Today, Sunday, June 28, 2008, is the one-year anniversary of my last day at my old law firm in Atlanta. It’s hard to believe that it was a year ago that I walked out of that place for the last time – as an employee at least, because I did visit my friends there when I was home back in December. That means that I’m about two weeks away from my one-year anniversary in Vietnam on July 14, 2008. I’m sure I’ll have more to say about that in a couple of weeks, but it’s been a pretty cool year and my life has changed in some really good ways.

Going to dinner with Aaron and Mirjam for the last time tonight. They’re leaving for Cambodia tomorrow, and I have to teach tomorrow, so we’ll say goodbye tonight. It’s been a really fun weekend – although we went out pretty hard last night and as a result I called about 20 people back in the U.S. on Skype at 2:00am. Thankfully it was 2:00am here, so only 3:00pm eastern time in the States. I learned that drunk dialing is much better tolerated when it’s only late at night at your location, not theirs!

I’ll try to post a longer update about the weekend soon. I just wanted to mark my one-year anniversary!

I hope everyone had/is having a nice weekend.

Link: Continuing to be as worthy of as little respect out of office as he was in office.

Thao and I watched “Kung Fu Panda” last night. It was actually very good and we really enjoyed it. Pretty funny and some of the special effects – even though they were animated – were cool. I am not a fan of Jack Black, but some of the dialogue and jokes were pretty funny. I think kids would probably love this movie, so if you have kids, check it out. (Just to confirm: Thao and I don’t have kids.)

I also recently bought the Woody Allen Collection, which purports to be every movie Woody Allen ever made – through Match Point, at least. For $10. I have never really gotten into Woody Allen. But then I saw Match Point and liked it, so I figured what the hell. I watched “Annie Hall” a few nights ago. It was okay, and maybe it was really something different back in the ’70s or whenever, but overall I was kind of underwhelmed. I think I will watch Hannah and Her Sisters next. I watched the beginning of it a long time ago but couldn’t get into it. I’m going to give it another shot.

I talked with Mexi-Nug earlier today. (He brought his hacked iPhone and bought a simcard to use in Vietnam, so we’ve been texting and talking.) He and Mirjam are confirmed to arrive in Saigon tomorrow at 2:35pm. I finish teaching at noon, so I will pick them up at the airport. They’ll be here through Monday, it sounds like. I’m looking forward to hanging out.

Sorry to say that the wrong Bulldogs – Fresno State – won the College World Series, two games to one.

Good run Dawgs! Still quite an accomplishment. And football season is only two months away!

I forgot to mention in that last post that I am excited that my good friend Aaron AKA “Mexi-Nugget” (photo above) and his girlfriend Mirjam (she’s Swiss) will be arriving in Saigon this Friday afternoon. They’ve been in Vietnam for a couple of weeks – up north where it’s been brutally hot. Not so bad here right now. Today was actually very cool.

I may have mentioned this before, but I met Aaron in Ireland back in 1993 and we’ve been friends every since. We even lived together for a while in Portland during the 1993 – 1996 period. I don’t know when the nickname Mexi-Nugget originated – I think at that time Taco Bell had some menu item called Mexi-Nuggets. Maybe they still have them. Aaron is half-Mexican, so we started calling him the Mexi-Nugget – which he has since shortened to “Mexi-Nug” when he refers to himself. He is a great guy and we have had a lot of good times over the years. So I’m really looking forward to seeing him and meeting Mirjam!

The title of this post means “I haven’t drank coffee for three days.” I last had a coffee on Saturday morning when I dropped Rudy and Hayley off at the airport. On Sunday, I did have two (!) masala teas at Mumtaz, but since then only green tea.

On Monday afternoon, I was so sleepy that I almost literally fell asleep at my desk at work. I thought very hard about having a latte, but I went and got a green tea instead. Tuesday (yesterday) morning, I had a moment of weakness and I went to the Highlands Coffee on campus to buy a latte. But because I got to school at 7:00am – right when they opened – the woman opening up asked me if I could come back in ten minutes. I used those ten minutes to regather my compusure and didn’t go back.

