Well, well, it’s Sunday evening, September 7th and where are we now? (Literally, right now, I’m lying on my couch typing this – but I mean more like generally, where are we now, the grand scheme of things, etc.?)

1. Ole Miss lost “a close one” to Wake Forest on Saturday. This one literally was a close one – but I am tired of saying/writing “Ole Miss lost a close one.” We need to start winning some of these close ones!

2. UGA beat the tar out of Central Michigan or someone.

3. Friday: I went home after class and took a nap, then went to the gym (!). Worked out pretty hard – for me these days anyway, then ate dinner at a little diner near my gym. Then I got to my motorbike and realized I did not have my keys. I don’t know what in the hell happened to my keys, but I spent the next three hours walking around my gym and the surrounding area, asking security guards, motorbike attendants, gym attendants, waitresses at the diner, etc., if they’d found any keys. They had not. So I left my motorbike at the gym and took a cab home. Hung out with the security guard at my apartment building (my house keys were also lost) for about an hour waiting on my landlord to have some extra keys delivered to me by xe om. Thank god I was able to get in touch with him. I asked the security guard if we couldn’t just get a locksmith to come and make a key for my door, but he said “No, they’re all out drinking now.” (This was about 9:00pm.) Thao later confirmed that all of the locksmiths would have been out drinking at that time. Not sure why that is, but it appears to be the case. So a huge Friday night for me. Angry at myself for losing my keys.

4. Saturday: Thao and I went to what Thao had described as an “electric fair.” I have been looking to buy a couple of lamps for my apartment. It has these harsh fluorescent lights and I want something a little warmer. Anyway, that should be a fairly easy thing to do, right? Well not in Vietnam. I’ve looked at more shitty lights/lamps than I could imagine would have even been possible. So anyway, Thao was going to bail me out with this “electric fair” on Saturday. So we rode way out to District 11 to some huge sports stadium that was holding . . . not an “electric fair” but a construction convention! Woo-hoo! There were about 300 booths at the convention and about 3 places had lights/lamps – and the ones they had were either crappy or way too expensive. Thao felt bad – I think because had also spent Tuesday last week out looking for lamps and had been similarly unsuccessful. She also got mad at me when I said that her coworker who told us to go to this “electric fair” was “ngu ngoc,” which means “stupid.” She got upset and said it’s very rude to say that someone is “ngu ngoc.” I was just joking when I said it, but apparently it’s not a very nice thing to say, even joking. So there. I got to feel like a jackass for the next hour or so. We gave up on the construction convention and went to eat lunch. Then we went back to my place and took a nap. (Do you see a pattern forming here? I take a nap almost every day now. Wait until I talk about Sunday next – you’ll see.) Then Thao and I just watched a movie – “Cloverfield” – which I hadn’t seen before and thought was pretty good. Thao didn’t like it – she’s not really into scary/monster movies and she also kept saying the camera work was “not good.” (It was supposed to have been filmed by a videocamera kind of like the “Blair Witch Project” or something so it was very jerky, etc.) I should have told Thao that it was very impolite in English to say that someone’s camera work was “not good,” but I refrained. We were both feeling lazy so we begged out of a dinner date and basically just hung out.

5. Sunday: My friend Robin, who is the manager of my favorite Indian restaurant here in Saigon, called Mumtaz, had told me about this party his restaurant was catering today. It was for the Onam festival in India, and he told me there’d be a lot of good food – all you can eat, etc. So I bought Thao and I a couple of tickets and she agreed to come even though she doesn’t like Indian food (which is my favorite food in the world, so that kind of sucks). Anyway, Robin told me it started at 9:00am, so we got there at 10:00am – and were literally the first people there! Apart from people working there getting ready, etc. So I told them we were going to go have some coffee and come back. We went to Java Coffee and had some coffee – which is where that HILARIOUS photo I posted earlier was taken – then headed back to the Onam party a little after 11:00am. Well, they didn’t end up serving lunch until after 1:00pm – by which point Thao and I were starving because I’d told her not to eat breakfast so she’d be hungry for the big meal. One thing I’ve learned about Thao – if she doesn’t eat regularly she gets cranky and food becomes of paramount importance to her. So it was a little touch-and-go while we watched all of the Indians doing their traditional dancing, etc., really just waiting for the food to be served. But I have to say the food was pretty damn good. I have some photos on my camera, but I left it in Thao’s purse. After lunch, we went back to my place and TOOK A NAP! See! Then Thao went home and I went to the gym. Amazingly, the heavens weren’t rent asunder and a choir of angels did not descend to announce the fact that I was heading to the gym for the second time in only three days! (Project “Reduce My Gut Before Heading Back to U.S. In One Month So I Don’t Look Like the Slob I’ve Let Myself Become Over Here In Vietnam” is in full effect. I worked out pretty hard – managed to hold onto my keys this time around – ate dinner at that same diner I mentioned, then had a latte at Highlands Coffee while I waited on it to stop raining so I could head home. That’s it.

6. This next week is our last week of actual classes. Then we have a couple of weeks of finals. Then grading. I’ll be home in about a month. I must be excited about it because I’m dreaming about being home every night.

7. Okay, I think that’s it. Oh, my friend Dave C. has my Slingbox hooked up to his television, and I am now able to watch tv from here in Vietnam. I’ve only checked it out a couple of times – watched a little bit of the Florida vs. Miami game this morning (the Ole Miss game had been on at 4:30am). It’s very surreal to be able to watch – and control – I can turn the tv on, change channels, etc. – Dave C.’s television from here in Vietnam. The picture quality is not perfect – probably because of the crappy internet infrastructure here more than anything else, but it’s passable and the sound is perfect. If some important Ole Miss or UGA come on at reasonable times, I will try to watch some. And I’m excited about going to a game or two in person while I’m home.

Hope everyone is doing well! I’ll update more if I think of anything else later. I’m out.