Cold showers, Elvis, Halloween

When I take a shower in the Nha Nghi hotel, which is quite often, I'm reminded of my days in Peru. The water is heated by solar energy, like Peru, the supply is limited, like Peru, and when the days are cloudy or rainy ... well, cold showers can be quite invigorating. Like Peru. Morning showers are the coldest, so I'm always wide awake for my Saturday and Sunday morning classes. I use the washcloth-and-fast-rinse method, so it's not so horrible. And when we do have hot or warm water, Phuong makes sure to take a nice, long shower. Rainy season has finally slowed down, so the warmer water has been more plentiful. Phuong and I plan to have a solar water heater in our house. Go green.
Being an egomaniac, I always follow the number of hits my blog gets and where the hits are coming from. Last week I had views from six continents -- only the third or fourth 'time that's happened. Africa rarely reads me -- and the people there don't know what they're missing. But last week I had a couple of hits from Nigeria, and I'm going to guess that someone from that country sent me a weird voodoo message, saying I could improve my wealth and love life with the help of a little voodoo. My love life is fine these days, but I'll need more than a little voodoo to help my financial situation. Whatever. I have nearly 16,000 hits overall, so that's kind of cool. I told you I was an egomaniac.
My new teeth are in place, and they feel pretty good. They're going to take a little getting used to, but overall I'm very pleased with the job the dentist did, and how my mug looks. It would have been more than 10 times more expensive to get the same dental work done in the USA, so now I really have a reason to smile and show off my new pearly whites. Thank you Dentist Thu. And, the dentist was a very nice person and gave the White Monkey a bunch of bananas to eat after fixing my bridge.
I've had students making Halloween masks in class the past week or so. Halloween is celebrated here, but it's not a big deal like in the USA, where a lot of people use it as an excuse to consume massive amounts of alcohol. Really scary. But most of the students here, especially the older ones, really enjoy the project. Some boys, about 11 to 14 years old, are a little too cool to participate. I totally understand, because I was little too cool for a lot of things when I was younger. The students actually pick up some English when they make the masks: words like mask (duh), scissors, glue, paste, ghost, and goof off.
I lost to Phuong 6-0 last week in our bitter tennis rivalry, but courageously came back this week to win three straight sets and take back the title. My hip, injured in a fall a few weeks ago, is completely healed, so I'm moving like a gazelle again, or at least like a graceful wildebeest. Phuong and I played doubles together, and we got beat 6-2 by two guys with a combined age of 154. Really. One guy is 84 and the other guy is around 70. We had fun and we're playing them again tomorrow.
I'm super excited about returning to the USA in a few weeks. I'll be crazy busy with eye work, a visit to an immigration lawyer, a visit to a Catholic church. The lawyer and church visits are in preparation for getting Phuong a visa so we can get married in the USA. If the church rejects us, we'll go to Las Vegas and get married by an Elvis impersonator. At least that's my plan.Thank you very much.