Why I am here.

How surprised would you be if one day you woke up and realised that all you wanted in life was about to be fulfilled? It was not quite as expected, far from it, but you know that is what has made it great. When you think about what it is you have moved towards in the last few years, the inspiration always comes at the most unexpected time. Mine was over a beer - a tasty beer too - when my friend made a little enquiry about what I would do after uni.



Some comments make you see things in a new light, a way you never thought about previously, which alters your thinking, or perhaps redefines what you thought was the real way. It just goes to show, you should never place limits on any of your dreams and passions.



That is how I ended up here. Here is in Long Xuyen, on the southern branch of the Mekong River, in south western Viet Nam. I am supposed to be an Economic Advisor at An Giang University, but I was surprised to find out that is code for a business English teacher. It is actually a very rewarding job.



So the road I have travelled so far in life has been a great one, and where it ends I do not know. And as they say, the destination is not as important as the journey. So keep walking!

The An Giang Youth Union Anniversary Football Game

I received a phone call from the president of the AGU Youth Union to play football on Sunday morning. I suggested that I might watch however he was sure I should bring playing gear. Well no idea what to expect I agreed and prepared with reading of the football scores from Saturday.

So Sunday rolls around and the challenge began as you all know morning is not my preferred time for anything, except sleep. Yet I managed to wake and be ready. The other team looked fierce as they were the DARD economics team (Agricultural Economics Dept from the Dept of Agriculture and Rural Development). The warm-up started well and I saw that we had enough players so I volunteered to watch the game.

However, this strategy was short-lived as I was thrown into the action playing on the wing. I started to feel the tell tale signs of someone who needs to play a bit more when one of my first touches was little off, kinda like out of play off.

The second half saw me start and I was removed from the wing to play striker and had 3 decent strikes on goal. Just before I left the game for good DARD scored the first goal. They closed the game with another so we lost 2 - 0. After that we all went out to celebrate.

The dirty duo!

Wow! Today (last night was when i wrote this) is a day that we had a hell of lot of fun. Well we ended the night with vodka (mandarin flavour) and i started with 333 beer (kinda like xxxx beer but better). One of the last songs we played was the Queen song Somebody to Love. It was a first for me as I had no idea that song was by Queen. And, it was great, we all were dancing together, me, Tyler, Eric, and Hendrik. fantastic experience. A little later we all we went to sleep, as vodka in all its forms is hardcore. Goodnight all and thanks Teddy for sharing it with us.

What's the info?

The co-op supermarket should have the motto never restock, as that seems the most appropriate for it, even though lack of cheese is disappointing. Maybe it is for the better as I notice that I have been devouring cheese at a rapid rate and feel a little rounder this week. Well I got home today from teaching and I heard this chain clanking and other sounds on the roof and it really took me by surprise and as I went up there I saw the maintenance crew hitting the boxing bag instead of fixing air conditioners. So feeling relieved that no one was trying to steal my bag I returned to my room and thought about how deafening it must be in my room when I do this for about 12 minutes a couple of days a week. Oh well, I think that is why I put it above my room.

Once I returned to my room, and started to edit my photos my computer turned off because it was too hot. I was furious, as those guys were supposed to be fixing the air conditioners and were hitting my bag. I realised that I had been cooking slowly since I finished work. My air conditioners haven’t worked since around x-mas and it was supposedly repaired on the weekend. I exploded so much that since I couldn’t do any work here I went on the roof and let out a lot of frustration on the bag.

The boxing bag waiting to be filled more.

The only other thing I will talk about this week is information and how it is used. As you might have saw, bad information about the Chinese and American sharemarkets led to a drop around the world markets of about 2-3 % (China was about 9%). It is amazing how powerful and important information is. When I was in class last week I noticed that the students all looed tired and saw that they told me that they had classes in the morning all week. I didn’t know why until I told them that they should be ready for a quiz. They were getting teachers from HCMC to teach them for two weeks and the other teachers new this in advance and had made sure that they would not finish late. Aaaghh! If I had of known this I would have asked them to have a morning class too. It looks like once again I will take longer to finish my classes than all the other teachers. I must start to look to find out were all this information is stored otherwise I will be here beyond the end of my contract.