Rain and roommates

The rainy season has started here, and I, for one, like it. The rain means it cools off for about an hour or two a day. Even better, there's a cool breeze right before the storm hits. The locals feel the breeze, then scurry to cover everything up and weigh all their stuff down. It gets windy, and there's lots of thunder and lightning. Good stuff. The storms often come mid-afternoon, but they can hit any time, really. Oddly, I haven't been caught in the rain yet. Since I just wrote that, I'm really going to get soaked next time out. After the rain, it can be either nasty hot and humid, or quite nice. Thumbs-up to the rainy season.
I think I'm actually adapting to the heat a little. My shirts are only three-quarters soaked with sweat rather than completely drenched when I teach. I've got my persistent heat rash under control with copious amounts of Lamisil. I'm sure I'll suffer in the cold when I return to the U.S.
Everyone still says hi to me on the streets, and children come up and look at me like I've got three eyes on my second head. But once they get used to my odd appearance, they're friendly and engaging. It's all quite enjoyable. And so are the classes and students. I might even have a favorite class (ha ha). They're UNBELIEVABLE, as one of the students says. Actually, all the classes are excellent ... none better than the other.
I've discovered another universal truth in addition to the petulance of big box electronic store employees: unacceptable movie theater behavior. I went to see Star Trek 2 last night (it's in English with Vietnamese subtitles) and you're assigned a seat. Mine was J7. Behind me was a family of 5 who were discussing who knows what, maybe their summer holiday plans, as the movie got under way. In front of me was a couple; the girl was looking at photos on her smart-ass phone. Five young girls came in about 10 minutes into the movie and marched up and down the aisles and went in and out of the theater throughout the film. Their assigned seats were next to me. All other seats in the theater were empty, so I did what any sane human being would have done and moved. Then the usher came in and gestured that I had to return to my assigned seat. I used sign language to plead my case, gesturing that there was chaos all around me in an otherwise empty theater. He got it and I enjoyed the movie, which was very good by the way.
Every few days I sweep up the dead roaches from my apartment floors. And they're not even paying rent. Ah, life in the tropics.

No mo' hotel

I will miss the Khanh Dang Hotel, where I lived for a couple of months. The receptionists were nice, they did my laundry (for a fee), cleaned my room most days, and the room air conditioner felt like it was nuclear powered. But I decided to move and to have more room, a kitchen and stuff like that. The new apartment is a little further from work, but not enough to matter. I sweat as soon as I step outside anyway. Only one room has AC in the apartment, but the fans actually do an OK (not great, but OK) job of keeping the place slightly cooler than a steam room. I live right on the railroad tracks, but the passing trains don't bother me. I've always liked the sound of trains.
School is good and the bosses are fine. Classes have been real good lately. Students like fun and games, and Taylor Swift. Grammar, not so much. But they get it, and I'm impressed with what they absorb, even when they don't seem to pay attention. Bright folk.
I'm blocked from Facebook at my new place for whatever reason.
My boss and another teacher took me to a local park, Buu Long/Dragonland. Other than being an extra hot day, it was real nice. The pictures are on facebook (back when I could access facebook). Blogspot is balky when it comes to posting pictures and it took forever to figure out how to make them a little bigger. Sometimes they shrink when I add other pictures. Not exactly user friendly, but functional. It won't let me rearrange pictures now, so apartment pictures are out of order. Sorry.
I've had a number of people mention how "fat" I am. They say that's why I sweat so much. The people here are quite direct. They all think I'm much younger than I am, which is nice, but when I tell them I'm 58, they now think I'm "old" and "fat".
Not much progress on the language. I just get laughter when I try to speak Vietnamese.
The food rocks. Had some really good pho (a soup pronounced fa, but I'm sure I'm wrong again) and great shrimp. So it's not my fault. All the good food is making me "fat".
Forgot to mention that most of the beer is served warm, and you get a big block of ice in your glass. When the ice melts, the "workers" replace your ice with a new block. However, the old ice goes back in the new ice bucket, meaning you're probably sucking down some other guy's spit. That might explain the lung ailment I had last week. Lots of people hack -- and smoke -- here. Motorbike air, cigarettes and shared ice.