I have had a crazy ass day

hey guys, hows it hanging? as my title sugests i did have an absolutly crazy day today. I tought for like 4 and a half hours which is just crazy! we have been having trouble with power again - no surprises there - and so i felt like hitting something so i went to play pool. i started playing with this crazy old man who was just too darn good for a newby like me and everybody was standing around laughing at me. It was ok though, cause i managed to sink two balls into two separate holes with the one hit! Good times. I danced and everyone cheered and the power went off again. Then as i tried to pay for the game of pool, they refused my money and instead invited me to have dinner with them!! crazy. then after eating in darkness, power was returned and we started to play cards. Then a teacher calls me up and askes me to meet her at our front school gate. when i got there she grabbed my arm, and leading me away she said, You teach with me now?. I was trapped and tricked and i couldnt run! so i had to fumble my way through a 1 hour class at 7:30pm. It was raining as i was leaving and i was gropped/walked back to my room by a nice 24yr old VN guy. Now i need a nice cold beer and becuase of the rain - and time of day - everything is closed! let me just hope that the power doesnt go out again, cause now i'm obviously on the net and not in my room and climbing 4 sets of stairs in pitch darkness is no fun...
I also had an interesting day yesteday. So i had a timetabled class to begin at 6:45 and i turned up at the right time and all and Ms Lien - i dont think you have met, she is really really nice, but prob abit anoyed at me cause i keep somehow forgetting about her classes oops :S She is a good teacher to teach with becuase she helps continuously translating so that everybody understands and the class can move more easily, but alot of english is still used. - met me at the staff room and handed me a helmet and asked if i had had breakfast. Seeing as i had just woken up about 15 minutes ago i had not, but it is ok becuase i have remember to pack a snack (crazy shrimp chips!) We got to her motor bike in the bikeshed and she hands me a platic bag and says you eat and i'll drive. You dont need to tell me twice, and i devoured the things quick as look at you. She had come prepaired with, ok bare with me, so you know steamed dim sims? that kinda pastry sticky thing, but it was thick like rice and about the size of an orange and the same shape and it was chewy and had melted butter in the middle like when you toast a muffin. i guess it was a VN muffin but more ricey. Ok so back to teaching. I had a 2 hour class with 13 yr olds and younger and it was so hard. It was so not how i have been tought to teach or what i have been used to teaching... so 2 hours was long and hard. that wa basically my interesting day yesterday. Oh wait no it wasn't. So b has been a bit sick all weekend leaving me to talk to myself. But yesterday we went for a nice senic walk and ended uyp getting a purple icecream. yummm it tasted urple too! so then we ere walking back down our main street and just as we were walking past our favourite place to have egg for breakfast, i said, "Cant they just feed us? It would make things so much easier! i would love them forever!' i must have said it too loudly becuase a girl came screaming out saying, oh sorry, hi i am yen, come in. I am cooking. I am 17 years old and this is my mother and brother. Come in and sit. So we did. And they fed us the most amazing thing ever!!! Cold rice noodles - i know exciting - but it gets better. WITH a sweet and chillied soup which you dunk the noodles in or drink the soup and burn you lips. I was in heaven and seeing as it was like my 4th main meal for the day i lapped it up earnistly. This fabulous meal was followed up with a really nicce cold beer. mmm.
As we were leaving we asked yen -who had ok english - where we could get a special mobiphone phone credit. She lead us somewere but it was a wild goose chase. As we retired back to the internet thinking we wouldnt find Mobiphone untill e got to hanoi, we got a msg from yen saying she ound mobiphone seller and meet her at the school gate in 10. 10 minutes later, up comes yen with two bikes. AWSOME - b and i are "not allowed bikes becuase we will loose them like other gappers before us... BA" so were going or a ride. B gets on first and then she tries to dink me, but with little success. We are standing in the fading light laughing our heads off cuase we cant get any sort of ballance happening and then all the VN are laughing their heads off at two westerners trying to dink each other. Man its just hillarious. In the end we give up. I start just riding and Yen hops on the back of my bike and B is left to a bike of her own. Ok so riding abike by yourself is easy. And it is surprisingly easy with someone on the back too, but once you get out with the motor bikes, the buses and the trucks full of rubble screaming past you it becomes a differnt thing altogether. Full concentration is needed becuase it is not only you who is at risk, you also have to think about the 17 yr old VN girl on your back! So we get to the credit and e are on our way home no worries, untill we think the whole ride is getting easy and two VN passs us on a bike and then the race is on. B on her own should be able to beat me and yen, but no, but wait their is a van pulling out of the curb and there isnt much space on the road and apparently VN bikes dont have brakes, and my bell isnt working to tell the driver that i am about to plow straight into his drivers side door. He notices me in the nick of time however and i do a huge swerve to give me and bridge enough room to both skim past the front of the van. I win :P but it probable wasnt a very smart idea in the first place...

so that is me. I am still alive and kicking and dancing with the cockroaches in my bathroom. One of them actually ran over my foot, and J and G you know what i'm like with Cockroaches i managed to keep my head and stop myself from screaming blue murder and disinfecting myself with anything more than household, well mild hand soap, so go me.

Hope all is well, oh things might get dicey oon for me. People are throwing around the word hurricaine abit, but i dont know what that really means. well, i know what a hurricane is - even if i cant spell it - but it seems a bit hard to believe in VN, even in the north. I guess it is just going to be bad weather for the next few days... I hope it clears by the weekend though becuase we are going to Halong Bay. I am so excited. Most northies - about 20 of us - are renting a boat and going out on a tour. They say we get to go to private beaches, swim off the boat, and kayak and get food and drink and kareoke and air con, so it is just going to be awsome! i will let you know how it all goes, and hopefully have some photos to go with the story... its going to be beautiful and soo much fun. Halong Bay is heritage site and all VN's love it, they just say it is so beautiful and so does lonely panet so its going to be awsome. Anyway, its late and i'm getting kicked off!

Have fun chickens
I know i will be :D
Peace out!