My Life in Vietnam: January 2010

Raw Video: Miss Virginia Crowned Miss America

CELTA VIDEO BLOG DAYS 7 and 8

CELTA DAY 5 and 6

CELTA DAY 4

CELTA VLOG DAY 3

CELTA VLOG DAY 2

CELTA Day 1

Pre CELTA course blog

A Month of Studying!

So.. I'm off in a bit for a month-long stay in Saigon to hard-core study for my CELTA certification. The course is intense, but I'm ready for it.. I think.

Anyway, today was the grand opening of our complex, Wooshu Plaza. Below are some pics of the day. Enjoy as I won't be writing in my blog for the next month. Maybe.

My Vietnamese mother was cutting loose thread hanging from my pants.

My Vietnamese dad!

Lizz, me, em Hau, and his ba xa, Rose

I found these shirts comical. Yes, you MAY come closer!

The baby next door who has adopted me as his uncle

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Some Thoughts about Pat Robertson

Yesterday, Haiti was hit with a massive earthquake. It didn’t take long after the earthquake hit the news for televangelist Pat Robertson to say something stupid and insensitive in order to make money. The thing that gets me is that people seem surprised by this. What did you expect from Pat Robertson?

After the 911 attacks, Jerry Falwell and Pat Robertson talked about how the attacks shouldn’t be blamed on the people who actually attacked, but instead the attacks should be blamed on all the people Falwell and Robertson dislike and don’t agree with. Then they used the 911 attacks to raise money for their ministries (and themselves).

When Hurricane Katrina devastated New Orleans, Robertson went on the air to talk about how God made the land “vomit out” in New Orleans because abortion is legal in the United States… and then he started to raise a bunch of money for his ministry.

So now, Robertson says that the people of Haiti made a deal with Satan and that people should give him a bunch of money to help fight Satan. It is easy to chastise Robertson for being an insensitive ass-clown. Everyone is doing it, but the fact is that Robertson isn’t the problem here.
First and foremost, we have to help the people of Haiti. So I recommend that people donate a dollar or more to the secular Doctors Without Borders and/or International Red Cross. That is by far the most important thing you can do.

Second, understand that science and science education could help us to develop technology which could help us better understand and predict earthquakes. So we need to support our scientific community. Fundamentalists like Pat Robertson may think that earthquakes are punishments from God, but the fact is that the devastation in Haiti could have been avoided if the scientific community had more resources available to them to learn more about earthquakes and other acts of nature. Religious superstition is a detriment to our scientific progress. And to Christianity.

Third, we need to stop blaming Pat Robertson. The fact is that he is an easy target. He goes on television and says something stupid and insensitive, but at the end of the day he makes a ton of money saying those things. Robertson can’t wait for the next natural disaster to hit. They are big money makers for him. A large number of Americans agree with Pat and as a result, they donate to his stupid 700 Club. If everyone thought Pat was ridiculous for the stuff he said, then he wouldn’t be making a shit load of money saying it and so he would stop. But the real problem is that a large number of Americans agree with him. How did we let that happen in our modern world?

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Video captures moment of quake in Haiti

Pants on the Ground!

The Best American Idol Audition EVER!!

Amy Adams - Sin Wagon (Longer Version)

From the third season, one of my favorite Idol performances!

Facebook Back Music Video (Sexyback Parody)

HAHAHA A funny response to the facebook ban in Vietnam!

Mr. Hau and Miss Huyen's Wedding

While I've been here in Vietnam, I've made some wonderful friends. Two of my special friends, Hau and Huyen (her English name is Rose) got married last Saturday. Mr. Hau owns several businesses around town, and Rose is a piano teacher. When I first met her, I thought she was a model as she's so tall and beautiful. They are both very sweet people, and their wedding party, which was held at The Golden Palace - a new, upscale restaurant slash wedding party extravaganza establishment here in Bien Hoa - was fantastic!

Vietnamese weddings are intriguing in the sense that instead of giving a gift, you give a cash donation with the envelope. This helps the couple pay for the party, and it allows you entry into the affair with all the beer you can drink, food you can eat, and music you can listen to. These gatherings are always entertaining!!

Please note that I did take advantage of the "bottomless beer" menu and drank myself into a drunken display of attention - surprising, right? The band was a mariachi band from the Philippines so all their songs were in English... AND I knew them ALL! So the more liquid courage I poured inside my body, the closer I inched myself to the stage and debated on singing. No debate, really.
A slight observation: this was NOT a free-for-all karaoke type of party!! This was a distinguished who's who of Bien Hoa City with a hired live band event! After a few more beers, you can guess which inebriated individual hopped up on stage to sing with the Filipino mariachi wedding band. Twas I! The song choice: I Will Always Love You by Whitney Houston.

Enjoy the photos!

A group photo of the couple and the guests I arrived with

Here I am with Lily and Sophia

Hey!

And there I go...

First verse. The singer next to me isn't looking so entertained, is she?

And here are the other singers. I totally stole their thunder. Sorry, girls!

They were so lovely to let me sing with them.

Home sweet home after the wedding party. There's just something strange about my eyes in this pic.. hmm...

Joo Hyun and me..

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Christmas Eve

This blog is totally late, but I just received the photos yesterday from my good friend, Joo Hyun.

I dressed up as Santa on Christmas Eve. However, I either scared the children with my white face or made them angry because I didn't have any candy. Ah well! I had fun :)

The night started outside my front door with a neighborhood block party! Here I am with Rikka, Sophia, Lizz, and Joo Hyun's daughter from Korea, Lily