Brainstorm

Sorry I've been a terrible blogger. It's been a very busy week or so at work with strict deadlines and backed up work.

I wanted to share, I think I just named a book! I know it's probably not exciting to you, but... the genius just tumbled out. Wouldn't you at least browse through a book titled "Beauty of the Beast"?

A better update to come, soon. I'm going to Ba Ria this weekend for our holiday (May Day and Liberation Day give us a four day weekend). And I'm NOT going to China, at least for now.

<3

UPDATE: Beauty of the Beast wins. :)

Just dance, it'll be okay

I've had a horrible, horrible, stressful day at work. If I've learned anything from Grey's Anatomy (except a lot of new music and that Cronh's surgery is actually quite deadly; shout out to Dr. Callender for being so amazing) it is to dance it out.

We've figured out all the "ladies nights" around the city during the week, so I'm going to take a page from "Meridith" and "Christina" and DANCE IT OUT. Hopefully it will help make tomorrow a better day, even though I know Ozalids of BOs are about to take over my life and ruin my "Bikini" deadline. It is kinda cool to have a "deadline" though. I'll try my best to explain everything, as well as I can, soon. Love and miss all of my American followers <3

Wisdom in The Bikini, A Cultural History

I found this particularly interesting, buried deeply in the text I'm reading concerning the cultural history of the bikini.

Corporal punishment used by the Occident to guarantee the civilization process – one is not born as a human being but has to be subjected to physical punishment to become one, a summary of the basic educational motto of our culture – might today be applied to a much lesser degree, the culture of disciplining the body, however, is still present. Corporal punishment as a prerequisite for the civilization process remains deeply rooted in our habits and our culture. If we are less inclined to use physical punishment on our children, the training of our pets, for example, a dog trained with a many-layered system of punishment and rewards to become housebroken (civilized to the degree that the dog can cohabit with humans), illustrates how instinctive and deeply we believe in this form of punishment and its objective of civilizing the individual. A classical pedagogic sentence, which is also the motto of Goethe’s Dichtung und Wahrheit [Poetry and Truth] serves well to illustrate this point: “If you are not driven hard, you are not being educated.”

Patrik Alac

I don't see how it's related to the rest, but interesting, nevertheless. Discuss.

Dear Vietnam, (expect a lot more of these)

Dear Vietnam Inhabitants (Westerners, you're not excused),

"You look tired" is not a compliment. In fact, it is a mean, dirty insult. Please observe your manners and my self-consciousness. Thank you for your immediate attention to this matter.

Truly,
Lauren

Jan - Dec, Mon - Sun, and the rain

"January has issues with her mother, February is always talking about things he wants to do while March does them, April eats sweets and May pays for them, June is the oldest but not the wisest and July always has an opinion on everything. August never stops trying do the right thing, even if he doesn’t always know what that is. September once saw something so sad, she never stopped crying. October holds the lift for anyone, vice-presidents and street-sweepers alike (for his memory, not for theirs) and November makes fun of him for this. December is tired but always hopeful. He has never once stopped believing.

Monday’s obviously a bastard, quite literally as dad can’t remember what or who he was doing. Tuesday’s temperamental but okay as long as you stay on her good side. Wednesday doesn’t say much and Thursday sometimes hums just to break the silence. They’re in love. Friday’s always wasted and she and Saturday hold each other tightly until their delirium fades.

But Sunday, Sunday knows she’s the end. But she closes her eyes, and she pretends with all the strength in her tiny heart that really, she’s the dawn."

I have no idea where this originated, but I think it's really beautiful and holds some kind of funny made up truth.

It's pouring rain here, all of a sudden, at 10:30pm or so (it usually rains in the early evening) and there's something really amazing about Saigon when it rains. We needed it; we were all wandering around like lobsters in a steam bath. It will probably be flooded in the morning, but at least I'll sleep well tonight. Auf Wiedersehen! German, Vietnamese, French.. they're all starting to sound the same...

Careful what you injest...

Turns out my maid (you know I have a maid? For about $50 a month divided by three people... I know, right?) makes her own vodka at home and brought us some... in a water bottle.

Lesson learned: smell all clear liquids before drinking them out of the 'fridge. IN MY OWN APARTMENT! Good stuff, though. Smooth. Not as smooth as water, though.

More soon. <3

Signs around the city

"Keep your hand on your dong because we are not responsible for personal property." (I took this especially for the likes of Tim M and Joey L, the most "young at heart" 26 year olds I know.)

"Professional hair design... We make you look more attractive."

Do not straddle or stand on the toilet.

