No, I don't have the bird flu...

...although I guess you could say it IS too early to tell.

Sorry for not writing in so long. I'll just give a quick update.

So we moved into the house I mentioned; the owner relented, but on terms more favorable to her (three months' rent in advance and a month's deposit). The house isn't perfect, but we're happy in it. There's me, Patrick (24, also an American Viet Kieu), Daniela (26, an Italian who interns for an NGO) and Thanh (22, a tourism female student at the University of Society and Culture). Thanh pays a less than one-fourth of what I pay, but I don't care. She's still learning English, and we speak primarily in Vietnamese.

As for work, I'm now a regular staffer at Vietnam Investment Review. Despite shoddy journalistic standards (people PAY us to do Q&As with them), I actually do like changing and improving a story. I'm also still with the golf magazine, which I consider pretty damn low, but as established in previous posts, I'm a whore.

Still teaching as well. In fact, the school gave me a new class when I subbed for another teacher and the students requested that I be their permanent teacher. I consider this a nice little coup because the previous teacher was Caucasian, and the Vietnamese tend to prefer a white English teacher to an Asian one (despite knowing I was born in the States).

Other than that, life is going well here. My Vietnamese is improving; I'm not fluent and won't be for a long time, but I can understand some movies and can read some articles from the local women's magazines (the other day I read a short story about a woman who thought her husband was cheating on her, only to find out it was all in her head)(that's right, highbrow literature for Pauline). Unless bird flu dramatically changes my plans, I'm not planning on coming home for four or five months. I love the unhurried pace of life here.