-^-for posterity-^-

tonight i type sitting at my cluttered desk. covered with open vietnamese language books, old computer disks, my camera, wallet, an assortment of chewed up pens and so on.

a behemoth of a spider has been repelling down from the ceiling for the last ten minutes. it is invisibly attached somewhere eight or nine feet above. it hangs in the air defying my sense of reality and seems to be confused. his eight legs are absurdly long for his two pieced body. the back side is long and thin. his underside is covered in yellow armor. he has spun his own chord and attached it arbitrarily to my ceiling. he swings down towards my desk with all of his legs extended. he falls confidently. he reaches my desk only to find a disaster area. one time he lands in an old coffee cup that hasn’t had the energy to move in weeks. another time he lands on an open notebook and quickly scurries up his home-made rope.

the dog is on my lap sleeping. he only knows that i feed him and that’s why he loves me. someday he’ll appreciate the intricacies of my personality but not now. now he’s tired.

today i found out that i might be teaching tomorrow. i had thought it was going to be after the tet holiday which is a few weeks away. jack and i were going to the big city to get teaching supplies this weekend but, if i’m teaching tomorrow, i’ll have to devise some lesson plans tonight.

to say the least i was shocked and my focusing on the minute details of my life (spiders, cluttered desk, affectionate dog) i’m able to ignore the pending doom. i wasn’t even told. someone told jack to tell me. i’m going to have a meeting later on tonight to find out exactly what’s what and who’s who.

i’m sure this online journal is becoming a bit tedious for all of you. living in long xuyen doesn’t provide for the most exciting entries and some of the more interesting things i must avoid recounting. vague enough. i will keep on writing because i want to. i want people to understand my experience in as much depth as possible. two years away from everyone that ever meant something to you. thanks to all who have followed up to this point.