugged

The dawn of my ex-ex-pat life.

Wow, so it’s been a month since I left Saigon. I can’t say time flew by. For the most part, it was laboriously boring. Lots of “woe is me” moments regarding my broken car, lack of non-parental housing and absolute absence of anything “real” to do with my time. Self-pity aside, time certainly didn’t stand still either. It feels like yesterday (or maybe two hours ago) that I was getting up to my usual tricks in the Ho. Those damn months--they seem to pass so slowly but then, all of a sudden, they’re gone. What can I say about the 18 calendar squares I spent in Saigon? Life changing, life making, great people, good food. It sounds so hollow when I try to explain how that frenetic, far away place romanced me. You just can’t explain love.

And so, I reignite my long-lost blog… While Saigon is my past, for now, it will always occupy a sunny corner of my mind. Who knows where I’m headed, but, God, I sure am grateful for where I’m coming from.

The delirious ramblings of a happy person.

Ok, so, utopia comes with some thieves. Who stole my precious motorbike from outside of my house. Subsequently costing me seven hundred bucks. But besides a few, short, tear-filled moments and a smidge of self pity, NOT EVEN THAT can get me down! I’m on an installment re-payment plan with a new motorbike on the way on this Wednesday! So what if I’m paying the equivalent to a car payment for a Hyundai? Money is just money. And, we all know I would’ve found a far less practical way to blow it anyway. Might as well go towards my super fun mode of transportation.

Some might think that losing your most prized [rented] possession to some little bastard at the cost of one pair of Loeffler Randall Matilde boots would be enough to send me packing….But, it wasn’t. In fact, I think it almost a blessing. I think that by being forced to pay for this bike, I’m that much closer to rationalizing what I think my heart wants: to stay here for a full year, maybe a little more.

I got into grad school…A feat I honestly did not think possible. I mean, of course I was hopeful, but I absolutely was not expecting Boston University to find me an adequate candidate to admit. Now that they have, there is an even bigger question looming. Do I want to go? I’m not sure I can endure the process of applying all over again—particularly the part about begging and harassing professors who barely know me to write for my future. Yet, I also don’t think I’m going to be ready, come August, to leave this place. Time has flown by in an almost surreal way. I feel as if I just arrived and tomorrow marks my three-month anniversary. Besides the little travel I did on my way into Cambodia, I haven’t started the epic Asian odyssey I have planned and when I look to the months ahead, there just doesn’t seem to be enough time to be able to wrap it up by August. It’s such a hard call to make; how can I possibly know how my feelings might change by then?

I’m on the brink of something. And it’s going to alter my life’s direction. In the wise words of a friend, I need to decide “whether [my] path really needs a title and certificate to create the life [I] want.” Especially for the price tag of $40,000 a year. Vietnam was supposed to be a conclusion to a story I never finished seven years ago. It was meant to be a chunk of living between leaving the world of fashion and entering the world of academia. But it’s turned into my life. And I’m not saying that to be obvious. It wasn’t obvious—to me, anyway. I’ve wasted a lot of time “living” a “life” I wasn’t satisfied with and I’m sick of that approach. I seem to have fallen into some sort of rabbit hole because, well, I’m fucking happy!

My first month as a "real person" in Saigon

Utopia. Heaven? This is a place where you can drive on sidewalks, eat four-star meals for ten dollars and carouse past sunrise at your favorite 24-hour haunt. My commute includes bagged goldfish and purebred puppies for sale on the backs of motorbikes. Here you pay $1 to have the use of a beautiful pool while sipping $1.75 house brewed, dark pints from the swim up bar. I make good money for the standard of living; my lifestyle is essentially unrestricted. I can afford the best of what the city has to offer and still walk away saving more than I did back home. I live in a great apartment and can travel to breathtaking destinations for very list cost. I rent a motorbike, delivered to my house, and without a license for fifty bucks and my signature. When will this get old?

Driving around Saigon on my motorbike is beyond exhilarating. My pulse quickens the moment I lay my hand to the throttle and begin propelling myself through this wild city. Sometimes, in 90-100 degree heat, it takes a lot to roll out of my air conditioned bedroom and start my day, but once I get the motorbike out of it’s mini motorbike room/garage and start ‘er up, it’s fantastic. Wind on your face, moving yourself from place to place. It’s the closest thing to flying I’ve felt. With a little bit of being-in-a-videogame thrown in. I’m really looking forward to taking a few road trips with my bike in the month of April. I can’t imagine anything better than a solo mission ride through the Vietnamese countryside. I’m thinking about checking out this hot springs resort and adjacent nature preserve about a 6-hour drive to the northeast from Saigon. It will definitely be my first trip as an official resident and tax paying employee of the country of Vietnam.

