Just a quick note to let you all know that we're alive and doing just fine. This past week has been monstrously busy with Toli's work. Today is his fourth lecture, which puts him a third of the way through already! It's a special lecture today, as tomorrow is the GRE exam, and Toli doesn't want to overload the students. He'll be discussing how to build a company in America, and I'll even be contributing to the class with a little talk of my own on life in Texas. Toli also wants me to add that communication with his class has been steadily improving - he's slowed down the pace of his lectures quite a lot since the first one, and the level of comprehension is at about 75-80% for most of the students, which is about the same as mine was when I was taking classes in Germany.
Anyway, to keep you laughing, here are some little tidbits from our second week here:
*We had breakfast the other day with Ong Tai, the uncle of the bride who chatted up Toli at the wedding. It was so cute - he picked us up on his motorbike to take us to a little cafe near the opera house. Then after he took Toli home following breakfast, he basically kidnapped me for the morning and showed me all around town, finally stopping at his house for tea. He's so grandfatherly, I'm just crazy about him.
*I joined the Hanoi International Women's Club for their monthly newcomer's "coffee" which was held at the wife of the Brunei ambassador's place. Pretty impressive stuff, considering that the "coffee" was really a full brunch spread and there were about 40 or so women from about as many different countries. I was the youngest one there, and the only ethnically Vietnamese one as well. And while at first, it seemed so surreally exotic and amazing compared to my monthly evenings with the neighborhood women in "Big Country", I soon came to see how women all over the world seem to love to get together to chat about their husbands, their kids, their careers, and other such aspects of their lives.
*I also managed to meet up with a Fulbrighter here who, in turn, introduced us to a friend of his who runs a computer graphics animation company. Computer graphics was Toli's big passion once-upon-a-time, so it was a lot of fun watching Toli and Hung talk animatedly about it. I told Toli later on that Vietnam is one of the few places where he can find someone who appreciates computer graphics knowledge already 5-years-out-of-date!
*Today we gave the neighbors a helping hand and a good laugh. We were on our way out the door to class when we saw them struggling to lift a 70-kg bag of nails. Toli offered to help, and they managed to drag the bag to where they needed it. Afterwards, the men were talking about "American strength". Haha.
*Oh, and Toli has really gotten into eating ice cream here. Every day, the girls (daughters of the friends we're staying with) ask - "So what kind of ice cream did Toli eat today?" They got a big kick the other day when we invited them to ice cream, and Toli ordered 5 different flavors. American indulgence at its best!
That's it for now! Hope to have some more stories the next time I write in.
Posted by Christine at March 12, 2004 02:47 AMi miss you two! i'd say "come home already!" but why would you want to? you're having too much fun :) me likey the updates--keep 'em comin'!
Posted by: bibi at March 12, 2004 12:03 PM