This has been my first full week in the country. I'm getting fairly well settled in now, making it my home. I'm getting to know the other people in my house better and this weekend I'm going to stay at a hostel in the city center with several of them. I'll post another picture update after that.

At work I've been doing a LOT of document editing. It quickly went from being exciting to help to "crap, another document to wade through". Vietnamese, as it turns out, is structured very differently from English. Question words (e.g. who, what, where) often go at the end of a sentence, and there don't seem to be any conjunctions. (My dictionary tells me there is an equivalent for "and" but it also means "with" and isn't really used in the same way we would use "and".) Instead, they just list things separated by commas, which makes other uses of commas very confusing. When I don't have to wade through someone else's poor translation into English from Vietnamese, I have been spending my time (slowly, word by word) translating a questionnaire that was given to female sex workers to evaluate their needs for career change. This is not something I have to do, but it helps me understand the structure of Vietnamese and some of the words I may run into during the rest of my time. I'm supposed to do some data analysis of collected results of the questionnaires, maybe sometime next week.

My trip to work is much nicer than it was as of my last post - I'm borrowing a bike from my house, and it's about a 30 minute ride each way. Everyone tells me it's a nice bike, but it's not like what I'm used to seeing around the bay area. It has one speed, which is ok but sometimes I want to go faster than that allows. It's mostly flat, though, so it's an easy ride. The most physically challenging is the bridge over the main road that I go over on my way to work in the morning (I don't have to do it on the way home; the path is slightly different). The most mentally challenging is the first major intersection along the main road at "Big C" (the supermarket) which is a big circle intersection where the traffic is sometimes regulated, but not always, and there is a lot of semi-terrifying cross traffic (if you're on a bicycle like me). But the general rules are 1) try not to suddenly move in front of a car and 2) go slow, and both apply to being a pedestrian in this city, as well. The one good thing about the lack of enforced road rules is that no one cares if you, as an obvious outsider, break them... they just go around you, because that's what happens all the time, anyway. The road between my house and the main road is approximately 60-80% dirt (it is technically paved, but the dirt from the side of the road covers most of it, and there are large dips and ruts all over the place), so I feel like I'm getting a lot of off-roading practice. Traffic on that road only gets a little scary when there are large trucks going in both directions - because bicycles only have priority over pedestrians, so there is little space for bicycles at that point.

I picked up some things from Big C the other day that are going to make the rest of my stay much more comfortable than it has up to this point - namely, a pillow. For whatever reason, the house only issues one tiny, flat pillow to each person. So I splurged (I think it's approximately $4.50-$5) and bought my own pillow. It has some silly nonsensical saying along the lines of "wishing happiness to my friends today and today" and makes me so much happier when I sleep. I also bought a plastic basket to put my shower items in and a new towel and washcloth so that I can wash one towel and still have one to use... or potentially in the future use one on the beach and one for the shower. It's good to have two. I also got a PHONE. If you want to Skype call me on it, drop me a note and I'll give you the number.

I ate pho on Sunday night with some of the others from my house (after they came back from being in the city center; I had all of Sunday to myself in the house...). It was pretty tasty, but I think I like the stuff I get in San Mateo better... but, at 15,000 VND (<$1), it's a pretty awesome value. I've had a lot of other tasty Vietnamese dishes, but I don't know what they're called. Most of the flavor, though, comes from the use of fish sauce with chili slices in it and salt with lime juice. Morsels from a communal dish get dipped in these sauces before they are eaten. It's still an awkward way for me to eat, but I'm starting to get used to it.

On Tuesday I went with Matt, a Canadian in my house that I think is only here for another week, to a pub quiz/trivia night that was co-hosted by the husband (Mitchell) of the other American (Sarah) at ISMS, and we met Sarah there and joined her team for the evening. Unfortunately, we were the big losers. Oh well, it was fun anyway. It happens every Tuesday night, apparently, so I want to get a big group from the house to go sometime.

I'm excited to actually see the sights of Hanoi this weekend, and hopefully do some clothes shopping. I need to get sneakers because I forgot about shoes until the end of my packing and didn't have room for them... I also want to pick up some nicer "business casual" clothes for work, and maybe some long-sleeved cotton or linen shirts (NOT nylon/lycra/spandex which is all I had at home. Too hot for that. Long sleeves are good, though, as long as the material is breathable.) And I actually think I like wearing jeans more than wearing shorts. I find them much more comfortable in hot weather like this, because then the sweat just gets absorbed and I don't feel it.

I'm also going to send postcards! Final call for addresses for the first round. If you've already emailed me your address (or Facebook messaged), I have it and I will send you one. If you haven't, I make no promises. Also don't hold your breath... it may not get to you until after I get back to the states. It's apparently REALLY slow.

Let me know if you have questions about anything! I'm so much more connected here (to the internet, modernization, etc) than I thought I would be, but I'm certainly not complaining. It makes it easy to answer questions and easy to get lazy about updating because I feel like I can talk to people whenever. So help me stay engaged and give me things to talk about!

Missing everyone!

Jen