-^-for posterity-^-

gifts and generosity. people here give calendars for gifts. well, at least they give me and jack calendars. i guess they don’t really know what else to get us.

the calendars are huge. we’re not talking about the small, desktop variety. we’re talking about calendars that are two feet tall and a foot across. each page is graced with a huge picture as well as three months worth of days. three months staring at one photo.

the first calendar i received was from some of the other english teachers. it shows various landscape scenes from around vietnam. the first three months of my year will be spent looking at a scene from hanoi. at the top of the scene there is a huge budding tree superimposed. if the tree were true to life it would be at least one thousand feet high. it’s easily ten times as tall as the tallest building. it’s buds would be the size of small cars.

the next calendar i received sported pictures of beautiful vietnamese girls dressed in traditional dress. they are either sleeping or doing something that would have been done here at least one hundred years ago. one girl is spinning yarn. jack and i joke that we would like a calendar with pictures of american girls dressed in colonial garb doing household chores; gathering eggs, churning butter, etc.

the last calendar i received is quite modern. it’s pages scream at you with pictures of beautiful teenagers, light colors and dyed hair. i’ve never seen so many pastel colors in one place. each page has a random assortment of teenagers blowing kisses, smiling or just generally enjoying themselves. my level of cynicism increases exponentially the longer i stare at it.

i hung all of them up in my room. i have three months to stare at each picture and slowly cross off the days.