I feel okay – past the headache stage but still kind of just tired feeling. Of course that could have something to do with the fact that I haven’t worked out in two months. My claims that I would do so this past weekend notwithstanding. I don’t know what my deal is – I used to work out almost every day and now I can’t get up the gumption to go work out even one time. I know when I finally do it, I’m going to be like “That felt great! Why haven’t I been doing this?” I always do that. But before you break down and go do it, it’s like a dread worse than death. Okay, I’m exaggerating a little bit, but I have really been dreading it.

I’ve taught all four of my classes now – two commercial law and two business enterprise. Without saying which classes are which, I would rate two of my classes as 10s, one as an 8, and one as a 5. All of the teachers here say that each class has its own personality, and while three out of my four classes have a lot of energy and seem to have mostly smart students, one has that kind of glazed over look that I learned so well last semester. I just hope I can get more of them over the fail/pass hump this semester. On that note, we had a meeting of the “law faculty” – ha! – this morning and we’re making some changes to the course that I think will help make it better. Not all of the changes I’d like to see, but a couple of the main ones. So that’s good.

I’ve been secretly telling some of my best students what grades they made last semester. Their grades don’t come out until Monday, but if they’ve come by to see me I’ve sworn them to secrecy and then looked up their grades for them. Most of them have been very happy. Again, though, it’s only the best students that are coming by, so I guess that makes sense.

It looks like I am going to bring Thao home in October if we can get her a visa. We’re starting that process this week. Apparently it’s fairly difficult for a Vietnamese to get a visa to the U.S. – a lot of paperwork, interviews, etc. So if anyone out there has any tips, let me know.

Thao starts her new – second – English class on Friday of this week. She’s really going to buckle down and try to improve more quickly. Similarly, I am going to start taking an additional hour and a half of Vietnamese classes next week. Starting Monday, I’ll be studying three times a week for an hour and a half each time. It’s going to make my schedule a little more busy, but I need to speed things up if I am ever going to be able to speak this damn language.

Okay, that’s it. Not a lot going on. Just getting back into the swing of things with classes. I need to add a workout or two to my schedule, but other than that, everything is copacetic.

I hope everyone is doing well.

We started our new semester today. I had my first Business Enterprise I class from 10:30am – 12:00pm. Then I had my first Commercial Law class from 4:30pm – 6:00pm.

Tomorrow I my other BEI class from 7:30am (!) to 9:00am, and my other ComLaw class from 10:30 – 12:00pm.

So even though I have to get up really early on Tuesdays and Fridays, I’m done by noon. Whereas on Mondays and Thursdays, I’m not done until 6:00pm. I don’t teach on Wednesdays, and I’m off on Saturdays and Sundays. Not as good as the earlier schedules I was thinking I might get, but certainly okay. I was a little nervous about getting back into the classroom, but today went well and it ended up being fun.

Yesterday (Sunday), I slept late, then went to have lunch with my friend Lisa (who works at the Vietnam Quilts store I bought my quilt from and is about to start studying tieng Viet with my teacher, Co Phuc). We had lunch at my favorite Indian restaurant here, Mumtaz.

After that, I took my Xbox power brick to the store to have it fixed. I then went home and tried to get back on Xbox Live, but although everything tested out okay, I never could get it to hook up online for some reason. I’ll figure it out sooner or later.

I just hung out the rest of the day, then Thao came over and we ordered pizza in and watched the new “Incredible Hulk” movie with Ed Norton. It was okay. I’ve liked “Iron Man” and the Hulk better than the Spiderman movies (which I though were complete crap – all three of them), but I still think Iron Man and the Hulk could have been done better. I’m interested to see the new Batman movie when it comes out later this summer (I think).

That little tagline under the word “orangwutang,” above, is a line from the song “Drank Like a River” by Whiskeytown. It is an incredible song. I don’t usually identify those taglines, etc., but here’s the whole song since it is so awesome:

Well, he was nearly died when he returned to the town hed come from
Hes brown bagging it tonight behind some tavern.
Somebody wrecked his life, and Ill bet you it was his darlin
Somebody wrecked his life, and Ill bet you it was his darlin
So he drank like a river when the wedding bells rang
Watched from the steeple as the choir girls sang
Died in a gutter on his feet and his hands…
The same hands that had once touched her face

UGA’s baseball team made it to the finals of the College World Series, where they start a three-game series against Fresno State “Bulldogs” on Monday.

I’m sorry my Rebels couldn’t be there, but I’m glad to see UGA make it.

Go Dawgs!