This is an old post from Vietnam (forgive the present tense)
Internet
I will say that I am quite the Internet addict. I could list the many ways in which I am but I will save myself from your judgment. Instead let me tell you what happened when the Internet at our hotel died, died (unlike its regular collapses everyday, for which we call and request for a router reset much to the staff's bemusement). Apparently a power surge/lightning bolt/something had affected more than the router and it was out for the night. This was the eve of us leaving for a five day trip, in which we believed we would have little to no Internet. Meagan decided to go to the coffee shop before it closed in ten minutes to send out some emails and I followed her. I may have updated ALL of my social media with news of the upcoming Internet blackout. I was forced to sleep all night and couldn't check email as I tend to. I woke up at 5.30 am and was out of bed at 6 am (I cannot remember the last time that happened). I got ready and went to the coffee shop where I think I babbled I have ten minutes to access 'all of the Internet'. Even I will acknowledge this is a bit excessive, especially as nothing urgent was coming my way. But the icing on the cake was arriving at our hotel and discovering that the Internet is way better than the one in Hue. Eating crow for sure.
Chocolate = vanilla
A lot of our discussions off late have been around fellowships, jobs and other opportunities that we want to apply for. These are, of course, extremely competitive. 50 our of 8000. 4 out of 1800 and suchlike. The statistical probability is truly not in our favor. But we continue, we draft and redraft our essays, we gloss over our monochromatic lives, we reference our achievements with pride and disdain, we are stars in the tales we spin, because such is life. But even as this is going on, I realized that one of the things that I have taken to saying is that it is unlikely that I will get such-and-such opportunity because I am too vanilla for this. This always makes me giggle a bit because different people in Vietnam have called me chocolate-colored (thus the heading). I hope the title warned you to not expect anything profound because this is it.
Crapshoot
That is a new piece of slang I picked up in Minneapolis and that really is apt in so many ways. As I write this, we sit in a cool, dark room waiting for a meeting that is unlikely to happen. That would be fine except that is true for five days, not just one. That is true despite a lot of planning and effort. This particular project of ours seems set to fail and I can't see the lesson to be learned in waiting for meetings that not happen because of miscues and such things. Saying no while continuing to say yes is a universal art and I feel like that is happening to us a little bit. The good thing is I am being able to use this time to get other stuff done.
Internet
I will say that I am quite the Internet addict. I could list the many ways in which I am but I will save myself from your judgment. Instead let me tell you what happened when the Internet at our hotel died, died (unlike its regular collapses everyday, for which we call and request for a router reset much to the staff's bemusement). Apparently a power surge/lightning bolt/something had affected more than the router and it was out for the night. This was the eve of us leaving for a five day trip, in which we believed we would have little to no Internet. Meagan decided to go to the coffee shop before it closed in ten minutes to send out some emails and I followed her. I may have updated ALL of my social media with news of the upcoming Internet blackout. I was forced to sleep all night and couldn't check email as I tend to. I woke up at 5.30 am and was out of bed at 6 am (I cannot remember the last time that happened). I got ready and went to the coffee shop where I think I babbled I have ten minutes to access 'all of the Internet'. Even I will acknowledge this is a bit excessive, especially as nothing urgent was coming my way. But the icing on the cake was arriving at our hotel and discovering that the Internet is way better than the one in Hue. Eating crow for sure.
Chocolate = vanilla
A lot of our discussions off late have been around fellowships, jobs and other opportunities that we want to apply for. These are, of course, extremely competitive. 50 our of 8000. 4 out of 1800 and suchlike. The statistical probability is truly not in our favor. But we continue, we draft and redraft our essays, we gloss over our monochromatic lives, we reference our achievements with pride and disdain, we are stars in the tales we spin, because such is life. But even as this is going on, I realized that one of the things that I have taken to saying is that it is unlikely that I will get such-and-such opportunity because I am too vanilla for this. This always makes me giggle a bit because different people in Vietnam have called me chocolate-colored (thus the heading). I hope the title warned you to not expect anything profound because this is it.
Crapshoot
That is a new piece of slang I picked up in Minneapolis and that really is apt in so many ways. As I write this, we sit in a cool, dark room waiting for a meeting that is unlikely to happen. That would be fine except that is true for five days, not just one. That is true despite a lot of planning and effort. This particular project of ours seems set to fail and I can't see the lesson to be learned in waiting for meetings that not happen because of miscues and such things. Saying no while continuing to say yes is a universal art and I feel like that is happening to us a little bit. The good thing is I am being able to use this time to get other stuff done.
No comments:
Post a Comment