I’m also off of the coffee.  (Talk about the story of my life.)  I haven’t had any for two days now – although I’m filling the gap nicely with tea and diet coke.  (At least it’s diet and not regular.)

Had a nice weekend.  Not up to much yesterday.  We went out for breakfast, then to the grocery store – which we were in dire need of doing.  Then we came home and straightened up the apartment because our old maid from our last apartment – chi Mao – was coming to check it out and see if she wanted to continue working for us.  She will start next Wednesday – which is nice.  Thao and I have been doing a pretty good job keeping it straight and clean, but the ironing has taken a hit.

Last night was interesting.  Thao has been going to this cafe called Master’s Cup to practice her English.  It’s a cafe owned by some foreigners and it is known to be a place for foreigners and Vietnamese to meet to talk in English.  My Vietnamese teacher, co Phuc, told me about it, and I told Thao about it.  I had not been there yet, so last night we went there together.  It was fun.  There were about 12 or 15 Vietnamese in the room we were in, and we sat a a big table and talked about various things.  A few other foreigners were in and out during the two or so hours we were there.  I think it’s a good place for Thao to go and practice her English.  And I actually enjoyed talking with the Vietnamese people there.  I’m encouraging Thao to go there at least a couple of times a week – and I’ll try to swing by there with her from time to time myself.

Today Thao got up and went to church and I went to work and worked most of the day – home around 4pm.  I am teaching this new Negotiating Transnational Agreements class, and it requires some work to prepare for.  My ComLaw classes basically take care of themselves now, which is very nice.

1.  The Hangover (downloaded on Bitorrent): 7/10.  Pretty funny – definitely had its moments.  Not as funny as I expected given the hype, but definitely worth watching.

2.  Land of the Lost (downloaded on Bitorrent):  0/10.  One of the worst movies I’ve ever seen.  Like “I can’t believe they made/released this” bad.  I usually find Will Farrell movies to be pretty funny, but this is an abomination.

3.  Alien (the original 1979 movie – also downloaded on Bitorrent and with added Vietnamese subtitles so Thao could watch it with me):  9/10.  I hadn’t seen this in years and years – hard to believe it’s been out for 30 years already!  Anyway, I think it holds up pretty damn well.  Some of the effects are a little dated – especially the famous “chestburster” sequence – the little larval monster looks completely fake – but the overall tone is still creepy and unique for this type of movie.  I wish they’d remake the movie using CG effects – keep everything the same except spruce up some of the effects.  That would be cool.  I think my favorite thing in the movie is the shape of the alien’s spacecraft.  And the space jockey.  Anyway, highly recommended – especially if you haven’t seen it in a while.

I taught my first negotiations class today.  I think it went pretty well.  The highlight was the practice negotiation I had them do.  The negotiated agreement should have been about $12,500 based on the facts of the case, but our results ranged from only $6,500 to as much as $16,000.