Typical Day

The weekend is over, a weekend which involved a long and emotional school closing ceremony. A weekend which preceded a long and emotional 5 days at school, where many goodbyes to students and fellow teachers were shared in the form of cards, gifts, photos, emails and probably to be broken promises. Sharing the same building with around 250 people for ten months straight can be an intense experience, and it’s amazing how well you can get to know each and every one of those people. That’s what teaching is, an intense experience which you commit yourself to, all or nothing, physically and emotionally draining but incredibly rewarding and meaningful. And when it is over, you look back and think WOW. I survived. So as the day started on Monday it was a surreal, brilliant natural high to be on the first day of summer holidays. Recharge time. Yet I still find myself in the middle of this city, with its citizens. Still two more weeks before leaving Vietnam, and plenty of organising to do, not to mention business stuff and organising a huge piss up before I leave. My day was extraordinarily typical to such an extent that if I hadn’t have been so god damn ecstatic then I may not be sat here so amused.

03:00 – Power cut. Fan whirs to a halt and I have an hour of mopping sweat from my chest before passing out.

06:20 – Awakened with a startle and then a groan of realisation. The guys who do that mental drumming with dragon dancing, they practice on the other side of the canal, just outside our apartments. Just a combination of bass drum, cymbal and other percussion being slammed, smacked and bashed as hard as possible in something resembling a rhythm. But it’s 6.20. They do that for an hour.

07:30 – Pour out my bowl of cereal and observe the ants come streaming out of it. Damn it! Left the box on the fridge again. The only ant proof place in the apartment is deep inside the refrigerator.

09:00 – Yoga. Morning class with Japanese housewives. Get a damn good sweat on and feel great for the rest of the day.

11:00 – Get a haircut. Have a weird conversation with the hairdresser (as usual) where I just smile and nod at whatever he says even though I understand about 25% of what he is saying. Nice bloke.

11:30 – Go shopping at the supermarket in tax plaza.

12:00 – At home watching the repeat of the 4^th round of the US open.

14:30 – Head to the bank. Here I have to transfer money to my account in the UK. I’ve already been sent away once to retrieve my labour contract. Now I am armed with the evidence – contract, pay stubs, red invoices, passport etc. A nice lady is trying to help me but bless her she is so scared of not getting the paperwork right. She asks me for a document (needs to be stamped – by who, doesn’t matter, but a stamp means it is real) that shows I was paid in cash. I cringe, and say I have more then enough here. Chi starts to lose patience. The nice woman takes the details to a guy in a white shirt at a desk two feet behind her, I’d say branch deputy manager. He seems to OK it after 5 minutes with her umming and aaarrring over my contract. By this point I have told Chi to calm down and let me deal with them. This simple piece of personal business is as usual turning into a catastrophe.

She comes back and I’m in. That is until the papers get put onto the desk of a big fat guy in a blue shirt at another desk but right in the middle of the bank, I am presuming he is the manager (and white shirt at the next desk one day aspires to sit at the desk in the middle). I can tell he is a class A ***** just from looking at him. Seen it all before. He grabs the papers and starts making a fuss. He knows I’m watching him. It’s all for show. He tells the poor flustered woman that they can’t buy sterling today. She tells me. I tell her whilst tapping loudly on the perspex and pointing over at fatso ‘I want to speak to him’. He sees this and begins to look worried. She says he is trying to get sterling from other banks. Ahem. OK….so he plays around on the phone and after 5 minutes of pretending to phone people he grunts out ‘OK’ and gives her the thumbs up. He leans back thinking smugly ‘ha I weaseled out of that one well…’…seen The Office anyone?! As the green light is given a man next to me gives me the thumbs up and says bravo. A small victory for the people.

That’s only half the day and I am exhausted. Good night!