I have been very slack lately about blogging – and also about returning emails. So if you’ve emailed me and haven’t heard back, it’s nothing personal. I’m just lame these days.

It’s Tuesday in Week 3 of our new semester. I thought my schedule seemed fairly easy this semester, but I’ve actually had a lot to do. I think I’ve got things pretty well under control now, though.

Our volunteer group – CAN – had our first activity of the semester yesterday. We had 35 street kids from Save the Children Vietnam come to play football (soccer) and study English. The football was a bit disorganized and it was also way too hot – but the English class went well. I think we may bag the sports activities this semester – we’re starting so early in the day that it’s just going to be too hot and only a few of the kids really wanted to play football anyway. We’re also going to start working this semester with a new charity that is the local version of the Ronald McDonald House – providing housing for the families of children who are in the cancer hospital. That will start up soon – I think the house opens on March 20th.

As I’m typing this I’m realizing that another reason I haven’t been blogging or emailing is I just really don’t have that much news. Thao and I are in money-saving mode, so there probably won’t be any trips upcoming any time soon. Thao has started studying English again and is studying five nights a week. That’s a lot, and it’s tough on her to work a full-time job and then have a couple of hours of English class at night, but she really wants to improve her English and of course I’m all in favor of that. I’m continuing to study Vietnamese twice a week. I need to get serious about studying by myself outside of class. I feel like I’ve kind of plateaued and I need to buckle down and improve some.

I’ve finally got an Xbox that works consistently and I’ve been playing a lot of Modern Warfare 2. I’m addicted to the multiplayer mode right now. I get addicted because the longer you play and the higher your experience points score is, the more powerful equipment you get and I want all of the big guns, grenades, etc. My pattern is once I get to the highest level I lose interest and stop playing. So maybe another week of that, at best.

I finished reading Jonathan Littell’s book The Kindly Ones a week or so ago. Tough book. Very well-written, but a lot of disturbing scenes. I thought the book was too long – and I generally like long books – by about a third. The last third was way too detailed and could have been edited way down, I thought. I’m kind of between books now. I’m actually reading The Northern Clemency by Phillip Hensher but I haven’t really gotten absorbed in it so it feels like I’m between books. I’m also about halfway through with The Bone People by Keri Hulme. It won the Booker Prize in 1985 but I’m guessing that there wasn’t a whole lot of competition that year because I am finding it to pretty much, well, suck.

I saw where you can start preordering iPads on March 12, and that they’ll start shipping on April 3rd. I’m primarily looking forward to using the iPad as an ereader. It will be awesome to be able to just order books online and read them on a large, high-res screen. Anyone want to make a trip to Vietnam in April???

That’s about all I’ve got. Peace.