"Ladies" and "Man" toilet signs... haha

Chez Lauren

For anyone that's keeping track, I made dinner for the first time since I've been here. Some strange version of chicken fried rice with garlic, soy, and the local hot sauce; it was delicious and I'm proud of it, considering I often hard-core refuse to cook and when I do cook I'm never quite sure how it's going to turn out. I chose today as my starting point because tomorrow is a holiday (one of, I think, three for a whole year) and most of the places we tried to go to for lunch at work today were closed. Even the street food! (Alas, Monday chicken curry, we shall meet again. Soon.) Rightfully so, when even the xe om drivers were letting people down, I realized I had to take matters into my own hands.

Sadly I haven't ventured into any of the fresh fruits/veggies markets because of the odor, but I'm working on it. That's not to say I haven't discovered some amazing and healthy fruits and vegetables (longan and morning glory being my favorites, respectively). I think the markets are best to attack in the morning because:

a) they haven't been sitting in the boiling hot sun all day.
b) people haven't picked over them or coughed/sneezed on them too much yet.
c) they don't smell like... ugh, I'll let you imagine that on your own.

I have to admit, I really like the smell of the fruits just before they go bad. Like around 6pm, the air is ripe with a sticky, sweet smell that I associate with summer and perfectly ripe fruit salad.

Further than my favorite fruit, Vietnam has the most delicious fruits I've ever eaten: dragon fruit, litchi, and jackfruit (among others). I already don't know how I'll give them up to come back to the US. And avacado smoothies <3

I'm super blogger this week. Don't get used to it. When the cat is away (aka no work tomorrow), the mice will play (remind me to talk about the super-rats in the future, and I'm not talking Breakfast at Tiffany's, though, there are a few of those, too); headed down to Bui Vien aka downtown/the backpacker district.

x,L

PS: HTML is petulant and I strongly dislike it.

Business or Pleasure?

I might be going to China! For business... but CHINA! It'll be a lot of tedious work, checking the books before they go to final print, and long hours. But exciting, nevertheless.

They say these sorts of things have fallen through in the past, the boss just ended up sending designers, so I'm not getting my hopes up, but I think it would be cool.

What's the moon like where you are?

A friend from Jersey asked me if the moon is the same here. I laughed, it's such a small-town question, which I don't mean to be offensive, I just mean, you don't hear questions like that a lot. I think the moon is the same. I think I used to look up at it a lot at home... I don't look at the sky so much here. I don't know what that says about who I'm becoming, but I'd venture to say it's a good thing. I guess I used to be busy dreaming and now I'm so busy doing that I don't have time to look up.

Nothing too new or exciting to report. It is getting hotter by the day and I continue to look forward to the relief of the rainy season. They say there's two seasons here: hot and hot with rain. I've come to the conclusion, based on intense personal research, it is best to come to Vietnam sometime from December through February. But Romy went to Hue two weeks ago and it so cold (and rainy) she had to buy a COAT. Cold doesn't even register when it comes to being outdoors. Point being, no matter what time you come here, the weather somewhere is going to be overwhelming in one way or another.

I had my first party without Conor Rose on Friday. It made me miss home, but I think everyone enjoyed themselves. It was way more laid-back than anything Conor and I have ever hosted, and I've got enough left over vodka to last until next February.

Nothing special planned this week. I'm currently hot and hungry, so I'll try to be more timely with my postings in the future. My camera works when it wants to, it's really blurry most of the time, I'm not really sure what to do with that. I need to have a Vietnamese speaker come with me to a repair shop.

Tracey got a skirt, dress, and two blouses custom made for the equivalent of $15, she picks them up tomorrow; I'm excited to see how they turn out. I'm bored with my wardrobe already, hah.

Ice, ice, baby...

Walking around the city-- despite dodging things, people, motorbikes, food carts, and stray dogs -- is becoming much more effortless. I've been on the go, so much so that this week I'm really hoping for a quiet one. I know I've mentioned the transience of Saigon... two of the people I've gone close to despite this short period of time left for good this weekend. It's so disheartening to think of all the time I'll spend here and all the things I'll do without them. I'm entirely too nostalgic by nature.

We went "ice" skating which was fun, but strange. It was more of a waxy-plastic, not real ice. We got Korean food after and it was horrible! I don't thing it was necesarily the fact that it was Korean, we just didn't know what to expect. Three people ordered ICED soup... so there was no ice skating, but there was ice soup. Needless to say, we'll not be going there again and I won't take any visitors there. Unless you're into iced soup, in which case you can go while I'm at work.

Just think, I'm coming up with quite a lot of things to pass your time in the city ;)