Vietnam has a funny way...

Vietnam has a funny way of swooping in at just the right time to pick me up again.

Last time I was bumming (for no reason really, other than just being a bit down and feeling the difficulties of this city and living abroad)... I ended up bumping into my neighbor, Joseph, in the hallway. His friendliness picked me back up right away.

The past couple of days have been long ones, with parent-teacher conferences after a full day of work AND, of course, the tutoring Thursday after all of that.

Well, yesterday (although long) seemed like the day of giving! I loved it!

First, Zombie (one of our IT guys at school - he's awesome) brought me a pineapple! He knows I love fruit and said that if it's not sweet enough, I should use my juicer :) awesome.

Towards the end of conferences, Leena (a 6th grader who loves all of my book recommendations - which is easy once I realized we have the same interests in books) and her mother brought me a glorious bag of Milano cookies! Mmmhmmm.

AND Alexis (another 6th grader) saw Minou's birthday card to me on my desk and decided that she would make me one too. Ha - first time I've gotten a November birthday card for myself... it was pretty stellar.  :)

And the goodness just kept giving today (Saturday)...

After some fabric shopping (love this hobby) Patrice met me at L'usine and from there we went by this frame shop (errr... closet?):

I'm having my lovely b-painting framed (for less than $15 and I get to pick it up tomorrow). This frame shop was hilarious... and very 'Vietnam'. There were bird cages all over...

...Cigarette butts on the incense (normal)  :P 

And the two of us got a laugh out of this one:

Before taking it I said, "We'll erase it if it's bad."  Well... it's perfect! We can't see ourselves.  :P

Patrice and I also went by the tailor, the spa, Coffee Bean... and ran into Patrice's new friend - Kate from England (she's only visiting HCMC for a week - her and her husband leave tomorrow but it was fun to bump into them!).

After getting back home, the rain started (good timing!). I ordered Indian... love www.vietnammm.com for delivery (we use it at school a lot too). Just what I needed on a rainy night.  :)

Well... Indian food... and StarWorld is just what I needed on this rainy night - a new series started - New Girl - love Zooey Deschanel.

I realized how weird it will be to go home and have more than one channel to choose from.