I love you, I love you, I love you

Yeu va tien. Life here requires an open mind ... and heart ... and wallet. I've already had three girls tell me they love me. Well, of course they do. At least they waited a week or so before they made this dramatic proclamation. I'm not sure these women understand the full impact of this statement. Or maybe it's a language thing. Really, I just don't know. I think "thich" means like, but it has stronger implications, according to some of my students, who I really thich. Anyway, I've had about 15 "I love you's" in a little more than a year. That's more than I got in 15 or so years of marriage ... just kidding, sort of. My marriage ended in divorce because I was a turd. But I digress. The thing you learn as an old fart is that something as strong as love takes time. I draw a graph for the students, showing how affection develops and grows over time. I know there's love at first sight and things like that, but that works best in books and movies. But it's tricky. "I love pizza." But not as a life-long partner to share my life and bed. However, I do wonder what the kids would look like?  Language and feelings are so difficult to express sometimes.
Ah, but everyone understands tien ... money.  We love money, don't we? I get it. Being poor sucks, sucks, sucks. But when money motivates "love", I have a bad feeling in my heart and wallet. I had a job making good money in the USA and I was very unhappy. I worked at a nature center for quite a bit less money and I was very happy. But that's me. Money comes and money goes, whether it's a lot or a little. There isn't much money here for a lot of the people, so I understand. Life can be very difficult for these folks and they make tough decisions. Sometimes, it makes me sad.
Speaking of money, I want to quit cigarettes but they're so damn cheap here. Look at the picture and caption. Not many people speak English here, so I am alone a lot, in a manner of speaking. But I'm not completely alone since I have 555 to keep me company. Is it worth dying for?  Co the ... maybe. We all die anyway.
Sorry for the weird blog. See what happens when you're alone a lot? But really, I love you guys. 

It all adds up

The woman who runs the little general store next to my wonderful new house is impressed with my math. I always could do basic moron math pretty quickly in my head, so I can give her the cost and the change I'm due in an instant. (Money is king here, so that's a good skill to have.) That doesn't stop her from bringing out a small calculator to double-check my head math, and I'm always right except when she gets the English incorrect and tells me the tea cost 80,000 instead of 8,000. But I give this woman credit. She puts the correct numbers in the calculator even if she can't say them, and the totals match my head math. I can say all the Vietnamese numbers but no one understands me. I understand them however, and that's what really matters. The couple than runs a little shop next to our school encourage my Vietnamese and we work on numbers and adding together. They're great. My neighbor across our busy street is wonderful and brought me iced coffee tonight after I ate my dinner on the front step. I always eat on the front step because there's always a breeze off the Dong Nai river near my 'hood. Wonderful, even when the passers-by give me the ungodly white monkey stare when they ride by me. A couple of guys almost got into head-on collisions with oncoming traffic because they kept looking back at the white monkey as they rode down the road. The breeze is appreciated because it has been in the 90s every day with oppressive humidity. Lovely. The heat has even been bothering the Vietnamese, but they still wear hoodies and sweatshirts. Go figure.
I met a female and as soon as we had a couple of "dates" she made her move. She thought I liked her so she started asking via text for money. And jewelry. And money. How sad. And I thought she actually liked me. How sad.
One reassuring thing here is that kids are kids everywhere (as my mentor teacher Laurie Dewey wrote on one of my facebook pictures). There's attitude and all the other good stuff that comes with being 12 to 18 years old.  Gotta love it. The kids are great, and really I encourage the attitude with a little bit of a free-wheeling style of teaching. I don't like being a disciplinarian but I'll do what's necessary to keep order in the classroom. I found a new massage parlor -- the workers laughed at me at my old parlor when I got dizzy and almost fell over a box they left next to my feet. The new parlor is fine, but more expensive.
I'm more comfortable on the motorbike and know to expect the unexpected. But I never relax. Anywhere.