Teaching. Yup, I’m a teacher. Of children. WEIRD! But it’s pretty great, actually. And, in my case, it’s also pretty damn easy. I work every day, but only on the weekends do I peak 6 or 7 hours per day. Mostly, I work 6-9pm every night. Sometimes that’s one 3-hour class, sometimes it’s two 1hr20 minute classes. The school I work at, VUS (Vietnam-US Society), employs both a Vietnamese teacher and a native English speaking teacher for each class they enroll. The Vietnamese teachers are responsible for teaching the hard stuff: grammar, structure, testing, etc., and the teachers like myself (from Australia, America, England, Ireland, etc: any native speaking English land) are responsible for encouraging and correcting speaking and listening. Really, they are paying me a good wage just so I can be in the classroom with the kids, speaking English. So, that means I can exercise my long winded nature and show a lot of movies. Which is pretty sweet! Obviously I’ll be showing films I have not yet seen myself (Wall-E and Happy Feet were the first premieres). Additionally, the school encourages the English teachers to play lots of games with the kids. Which is roughly equivalent, on hilarity scale, as paying money to attend a comedy show. It kills me! These kids go INSANE for competition and there’s just something about Vietnamese kids and physical comedy…They beat the shit out of each other, but they seem to like it. I’ve never seen a kid cry and let me tell you, there have been several instances of heads hitting concrete floors that I was sure would lead to paralysis. So that’s fun. The teenagers are another story. I hate them. And they hate me. But, that seems to be an age old precedent, so, what can ya do? Luckily, I have more “Backpack” kids (the name of the textbook for the 6-12yr olds) than I do “Solutions” kids (textbook for the teens). I’m still figuring out the discipline aspect of being an authority figure, but I’m hoping that some time, trial and error will get that straightened out.

SO. In conclusion, I really like it here. Pictures to follow. I’ve been very bad in the past month about photography. I’m gonna head out on my bicycle one of these days and commit to a day of picture taking.

Tet

I arrived home from Thailand in the middle of Tet. Everything is closed. Everyone is gone. Traffic is slow. If you didn’t know better, you might think apocalypse, quarantine, evacuation?!? But, no, everyone’s just eating and drinking in complete excess. Think Thanksgiving: for two weeks. It’s pretty fantastic, really—unless you’re an American girl looking for a meal, preferably with an English menu. Then it’s a pain in the ass.

When I landed in Saigon, I spent a couple nights recuperating at the LanguageCorps house and after gathering my wits, was ready for the big move. Having only a couple backpacks and a bicycle, in just three short trips, I transported all of my Earthly possessions in Vietnam from LC to my new house. Moving has never been so much fun! Like every other expat in Saigon, my roommates were still away, so it was great to have the house all to myself those first few days. I would’ve booked longer travel had I known the extent of Tet’s closures (even the supermarkets close for a week and a half), but, at the same time, it was cool to be here to see it. Downtown, many streets are shut down to motorized vehicles and thousands of people gather to appreciate the decorations, beautiful during the day and stunning at night. There’s a giant carnival at the largest park in the city that runs all day with rides, food, drinking and entertainment. The spectacle was great to see, but the lack of regular commerce made the finding of meals and the killing of time a daily predicament. Really the options were: go hang out in the backpacker district where some shops and restaurants were open, read, watch TV, sit outside or bike around aimlessly and get really sweaty.

One such day, I begrudgingly headed down to Pham Ngu Lao (backpacker district). I generally try to avoid this area because I get the impression I’m recognized. Frequent drinking and the orange bicycle can be blamed here. But, this day over Tet, I had no other alternative. I had a meal at this Indian place and thought painstakingly about a plan to get postcards and stamps. I decided that plan was not comprehensive enough, so I had a beer at a different watering hole (draught is $0.25) where I committed to coming up with another idea for 2pm ‘til bed. It was there, with cheap beer and funny old men that I would manage to whittle away the day. These older Vietnamese gents insisted I come and sit with them and though I didn’t really want to, I also didn’t want to offend. What I had planned as a sit-here-til-i-finish-my-drink interaction turned into an entire afternoon lunar New Year drinking binge. These guys toasted “happy happy” just about every 2 minutes and would not let my glass get below 80% full. We feasted and drank and various other clients came in and out of our table’s conversations: some Nigerian drug dealers, a few Aussie travelers and plenty of Vietnamese partiers. Mr. Binh, the ring leader, paid for everything and was literally throwing money around the establishment. Vietnamese people save all year long for the extravagances of Tet. Petty crime goes up in the weeks leading up to the New Year because everyone wants to be able to finance their own Tet celebration. There is but one point of Tet: to enjoy yourself as much as possible. And I did. One of my afternoon companions even offered to be my sugar daddy. That was around the time I made my exit.

The evening progressed into hanging out with the guy who sat next to me on the plane back from Thailand—initiated by me calling out “hey! Guy who sat next to me on the plane!” He was a 33-yr old, divorced father of 5, ex-con from Sweden who works oil rigs off the coast of Norway for 6 months and runs a titty bar in Thailand the remainder of the year. We did drugs and hung out with prostitutes. But, that’s another story. For another day. Tet was a trip and even though the timing made my job acquisition a little more difficult, in the end, I’m glad I got to see what a city of 8 million people is like when it shuts down. For the purpose of partying.

This guy is good. But reckless.